Transcript- Episode 127: Unlocking Community Power: How Women’s Business Centers Create Thriving Entrepreneurs with Nancy Swift, Executive Director at JEDI & CA WBC Network Chair Episode 127
Sep 3, 2024
00:00:00 - Nancy Swift
Women in business, they face barriers. I actually believe it's a crisis of confidence, if you will, which affects how you price your goods. How much do you think that it's really important in how we deliver our services at JEDI and the women's business center that we take into account that women hate to talk about themselves. So if we get them to talk about their service or their product, it changes things. And then that changes their own goals around what's possible.
00:00:33 - Christina Barsi
The workforce landscape is rapidly changing, and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce. To make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So how do we begin to predict the future?
00:00:57 - Salvatrice Cummo
Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, vice president of economic and workforce development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast.
00:01:06 - Christina Barsi
And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co host of this podcast.
00:01:10 - Salvatrice Cummo
And we are starting the conversation about the Future of Work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC. Students in the workforce. We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole.
00:01:44 - Christina Barsi
We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi.
00:01:51 - Salvatrice Cummo
And I'm Salvatrice Cummo. And this is the Future of Work. Hi, welcome back to the Future of Work podcast. I am your host, Doctor Salvatrice Cummo. Joining us today is Nancy Swift, the executive director and one of the founders of the Jefferson Economic Development Institute, also known as JEDI. Nancy also chairs the California Women's Business Center Network, where she leads efforts to build capacity for women's business centers across the state, including the new one here at Pasadena City College. Her commitment to developing prosperity for all and her hands-on approach to community-driven economic development make her an invaluable leader in this field. We're excited to have Nancy on the show today and talk about the unique challenges faced by underserved entrepreneurs and the innovative solutions that can drive meaningful change in our communities. So let's get to it. We're excited to have you here. Nancy, how are you?
00:02:53 - Nancy Swift
I'm okay. Salvatrice, thank you so much for elevating the voices of this work, this field, and women who are trying to help other women rise above. It's great.
00:03:04 - Salvatrice Cummo
My pleasure. So, full disclosure, you know, you have accomplished, I mean, I know this. Our listener might not know this, but you have accomplished so much with JEDI and the Women's business center, and you have been instrumental across the state. And I think it might help the listener maybe understand a little more and unpack, really kind of what led you here? What was the spark that led you to dedicate your career to supporting the underserved entrepreneurs and really fostering this community driven economic development?
00:03:37 - Nancy Swift
Well, thanks for the question. And it is true, you know, as we all consider our own position in our careers and in our leadership, that it is about those sparks and when we can connect to things that seem to matter a lot to us, that we follow. And I think that's some of the grit that I've held onto as we've persevered. What for me now is about a 35 year career. And most of my career, economic justice for women has always been important to me. And what's been of interest and my early days, it was certainly from an international perspective, economics.
00:04:19 - Nancy Swift
When I took macroeconomics, I almost failed. When I took microeconomics, I started to understand when people connect to the economy, they find opportunity. And I just saw everywhere around me examples of when you were giving a woman that opportunity, the compound impact that that had when somebody got a new opportunity and what she did with that for her family, for her children, for the community. And so that's really where my interest has always been. What I studied since I was a little girl. And when I have been traveling to other countries to learn about other people, that was of interest to me.
00:05:01 - Nancy Swift
But I had some influential mentors in my career, so way back when, and one of them is in the news today. So I think this is kind of interesting. But when I first got started, the world was on fire because this man had started a rural bank for women, and they were the owners of the bank, and it's called the Grameen Bank, and his name is Dr. Mohammed Yunus. And I got a chance to meet him, and he's an example of somebody who did the same thing. I mean, I think he was in Cambridge. He went to the London School of Economics, and he was studying economics, and he went home to start this bank for women. And when women got loans in a peer lending format, they then grew their businesses. They had more money to spend on their children.
00:05:49 - Nancy Swift
In particular, their daughters going to school and changing the roof on their house so that when the monsoon season came, their house wasn't demolished. And it was just the purest form of community economic development, if you will. And it was from the ground up. And he's gone on to have lots of other things that he's promoted around social enterprise. And the reason he's in the news right now is that bank, which is 90% owned by low income rural people in Bangladesh and 10% by the government of Bangladesh.
00:06:22 - Nancy Swift
He was falsely imprisoned by the president that was recently ousted by students, and he was asked to come back and be the interim president. And I just think that's such a power. In the meantime, from when he started Grameen until now, he got the Nobel Peace Prize, and he got it because he was creating economic and social development from the ground up with this Grameen bank.
