thinkpanama (Flickr)
if you have one month
From:
Mercy Corps
Got time on your hands and an internet connection? Whether you can keep the books or write a marketing plan, non-profit organizations around the world need you.
Help entrepreneurs across the globe grow their businesses through Mercy Corps' MicroMentor program.
Mercy Corps has the greatest impact on global problems when we identify, create and begin innovative solutions alongside the local communities where we work. MicroMentor takes this approach in linking eager new entrepreneurs with experienced professionals to build businesses that will not only survive, but thrive.
MicroMentor is currently seeking new volunteer business mentors who want to help the next generation of business owners to start and succeed.
In Depth
MicroMentor's mission is to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses through mentoring and advising relationships with experienced peers and business professionals. Combining some of the best business planning from both the corporate and nonprofit worlds, MicroMentor nurtures emerging small businesses as they generate livelihoods, produce needed goods and services, and provide jobs that remain rooted in local communities.
MicroMentor connects low-income business owners — called "microentrepreneurs" — to individuals who have successfully navigated business ownership or management in the same industry. Although there are some existing mentoring opportunities available to business owners, MicroMentor is the only one that utilizes technology to pair two people in the same industry.
Collaborating with community-based microenterprise organizations, national trade associations and corporate partners, MicroMentor helps microentrepreneurs gain access to markets and increase revenue and profitability by offering on-line, time-convenient mentoring. By merging Internet technology with personalized mentoring, MicroMentor is dedicated to the proposition that low-income microentrepreneurs are crucial to the economic and social well-being of our communities.
Learn More >>
Of the 24 million micro-enterprises in the United States, an estimated 10 million are unable to afford business development assistance. MicroMentor works with these low-income and marginalized entrepreneurs — women, minorities, recent immigrants and those with limited access to commercial credit.
Our services include:
* Personalized business mentoring — by connecting individual entrepreneurs with experienced business mentors and advisers, MicroMentor makes available industry-specific knowledge based on the most current expertise and information.
* Skills-based business volunteering — MicroMentor provides corporations, established businesses and national trade associations with opportunities to directly impact small businesses by offering business-focused, skills-based assistance. We also facilitate links between these established business groups and the emerging entrepreneurs we assist.
* Strengthening local business assistance organizations — MicroMentor helps reduce costs for local community-based enterprise development organizations by providing a national network where their graduating entrepreneurs can directly connect with professional volunteer mentors. These organizations can then focus on high-impact, in-person services to help additional entrepreneurs start and grow new businesses.
The MicroMentor program works. Since February 2005, we have enrolled 686 aspiring entrepreneurs — 70 percent of whom are women and 53 percent of whom run minority-owned businesses — as well as 523 volunteer mentors. We have also facilitated 467 mentoring and advising relationships nationwide.
In just the first two months of 2008, MicroMentor helped connect mentors and small business owners in 133 instances — almost our entire 2007 volume — demonstrating our increasing scale of growth.
Compared to its peers, MicroMentor's achievements are impressive: aggregate data from 17 microenterprise development programs in 2004 showed a 26 percent increase in client median business revenues — compared to a whopping 63 percent for MicroMentor participants. MicroMentor clients' business survival rate of 74 percent is well above the national average of 66 percent after two years and 44 percent after four years.
Since enrolling in MicroMentor, participating businesses have reported an increase in median annual business sales of $15,500 and an increase in median annual household income of $20,000.
Mentorship works. We encourage you to read the personal stories that follow and then join MicroMentor as a volunteer business mentor. Your skill, expertise and commitment will greatly benefit someone who's eager for the opportunity to learn.
Tags: United States, Economic Development, Volunteer, One Month
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