Roots to Business Immigrant Women's Enterprise Center

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Executive Summary

Roots to Business Immigrant Women's Enterprise Center is a nonprofit in Minnesota that helps immigrant women start and grow businesses. A free 12-week course in several languages with child care, bilingual coaching, access to a commercial kitchen and co-working space and microloans and small grants paid to vendors help women turn skills into businesses.

Immigrant women start businesses at high rates and face barriers of language, credit, child care and unfamiliar rules. A class in English at night with no child care is out of reach for many.

With this grant we will serve about 40 women in Year 1 in 1 location. We do not give immigration, legal or tax advice and we do not promise any business a profit. We serve women regardless of immigration status as the law allows. We promise respectful teaching, careful use of funds and honest help.

Our Year 1 budget is about $230,500, growing to about $299,000 by Year 5 as we add sites, coaches and participants. Each year's budget is planned to balance, with a small surplus each year. We have 4 staff in Year 1 (an Executive Director, a Program Director and two part-time coaches) and 7 by Year 5.

We are asking the North Star Opportunity Foundation for $70,000 for the Program Director, child care and interpreters and the microloan pool. Our other income and startup support cover the rest. These numbers are estimates based on the assumptions listed at the end of this proposal, and we do not promise any result beyond what we describe.

Company Description

Roots to Business Immigrant Women's Enterprise Center is a nonprofit organization in Minnesota. We are a registered charity with a volunteer board of directors, a written conflict-of-interest policy and a yearly budget the board reviews.

Our mission. Immigrant women bring skills, energy and ideas to our economy, and they should have the training, the space and the capital to turn them into businesses.

What we do.
- Run a free 12-week business course in several languages for immigrant women, with child care.
- Provide one-on-one coaching with bilingual advisors.
- Offer access to a licensed commercial kitchen and co-working space.
- Make microloans and small grants for approved business expenses, paid to vendors.
- Help participants with licensing, permits, food safety and taxes through partner professionals.
- Connect participants with markets, buyers and mentors.

Our values. Respect for every participant, honesty with families and partners, safety first and a place for everyone who wants to belong.

What we do not do. We do not give immigration, legal or tax advice. We refer participants to qualified attorneys and accountants. We serve women regardless of immigration status as the law allows. We do not promise any business a profit. We follow the rules of our partner sites and our insurer.

How we got here. A group of immigrant business owners, a banker and a social worker began a Saturday circle where women shared recipes, business ideas and questions about licenses. The circle grew each month. We kept simple records of who came and what they were building. This proposal asks for support to move from a Saturday circle to a steady program with paid, trained staff and the materials to match.

Problem & Opportunity

Immigrant women start businesses at high rates, and they face barriers of language, credit, child care and unfamiliar rules.

Cost. Licensing fees, equipment and commercial kitchen rental can cost thousands of dollars before a first sale.

Access. Many classes are held in English only and in the daytime, and banks may not recognize foreign credit or experience.

Safety and trust. Participants want to know they will be treated with respect, and funders want to see accountability for every dollar.

Missed benefits. Women with skills and ideas may work in jobs below their abilities, and communities miss out on businesses and jobs.

What we hear.
- A woman says she cooked for her whole neighborhood back home and does not know how to start here.
- A mother says she cannot attend a class without child care.
- A banker says many of these women have a plan and no credit history.
- An owner says her first loan changed everything.

We do not claim that a program can solve every challenge. We believe that language, child care, space and a small amount of capital can turn skills into businesses that last.

Products & Services

Roots to Business Immigrant Women's Enterprise Center gives immigrant women with business ideas a safe, welcoming place to start and grow a business.

How the program works.
1. Application. Women apply with a short form in their language, with help when needed.
2. Course. Twelve weekly sessions in several languages cover planning, pricing, marketing, records and licensing, with child care.
3. Coaching. Each participant meets with a bilingual coach to build her plan.
4. Space. Participants use a commercial kitchen and co-working space at low or no cost.
5. Capital. Participants with a plan may apply for a microloan or small grant, paid to vendors.
6. Professional help. Partner attorneys and accountants hold clinics on licensing, taxes and contracts.
7. Markets. We connect participants with farmers markets, grocers, caterers and buyers.