00:06:45 - Nancy Swift
And so he's always been a mentor to me about how important it is to look at not only just increasing business activity or increasing income to a household, but what are all the ripple effects of that? And how does that build powerful leaders in the future? So that's one of my early experiences about why I got in this field. I just wanted to mention one other one, too, because they're both international. And then why I came here then sort of what influenced me since I've been here in rural California, I was a volunteer professional with a program called Voca.
00:07:22 - Nancy Swift
Volunteer Overseas Cooperative Assistance is the name. I actually don't think these exchanges exist anymore. But I went on behalf of the us government to Kazakhstan, and I got to work with a group of about 50 women. And they were five years post-breakup of the USSR, so five years post-communism. Many of their husbands had died in the wars that they were fighting, so they were widowed.
00:07:49 - Nancy Swift
And here they were having to fend for themselves. And they were using this peer lending model. And it was the greatest experience in democracy with a little d, because we had to figure out how we're going to talk, who's going to get a loan, what are going to be the terms, and who's going to agree to this? But most importantly, it was what business are you going to run? Because they weren't used to thinking that this was an opportunity.
00:08:15 - Nancy Swift
They were used to being given an instruction and following through on it or being. Giving food. So all of them wanted to be tomato resellers. And I said, well, what else do you all need? Oh, we need shoes and we need tailors and we need. I said, well, do any of you have those talents, somebody do something else, because then you can build a whole community and a whole marketplace, and you won't have to compete only on price if all of you are selling tomatoes. So that is just a silly example, but I saw how powerful it was in just the short time I was there, which was a month, how they started to go, oh, yeah, I can do this, and I want more. And I want to also be able to help my community. So those examples have been really powerful in shaping by commitment.
00:09:06 - Nancy Swift
When I landed in rural California, it was in fact, to study the Grameen bank being applied in the fifth largest economy in the world, which. So that was just fascinating to me, how different those experiences could be. But so now I have seen the power of a business as the means or as a tool for women and men in disenfranchised communities. So whether you've been systematically left out of something or you just haven't had the opportunities that others have had, business people say, and it's partly true, that business is the great equalizer, but in order to have a successful business, you still need access to capital and real and good information, and that is not equal.
00:09:53 - Nancy Swift
So it's really important that we get our kind of messaging and our kind of services out to people who maybe don't have other people in their family who have done this before, or they don't have other mentors around them, or they. They're not hooked into a system. We've seen time and time again that there's information out there, but people don't even know it's there, so to speak. So that over time, it's become important for anybody who's got some kind of big barrier that they're facing, that we're helping them because they've chosen to grow a business for whatever reason. Maybe it's to support their family, maybe it's because they're entrepreneurial and it's the greatest thing, and they don't want to work for anybody else. Or maybe it's because they have a product and they're going to build jobs for people. All these kinds of businesses matter to people. So one of our principles here at JEDI is that we serve people and their businesses.
00:10:59 - Salvatrice Cummo
Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I know you said, oh, that was a silly example, and I understand what you're saying by that. But, Nancy, that's not silly at all. That's a beautiful example. And an impactful example. I mean, that is an example of how dedicating oneself to educating communities so that the community has a stronger trajectory forward to be successful, that is impactful. Yes. It's only a month, but gosh, it's like you've influenced an entire community. And that community continues to evolve and to grow and to establish itself and just have growth and prosperity. And so I wanted to share my thoughts around that. That I think that that is incredible. I think that is the most beautiful thing I've heard all day. And I'm so glad that you shared it with me. We don't really categorize community driven economic development. We don't really say that. We don't really talk about it in that way. We either just say workforce development or economic development. And we know that the community needs to drive this work. Right. Okay. But it also community driven economic development, when we categorize or phrase it in those terms, helps us to focus on maybe larger socioeconomic issues. Right. Similarly to what you touched upon a little bit, might there be other areas, other issues where a community driven economic development framework, I'm going to call it, that helps really address these larger socio economics economic issues?
