Professional Services Agreement - St Marys Womens Entrepreneurship Initiative - Spark Womens Business Accelerator Neighborhood Pilot

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RESIDENCY Elkhart County 7% St. Joseph County 83% Michigan 10% INCOME $0-$19,999 20% $20,000-$39,999 33% $40,000-$59,999 37% $60,000-$79,999 3% Did not report 7% In addition, a recent study on immigrant economic impact in the greater South Bend community reported significant economic contributions by non-native business owners ("New Americans in Michiana," New America Economy, 2018). Within the immigrant community, Spanish speaking women entrepreneurs are seeking business mentorship, but there are limited resources accessible to them. To meet the unique needs of Latina entrepreneurs, SPARK trained an additional facilitator during the 2018 program to ensure bilingual leadership in the 2019 accelerator and have strengthened partnerships with the Latin American Chamber of Commerce and La Casa de Amistad. Neighborhood Revitalization and Economic Inclusion WEI seeks to support neighborhood redevelopment in historically divested neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that were disproportionately affected by Mayor Pete's "1,000 Homes in 1,000 Days" campaign have begun discussions on how to improve their communities through development. Neighborhood planning sessions are generating inspired visions for in -fill of vacant lots and restoration of small commercial nodes. The city's partnership with Opticos Design and the Incremental Development Alliance has produced new toolkits to facilitate small-scale development. However, the most active participants in these training sessions have been well-resourced (educated with access to capital) white males. Legacy residents, especially female -headed households, have yet to fully embrace the opportunities for wealth -creation through small-scale development. Incremental development intersects with entrepreneurship in a number of important ways. 1) Owning income -producing property can increase resilience, financial self-sufficiency, and generational wealth for low to moderate -income families. 2) Small business incubators and accelerators embedded in neighborhoods can help home -based and neighborhood businesses grow through increased visibility, technical support, business mentorship and access to social and financial capital. 3) Incubators and accelerators create a pipeline for small business expansion into owner -occupied commercial or mixed - use properties as neighborhood commercial nodes are restored or expanded. 4) Small neighborhood development projects provide opportunities for unskilled labor (or those with barriers to employment) to skill -up and