What a typical session looks like. Participants arrive and check in with a staff member, settle in together, work on the day's activity in small groups and finish with a short talk about what went well. Staff praise effort, correct mistakes kindly and make sure no one is left out.

Staff. Our coaches are bilingual business owners and advisors who pass a background check, complete our training and are paid for their time.

Access and fairness. Programs are free. Services are free. We welcome every immigrant woman regardless of status as the law allows, and we offer classes and materials in several languages.

Market Analysis

Who we serve. Immigrant women in our service area who have a business idea or a young business. Eligibility is being an immigrant woman with a business idea, and no one is turned away for lack of credit or English.

How we estimate need. We cannot count every young person who could benefit, so we plan from what we can see. In our Saturday circle we served full rooms and kept a waiting list. Community organizations and banks told us that many more women are ready than we can serve. For Year 1 we plan to serve about 40 participants at 1 locations. By Year 5, with more staff and sites, we plan to serve about 120.

Where participants come from.
- Immigrant community organizations.
- Churches, mosques and cultural centers.
- Banks and community lenders.
- Participants who tell a friend.

Who else benefits. Families gain income. Neighborhoods gain businesses and jobs. Consumers gain new foods, goods and services.

What the numbers mean. Every number here is a woman opening the door of her own business. We keep our early counts modest and honest so we can do the work well.

Competitive Landscape

What young people can find today, and how we are different.

1. Small business centers. Strong, mostly in English, with few options for child care. We offer language and child care.

2. Banks and lenders. Provide loans to qualified borrowers and can be hard to access. We prepare borrowers.

3. Community kitchens. Offer space and limited training. We add a course and capital.

4. Online courses. Convenient and not personal.

5. Informal sales. Common and risky without licenses. We help women move into the formal economy.

What makes us different.
- Classes in several languages with child care.
- Bilingual coaches.
- Commercial kitchen and co-working space.
- Microloans and grants paid to vendors.
- Partner attorney and accountant clinics.

Why this gap matters. Existing programs do good work, and most serve people who can already pay or who live close to them. The people we serve are the ones left over: they live in the wrong neighborhood, have the wrong schedule or have no one to ask. We are built to reach them.

We have spoken with immigrant organizations, banks and small business centers to make sure we are filling a gap and not duplicating services. Their letters of support are in the attachments.

Marketing & Sales Strategy

How young people and partners will find us.

Reaching young people.
- Immigrant organizations and cultural centers. We will share a flyer in several languages.
- Churches and mosques. We will talk with leaders who know women.
- Banks and lenders. We will invite loan officers to class sessions.
- Local ethnic media. We will share information in several languages.
- Word of mouth. Graduates tell friends.
- A simple website and a phone line with a text option.

Reaching staff and sponsors.
- Recruit coaches through immigrant business associations and small business centers.
- Offer an orientation, a background check and training in safety, privacy and respectful practice.
- Give partners a short report each quarter with counts of participants and what they said.

How we decide who joins. We use a simple sign-up form and enroll participants in the order received, with priority for those with the greatest need and for people new to the program. We keep a waiting list when the program is full.

What we watch. Sign-ups, attendance, businesses started, loans made and how many participants return for a second season.

Operations Plan

How the program will be carried out.

Timeline for Year 1:
- Months 1 and 2 (July and August): Hire the staff, buy equipment and materials, finalize the waiver, consent form and privacy policy with our attorney and sign site agreements.
- Month 3 (September): Open applications and start the first course.
- Months 4 to 10: Run courses with child care, coaching, kitchen access and capital.
- Months 11 and 12: Survey participants, report to funders and plan Year 2.

Space. Classes are held at a community center with a shared commercial kitchen and co-working space.

Safety and privacy.
- Kitchen use follows food safety rules, and participants complete a food safety course.
- Loans and grants are paid to vendors and reviewed by two people.
- Every staff member and volunteer passes a background check and completes safety training.
- Staff work in pairs or in view of others whenever participants are minors or in a vulnerable situation.
- We keep an emergency plan at every site, and participants complete an emergency contact form.
- We keep records private, share them only with a participant's permission or as the law requires and follow a written policy.

Equipment. We buy about $10,500 of equipment once at the start: commercial kitchen equipment for shared use ($6,000), laptops and co-working furnishings ($3,000), child care and classroom supplies ($1,500). Later years replace or add a few items.