00:12:34 - Nancy Swift
Well, absolutely. Let me add to what you're saying because I too use the phrase community economic development. I've been talking about bottom up. That's always been when things made sense to me when I was one on one with an individual seeing the impact of something or watching them express their need and knowing that, one, we could help them with that. And two, what they then will do in their community is so powerful. It's more powerful than raising the GDP. It is way more powerful. So I just went looking for some definitions and I like this one because it sort of resonates also with the concept of b corporation. It's like, what is our actual bottom lines here? So I get, we work in the field of economic development and business development. We track things like business starts and jobs and created and financing acquired and things like that. But we are also track at jedi things like how many people have gone on and joined associations or run for office or how many people did this business help them rise out of poverty for what else did this business afford for them in their family? And what is the role of this business in their family. But I love this definition of community economic development because I think it speaks to exactly what you're talking about. That community economic developers focus on creating inclusive local economies. So that's hooking people up, developing nourishing livelihood opportunities, love that word nourishing, building on local resources and capacities, increasing community control and ownership. It's so critical that local control is present and wealth is being built locally and individually, enhancing the health of the environment and encouraging community resilience. If that's what community economic development is, then we integrate those into an approach, and then we see the multiple bottom lines that come out of that. Environmental sustainability, economic vitality and mobility, social equity and cultural appropriateness. We need all those things. We need to harness and piggyback every strategy so that our communities are stronger and building.
00:14:56 - Salvatrice Cummo
That's absolutely right, Nancy. And earlier you mentioned that there's inequities within access to capital, which is a significant barrier for women entrepreneurs in underserved communities. From your experience, what might other barriers be that we need to pay high attention, focus to?
00:15:14 - Nancy Swift
Time and time again, we see that access to good information and capital is not equitable across different ethnic groups based on geography, based on where you went to school, based on who you know, kinds of things. So also women in business, they face barriers. I actually believe it's a crisis of confidence, if you will, which affects how you price your goods. How much do you think that it's really important in how we deliver our services at JEDI and the women's business center that we take into account that women hate to talk about themselves. So if we get them to talk about their service or their product, it changes things. And then that changes their own goals around what's possible with this business. And I think oftentimes women think too small. And why would we do that if we hold up half the sky, so to speak, if half of us on the planet are women, we need all of our great thinking, some other things that are the certainly barriers to women in business. Small businesses, underserved women are mentors. I mentioned it before, if you don't have friends who do what you're doing, or you don't have a family experience of being an entrepreneur, or you don't have people around you who believe that that's a legitimate way to be taking care of yourself and spending your time, well, then you need to find some. We see that people don't have the networks, so that becomes then a service that some of us start providing that leads to also a network of professionals, because you need trusted professionals for sure, as you're growing. And the other thing that is very significant, and I will say that when you start to look at any one of those barriers with lenses, like what gender you are, whether you're a person of color or nothing or what your zip code is, that does change and generally makes the barrier harder. We have a lot of data around that. The other one, too, that is infused in all the work that women's business centers do is acknowledging the reality that women are managing a lot of things in their life. They are managing themselves. They are managing their families, whether that's children, whether that's elders in their family. They are managing their business. If you're starting a business and you got to get all that energy going towards your business, it's a distraction to have all these other things. The other thing, like related to workforce is that our workforce training and our education system, and then we move into, I guess I'm going to call it traditional or old school way. I believe things are changing a lot right now is that you go into a career. Well, the way businesses are set up, those career timelines do not fit a woman who's also managing a home and raising a family. So we just have to do a better job at that. So it is a barrier, though, because women think about other people. They think about their family almost first, and it's their, if you think about it, the reason that they're doing their business. I mean, I always come from the vantage point of business development or self employment. It's also true, though, in their careers, they're thinking about what they can do. But how does it fit with these other kinds of goals? When the pandemic hit, for example, 25 million women left the workforce and they haven't all come back and they can't because they can't get the childcare they need, and they can't because they're taking care of elders and something about the schedule doesn't work, and now they've taken time off and they're coming back in. So that point is a reason why a lot of women are choosing to start businesses instead.
00:19:06 - Salvatrice Cummo
There's something to be said about, I mean, you mentioned the pandemic and 25 million. 25 million women left the workforce. And I don't know what the stat is. I'm not sure if you have it, the statistics of how many reentered. I do know that it's not 25 million, that's for sure. Like, not all of them reentered. But at least when I think about just the overall makeup or design of occupations specifically, I mean, lots of companies, and I'm kind of going on a tangent, so forgive me.
00:19:37 - Nancy Swift
I'll go there with you.
00:19:39 - Salvatrice Cummo
Oh, great. Many organizations downsized during the pandemic, and a lot of these occupations are now obsolete and they do not exist in these organizations. So you have that variable then. The second variable is that we as a system don't do a great job at the data around of these 25 million women that lost their jobs during the pandemic, how many of those went into self employment and are building their own businesses? We as a system don't track entrepreneurs well anyways, so it's kind of two massive variables. The variable of the organizations are not building talent capacity as they did pre pandemic. And then the second variable is our system is not designed to track entrepreneurs. We do a terrible job at it. I mean, Edd will tell you it's very difficult to track where the entrepreneurs are. What are they doing anyway, so massive tangent, sorry, but it really underscores the need for business technical assistance for women. I want to shift gears just a little bit. You know, you've had some experiences in addressing challenges within rural areas. Right. And I want to talk about that a little bit. You know, what were some of the unique challenges that you saw in some of these rural areas, and how did you address them? Because I think it's important for us to understand so that we can best develop and frame our own women's business center to pay attention to some of these unique challenges in rural areas.
