East Palo Alto Micro Business Initiative dba Start Up

Renaissance/Start Up is the only microenterprise development organization in Silicon Valley that assists aspiring entrepreneurs of a broad target population that includes women and men, extremely low-income residents, recent immigrants, people of color, and monolingual Spanish speakers. In January 2008, Start Up completed a merger with the San Francisco-based Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. As a result of this merger, we increased our geographic footprint in the San Francisco Bay Area and expanded the programs available to hard-working, low income entrepreneurs. Dedicating its programs and mission to the model of entrepreneurship as an engine for economic growth, Start Up has graduated over 700 clients from its entrepreneurship training program in East Palo Alto since its inception in 1994. Approximately half of those clients have started successful local businesses that have driven equally powerful, community-wide effects. Microenterprise development seeks to help individuals understand the United States' financial system, improve their personal circumstances, and generate wealth. On a broad level, Renaissance/Start Up's economic development work helps engender a community-based economic engine: one that creates and stimulates sales revenue in economically depressed communities. The tools we provide in our intensive training courses, workshops, and mentoring programs have been proven to help people earn a living wage and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. Our work focuses on heads of families and breadwinners, to bring out their existing skills, and it is centered on sharing the tools that not only help make their families financially independent, but also help them become role models of success and dignity for their children. Microenterprise is a dynamic and growing field that has the potential to change the face of entire communities by changing individuals. Research conducted by the International Labor Organization estimates that In addition, outcomes research indicates that 72% of micro-entrepreneurs in the U.S. increase their household income over five years; over half move over the poverty line. Renaissance/Start Up's location within East Palo Alto is quite deliberate, given not only its proximity to Stanford University and a major source of its volunteers, but also the immediate need for economic support among a population where 16% are below the poverty line, 52% are educated with less than a high school diploma, and service occupations create the majority (32%) of all jobs in the area. Renaissance/Start Up's program is built upon a commitment to the proven benefits of microenterprise development and maintains industry standards for providing access to credit, economic literacy, and asset development. Currently, East Palo Alto has the lowest household income in San Mateo County, a per capita income that is 38% of the average income in the County, and an unemployment rate that is twice the County average. Workforce-related problems evidenced by East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park residents include significant barriers to local microenterprise development; a weak local economic base; residents who owned small or micro business that have been displaced because of the effects of redevelopment; and the inability of local business owners to build capacity on their own.