Staffing. In Year 1 I serve as Executive Director. The Program Director, paid $46,000 a year, manages the course, kitchen and capital. Two part-time bilingual coaches, each paid $22,000 a year, work with participants. We add coaches as cohorts grow.

Management & Organization

Amina Yusuf, Executive Director. I lead the organization, report to the board and am responsible for budgets, partnerships and reporting. I came to this work as an immigrant who started a catering business and wished I had a guide. I will take the course so I understand the program from the inside. (Replace this paragraph with your own background.)

Staff. The Program Director manages the course, kitchen and capital, and part-time bilingual coaches work with participants. Each passes a background check. These positions are part of our grant request.

Board of directors. Our volunteer board includes an immigrant business owner, a banker who serves as treasurer, a social worker, an attorney, a caterer and a graduate. The board meets every other month, approves our budget and reviews our safety plan. No board member is paid, and members with a conflict of interest step out of related decisions.

Advisory partners. A small business advisor, a food safety inspector and a community lender give guidance twice a year.

Staffing and pay in this plan: Executive Director, paid $52,000 a year; program Director, paid $46,000 a year; bilingual Business Coach (part-time), paid $22,000 a year.

Milestones Narrative

Our goals, how we will measure them and when we plan to reach them.

Year 1 outcomes (July 2027 through June 2028):
- Serve about 40 participants at 1 locations.
- Run at least two full seasons and a summer session.
- Have at least 85 percent of participants attend most sessions.
- Have at least 80 percent of participants return for a second season.
- Receive positive feedback from at least 90 percent of families who answer our short survey.

What we count and how.
- Participants enrolled, sessions and games attended, from our records.
- Skills learned and goals met, from the coach's checklist.
- Equipment issued and returned, from our log.
- Participant and family feedback, from a short, confidential form.
We report what we find, including what did not work, and use it to improve.

Growth over five years.
- Year 2: About 60 participants at 1 locations.
- Year 3: About 80 participants at 2 locations.
- Year 4: About 100 participants at 2 locations.
- Year 5: About 120 participants at 2 locations.

Learning along the way. At the end of each quarter, the director and the board review the numbers and decide whether we are on track. If we are behind, we will adjust our outreach, our sites or our schedule before asking for more money.

After the grant. By Year 5, grants make up about 55 percent of our budget, down from about 69 percent in Year 1, as partners and donors give more. We will keep building those relationships every year.

Funding Request

What we are asking for, and how the money will be used. Our request: $70,000 from the North Star Opportunity Foundation for the Program Director, child care and interpreters and the microloan pool, for July 2027 through June 2028.

The request is spread across these budget lines:
- Personnel: Program Director salary, $46,000.
- Other: Child care and interpreters for classes, $14,000.
- Other: Microloan and grant pool, $10,000.

Other money in the program. This request is about 44% of our Year 1 grant income. Other grants and the income lines below pay for everything it does not cover.

Year 1 budget: about $230,500, planned to balance with a small surplus (about $9,400 after the yearly wear on equipment). Year 1 money coming in: Grant Revenue $158,500; city Economic Development Funding $40,000; cDFI and Bank Partners $24,000; individual Donors $8,000. Year 1 costs: executive Director $52,000; program Director $46,000; bilingual Business Coach (part-time) $22,000; microloan and Grant Pool about $36,000; child Care During Classes about $8,000; interpreters and Translation about $6,000; commercial Kitchen and Co-Working Space about $12,000; licensing and Permit Fee Fund about $6,000; administration and Insurance about $9,000; about $4,100 a year for the wear on equipment.

One-time startup costs. Startup costs of $19,000 are paid once from startup money, not from the yearly budget: $6,000 for commercial kitchen equipment for shared use; $3,000 for laptops and co-working furnishings; $1,500 for child care and classroom supplies; $2,500 for attorney review of the participant agreement, loan policy and privacy policy; $1,800 for multilingual flyers and a simple website; $1,700 for coach training and background checks; $2,500 for first insurance payment.

How we got our startup number. The Funding Need Calculator in this plan adds the startup costs ($19,000), the cash the program uses before it balances (about $0) and a cash cushion of about $54,800, which is about three months of Year 1 costs. In all, that comes to $74,000. We start with $8,000 from our founding board and $68,000 in startup support from a community foundation and a credit union, $76,000 in all, which covers that amount with room to spare.