00:21:20 - Nancy Swift
Right. What are the big challenges and how are we addressing women in the workforce? Well, part of why we don't track it is because, like, we're so focused on, as a nation on creating jobs. I mean, we hear about that measure every day in the news. The president celebrates the creation of jobs. But jobs are businesses that employ people, and so we don't track. We never tracked the solo entrepreneur, the one person who doesn't have people. And I think we're starting to see in workforce development programs, even lots of classes around how to be entrepreneurial or growth mindset or the entrepreneurial mindset, or how do we seize opportunities? And in a day and age when now people might have three careers, not three jobs, but three different careers, everyone has to learn to be able to pivot, build on their skills, think about their skills and how they can stack them, how they can apply them in different environments. So I know in our rural area, for example, we've been building through the community colleges, training programs for industries where there are jobs here locally, the ancillary services that they need. And those are generally for people who are entrepreneurs. For example, unfortunately, the fire industry is huge in California, and we have a fire academy here. People now come from all over the country to come and train here and learn about that industry and which role they want to play inside it. So for women here, that's a access to a non traditional industry. And also possibly, like, they all need food vendors, they all need water vendors. There's opportunities for a lot of different businesses that can support those industries. Another one here is nursing the nursing shortage nationwide. And certainly up here we have training around that. Now, that one is more traditionally for women. So I always think of those programs as being an additional boon for women in rural areas because there's non traditional training. Contracting is another one. And you can think about how many different kinds of business opportunities there are under a general contractor or an electrician or different specific kinds of bookkeepers that know how to do contracting and bidding, for example. So those are all business opportunities. And I think those are the really important for us to think about. Like, there's never one global solution. And rural is so different across California. So I have the privilege of being the chair of the Women's Business Center Network. There are 21 women's business centers across the state. Each of them operate, you know, in their communities, so from the ground up. And for example, El Pajaro CDC, which is in Watsonville, so they are just blossoming with different ways that they're helping their community, and they've defined their community as the farm workers there and other people starting businesses. So what they need looks a little bit different than where I live, which is a mountain community, and I can't get to any meetings. If you're in a food distribution business, you got to be careful about the weather because you get a stock. So a couple other barriers for rural women are sparse populations. Marketplaces are really separate one from another. So what are other activities that happen in rural areas? There's agriculture, and that's another, in some ways, non traditional kind of an enterprise. Until you start talking about small scale agriculture and managing, and there are many women out there managing farms. Land ownership becomes a real barrier as you start talking about agricultural and rural areas. I'm going all over the map. There's little things and big systemic policy issues.
00:25:27 - Salvatrice Cummo
Absolutely, 100%. And we could unpack that maybe at another time, because that's a big one. That's a big one specifically around policy. If you had to say what is the one urgent issue that needs attention in our workforce today, particularly as it relates to women, what would that be?
00:25:48 - Nancy Swift
I think I'm going to go back to the idea of the entrepreneurial growth mindset, helping people identify opportunities, think about skills needed, and how they're transferable. So not for just one path, but what it would look like in another path. And then it takes a while till you realize that you have access to some things and not others. But if you have confidence that you belong and you deserve it, you will seek it and find it. So those are pieces of entrepreneurial training that are just natural. And so if we can apply those in a much broader sense, like, say this is about your life, let's say your life is your business, let's treat it that way. Having that kind of ability to pivot. I'm on a local school board here. We talk a lot about what's one of our jobs. It's helping kids learn to problem solve. Not get the right answer, but to problem solve. And in higher education, that's even more important. So that's how you're going to identify opportunities. I think the most important thing is figuring out how you're going to stack your assets so that you can pivot and also building your confidence. You're well researched and you're trying things, building your confidence so that you know that you belong and you're going to try something, whatever it is, whatever path.
00:27:15 - Salvatrice Cummo
That's right. That's right. So along that same thread, Nancy, the next question would be knowing that, how do you see support systems? Higher education is a support system, and there's many others. How do you see the support systems for underserved entrepreneurs influencing the workforce? And what should our listeners be aware of?
