Women Entrepreneurs Learn™
Women’s Cottage Industries Program, a community-based economic development program, includes a structured technical assistance and educational component for women artisans called Women Entrepreneurs (WE)™ Learn. WE Learn™ strives to address the critical need to generate income for the nearly 50% of New Mexico’s families who exist on less than $10,000 per year.
Our mentoring and technical assistance work through the WE Learn ™ program has become an important element in the Foundation’s activities. We meet with our grantees in order to support their progress as individual artisans and as members of a cooperative. This support ranges from professional consultations on product development, merchandising, discovering new venues, and maintaining a budget, to making improvements to their showrooms.We listen to our grantees and their challenges, successes, and needs as they develop and grow their cottage industries at the grassroots level.
Our next series of mentoring sessions beginning in January will be How To Stage A Trunk Show, which will emphasize the potential of trunk shows, and teach women the simple techniques of designing a temporary “pop up” sales space for attracting customers and creating a buzz about their products.
These sessions will be enhanced by our Toolkit-On-A-Shoestring™, which serves as basic, easy to understand information on the fundamentals of owning and managing a small cottage-style business. ”Toolkit on a Shoestring” provides practical information in a way that is easy to understand on organizational development; business planning; fundraising; product assessment and development; merchandising and marketing; basic bookkeeping; product outlets and communication tools.
WE Learn™ helps women entrepreneurs develop home-based businesses, build and strengthen their organizational structures, and bring forth their inherent creativity and leadership.