The next five years. Our budget grows from about $230,500 in Year 1 to about $299,000 in Year 5. Grants are planned at $158,500, $147,500, $160,000, $150,000 and $163,000 in Years 1 to 5. Other income grows: city Economic Development Funding from $40,000 to $64,000; cDFI and Bank Partners from $24,000 to $48,000; individual Donors from $8,000 to $24,000. Our surplus is planned at about $9,400 in Year 1, about $10,000 in Year 2, about $11,800 in Year 3, about $12,800 in Year 4 and about $14,600 in Year 5. We grow from 1 locations to 2 by Year 5, adding a part-time coach for each new site.

Savings. We plan to keep several months of costs in savings. The lowest year-end balance in the plan is about $67,800, at the end of Year 1. Some grant payments and partner payments arrive after we bill, so we plan for about $9,220 owed to us at the end of Year 1.

Cost per woman. In Year 1, our total costs are about $5,528 per woman served, which includes setting up the program. By Year 5, with more woman served and a trained team in place, that falls to about $2,370 per woman.

After the grant. City economic development funding, corporate sponsors and individual donors grow every year, so grants become a smaller share of our budget. Participants and families share their stories, and businesses can sponsor a team or a season by name. We will look for partnerships with schools and the city that want a safe, free entrepreneurship option for every child.

Risks and how we will handle them:
- An injury. Certified coaches, proper equipment, groups matched by age and skill, a written emergency plan and insurance.
- A site is no longer available. We keep agreements with more than one site and a plan for bad weather.
- A coach leaves. We keep a list of trained backup coaches and share lesson plans.
- Low attendance. We adjust sites, times and rides based on family feedback.
- A privacy problem. We follow a written policy, use secure systems and train every staff member and volunteer.
- A grant ends. We keep savings and grow partner and donor support each year.

If you are just starting. A new organization can begin before it has its own 501(c)(3) status through a fiscal sponsor: an established nonprofit that receives grants for you and passes them to your program, usually for a fee (commonly around 5% to 10% of the grant, sometimes more; ask before you agree). Another way is to start smaller: one neighborhood, a handful of womans and a small team, tracked carefully. Strong results from a small start make larger grants easier to win.

Appendix Notes

Documents to attach with this proposal:

- Your IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter, or your fiscal sponsor agreement.
- Your most recent financial statements and your current year budget.
- A list of your board members and what each one does.
- Signed letters of support from partner schools, agencies and sites.
- Your site agreements and your insurance certificate.
- Your consent, waiver and privacy policy.
- Your safety plan and background check policy.
- Your program outline and schedule.
- Quotes for equipment and materials.
- Resumes for your Executive Director and key staff.
If you don't have any of this yet, no worries - let's continue.

The assumptions behind our numbers (change them in the Financials section to match your own):
- Grant Revenue: $158,500 in Year 1, growing to $163,000 in Year 5.
- City Economic Development Funding: $40,000 in Year 1, growing to $64,000 in Year 5.
- CDFI and Bank Partners: $24,000 in Year 1, growing to $48,000 in Year 5.
- Individual Donors: $8,000 in Year 1, growing to $24,000 in Year 5.
- Pay (a full year, per person, including payroll taxes and workers' compensation): executive Director $52,000; program Director $46,000; bilingual Business Coach (part-time) $22,000.
- Other yearly costs in Year 1: microloan and Grant Pool $36,000; child Care During Classes $8,000; interpreters and Translation $6,000; commercial Kitchen and Co-Working Space $12,000; licensing and Permit Fee Fund $6,000; administration and Insurance $9,000. These grow between 4% and 6% a year.
- Equipment: $10,500 at the start, then $2,000 to $3,000 a year.
- Startup costs: $19,000, paid once from $76,000 in startup money.
- Participants served: about 40 in Year 1, growing to about 120 in Year 5. Sites: 1 in Year 1, growing to 2 by Year 5. Courses run twelve weeks, with cohorts starting several times a year.
- About 4% of each year's income is still owed to us at year end.
- Tax: none, as a nonprofit.
- Every dollar amount is an estimate. Replace them with your own quotes and real budget.

Startup Costs