00:27:40 - Nancy Swift
Oh my gosh, I would be listening to you hard because I think that you are in that world looking for ways that you can reach people who didn't think they belonged in your higher education. If institutions are about information and access and networking, not just information, then we need to get everyone able to get there. So, I mean, part of that is cost, but most of that is how we can connect with folks so that they have some relationship with that institution. So that when it comes time for them to think about what comes next after high school or as they are planning their life, they're thinking that they belong in those institutions. So the other parts of belonging, though, are having some cultural relevance. So finding ways that we can show that what we're doing in institutions is relevant to what they already understand and know that you're a person. Either that looks just like them, that could bring them up, or that has programs in language. You know, our network alone. So 21 communities, we provide services in 26 languages. And it's just so important that we connect with people and then each language has a reference to how they think about money, how they think about business, how they think about whether a woman should be managing that money in business or not. You know, so that's when you start to peel the onion on the cultural importance there. So I see it happening in higher education. I'm not well schooled in that, but especially our city colleges and our community colleges, and I think also the Cal state programs and university, they're seeking to show everyone that there are people that look and feel like them in these institutions.
00:29:42 - Salvatrice Cummo
So I heard from you. My takeaway was information access and network. Those are the three things that really support systems, should be very mindful about when developing programs, training, technical assistance, anything. Those are the three components. And truth be told, that's why women's business centers are there. That's why JEDI is there. They're there for those three, information access and network. So I love the fact that you tied that in as the focal point, not just for our respective systems, but for other systems out there that are supporting women entrepreneurs and the workforce. I want to ask if our listener would like to support the mission of organization like ours and really contribute to this broader goal of economic development for all. What steps in your mind should they be taking if they're listening to you?
00:30:36 - Nancy Swift
They've started. So, one, I'm going to thank you, because when women are bringing forward stories and information in all kinds of formats, that's always so helpful in raising awareness. Second is go get curious. And there are 21 women's business centers in California. You can go to California all spelled out wbc.org, and you can see where they're all located. Call one of them. One of them might actually be in your neighborhood, and you can volunteer your own expertise to share with other emerging entrepreneurs, or you could maybe get a job with them. And if you're a member of a lot of different associates, associations, or networks, there are a lot of those networks in communities that are supporting local business owners. You know, any of those kind of associations. If you invite a women's business center representative to come in and speak about services available, that's helpful, too. Obviously, giving money is helpful, too. But mostly it's about talking and sharing that the resources existed. And I don't know how many times I've heard it. I should count, but I love it when I hear it. I don't know, but just go over to JEDI because I know they can help you. You know, all of us have a can do. We'll figure it out. If we can't do it. We'll try to find somebody who can help you. Kind of a spirit so you can help us just connect the dots for people who are either struggling or who are looking for support. I think that's maybe a number one metric for us all, which is to build our networks bigger and stronger.
00:32:19 - Salvatrice Cummo
That's right. And support systems like the Women's business Center and JEDI are built to do just that. And I think that even the listener who might work for a financial institution or the listener who might have be of influence in policy or capital raising or, you know, any of those, I think any of those listeners could really take a step forward in aligning respective missions with theirs and ours because there's so many to be served. What really resonated with me in this process of talking to you, talking to Claudia Wieck, building the Women's business center and even participating within the network calls, we are not in competition with each other. We should not be in competition with each other because our communities are so large and so vast and there is plenty to serve, is what I'm trying to say. So the more that we can connect our support systems together, the better, even among the women's business centers. So it's been an absolute pleasure working with you and the network, and in this conversation it's been absolutely amazing. I thank you so much for your time. I genuinely look forward to doing more together. And for a listener who would like to get in touch with you to talk more about JEDI or the Women's business center, what's the best way that they can reach you?
00:33:51 - Nancy Swift
Email or phone is really the best. So nswift nswift.org and my phone number direct line is 530-92-6670 extension 102. I have other online profiles and things you can try to find me there, but I love it when you call me directly. I can hook you up also with any other women's business center in your region. We're so pleased that you're growing our network, Salvatrice and the thousands and thousands and thousands of women who are currently and will receive more services is phenomenal. And so I can hook you up with who's in your community.
00:34:37 - Salvatrice Cummo
Excellent. Thank you. We'll be sure to enter those into the show. Notes Nancy, this has been wonderful. Thank you again. We will be chatting soon.
00:34:45 - Nancy Swift
Again, it was an honor. Thanks.
00:34:48 - Salvatrice Cummo
Thank you for listening to the Future of Work podcast. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite listening platform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You can reach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the show notes to collaborate partner or just chat about all things Future of Work. We'd love to connect with you. All of us here at the Future of Work and Pasino City College wish you safety and wellness.