YW Means Business

The YW Means Business initiative includes the following programs:

• YWCA Wealth Development program: focuses on empowering women to build wealth by providing training, education, and resources necessary to increase income and purchase assets. The program includes seminars on investment and home ownership, post-secondary education, and business ownership.  Program activities include financial literacy training, 1:1 matched savings accounts, micro-enterprise training, and micro-lending.
• YW Enterprising Women:  A comprehensive training and technical assistance program for low and moderate-income women seeking to develop a micro-enterprise.  The program includes business plan development, mentoring, peer support, micro-lending, and advanced business services.  Approximately 150 women will be served in the second full year of the program and approximately 10 micro-loans will be distributed.  
• The Family Savings Account program: The program provides matching funds to participants once they meet their savings goals. Savers have 1-3 years to save up to $2,000 for home ownership/repair, post-secondary education for self or child, or business start-up. YWCA actively promotes the program, conducts outreach presentations, engages in case management, and provides workshops for all of our savers. 
• YWCA Financial Empowerment program: approximately 100 individuals per year participate in the YWCA Financial Empowerment Series  – 4 financial literacy workshops throughout the year focus on setting financial goals, developing a budget, understanding and improving credit, and avoiding predatory lenders.
• YW diversity training for small businesses, educational organizations and non-profits: This training program is an outgrowth of our twenty-year history in community outreach efforts in race relations. The expanded curriculum is being developed with Human Resource leaders to ensure effectiveness in the business setting. The goal of the program is to take racial diversity training directly to underserved groups such as educational institutions, small businesses, retailers, and non-profit organizations together representing a growing percentage of the business sector in the greater Pittsburgh area. Diversity training is also offered to community programs such as police, emergency workers, and other front line community service providers throughout the greater Pittsburgh area.