AEO SBA Testimony (PRIME)

Testimony of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity

Before the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Hearing Entitled “An Examination of SBA Programs: Eliminating
Inefficiencies, Duplications, Fraud and Abuse”

June 16, 2011

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The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) is pleased to submit testimony on the subject
of SBA programs and their effectiveness. AEO is the national member organization and voice of
microbusiness in the United States. For two decades, AEO and its members – more than 450
non-profit lenders and business development service providers – have helped more than two
million entrepreneurs contribute to job growth and economic growth as they support themselves,
their families, and their communities.

In response to the June 16, 2011 hearing, titled “An Examination of SBA Programs: Eliminating
Inefficiencies, Duplications, Fraud and Abuse,” AEO strongly disagrees with the assessment that
SBA’s Program for Investment in Micro-Entrepreneurs (PRIME Program) should be eliminated.
Specifically, it has been suggested that the PRIME Program is duplicative of other
entrepreneurial development programs at the SBA that provide counseling, training, and
technical assistance. In fact, AEO and its members have found that the PRIME Program is a
solid investment of government funding. The counseling and technical assistance services
offered via PRIME grants are not duplicative, but rather provide best-value business resources to
very low- and low-income entrepreneurs in underserved and rural communities. This distinct
target population is not reached by other SBA entrepreneurial development programs or other
commercial services.

The PRIME Program delivers big returns on small investments. In FY2010, $8 million was
awarded to 92 organizations in 43 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia with an
average grant award of $87,000. On average, each organization used its grant funding to serve
210 clients, typically providing 15 hours of counseling per client. This works out to $415 per
client, or about $27 per counseling hour. Studies show that the five-year survival rate for
businesses that receive this kind of counseling is 30% higher than those of businesses who do not
receive counseling. 1 Not only is this a wise investment in future job-creators, but the elimination
of the PRIME Program would create a disproportionate burden on already disadvantaged
populations – a segment that more than any other lacks adequate access to alternative forms of
coaching and business services. For many of these low-income individuals, self-employment is
likely their most viable economic option, especially low-income rural entrepreneurs who would
otherwise be left with few options for economic self-sufficiency.

Background

A microbusiness is defined as a business with fewer than 5 employees and a microloan is a
working capital loan of up to $50,000. According to the latest available data, there are 25
million microbusinesses in the United States with receipts totaling $2.4 trillion (17% of US
GDP) and employing over 31 million Americans. 2 Yet despite their truly impressive impact,
microbusinesses are especially challenged to succeed. Microbusinesseses were hit harder in this


1
FIELD/The Aspen Institute, “Facts About Business Ownership,” http://fieldus.org/Stories/FastFacts.html.
2
U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Business Owners and Self‐Employed Persons, 2007, 2008.

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recession and are more fragile than larger firms. 3 These challenges are magnified for the
estimated 3 million low-wealth business owners who are disproportionately African American,
Latino, Native American and/or female. And yet, the stakes for business ownership are high.
The median net worth of business owners is almost two and a half times higher than for non-
business owners. For an African-American woman, the difference is more than ten-fold. For a
Latino man, the difference is five-fold. There is no shortage of determined, committed, and
capable low-wealth entrepreneurs who need to be appropriately capitalized and coached. There
are not, however, enough services, products, or opportunities that meet the unique needs of these
businesses and their owners.

Over the last 25 years, microenterprise development organizations (MDOs) have emerged across
the country to help meet the two primary needs of these underserved entrepreneurs: (1) to
provide coaching and intensive technical assistance, and (2) to make small dollar loans to
entrepreneurs. MDOs serve individuals who do not have access to mainstream financial
products and other services. A lack of wealth often prevents individuals from accessing what
might be available to others; sometimes it is lack of business experience. In fact, recent surveys
of MDOs, conducted by the Aspen Institute’s FIELD Initiative, have found that the majority of
microentrepreneurs served are female (59%), nearly two-thirds are people of color or members
of traditionally disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups (60%), and nearly three-quarters of those
served come from low-to-moderate income communities (68%). 4 Regardless of the factors that
bring clients to microenterprise development organizations in their communities, these MDOs
tend to serve individuals that mainstream financial institutions, commercial service providers,
and other government programs, including SBA programs, are neither willing, nor particularly
well equipped to serve.

The Program for Investment in Micro-Entrepreneurs (PRIME)

The PRIME program, created in 1999, is a technical assistance and capacity building initiative
designed to support and expand the services offered to low-income and very low-income
entrepreneurs located in underserved and rural communities. The PRIME Program awards
competitive grants of up to $250,000 to MDOs in one of the following tracks: technical
assistance (TA), capacity building, and for research & development to develop best practices.
Funded at $8 million in FY2010, the SBA made 92 PRIME grants in 2010 to MDOs across the
country. Although FY2012 funding – and the program’s future – remain uncertain, PRIME
grantees make the most with modest means. PRIME grants, which average around $90,000,
provide TA in some of the following forms: basic business management and planning, financial
literacy education, personal financial planning and goal-setting, marketing and financial
management skills, networking and leadership skills, and in some cases provide bi-lingual

3
Kiva Visa Partnership for U.S. Small Businesses, “KIVA and VISA Study Of Small Business Trouble Spots,” June
2011, http://media.kiva.org/SmallBusinessInAmericaEIUReport.pdf.
4
FIELD/The Aspen Institute, “MicroTest Measures 2008 Data,”
http://www.fieldus.org/MicroTest/FY08PerformanceOverview.pdf.

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services and/or translation support services. And the results are evident: A recent Aspen Institute
study found that the investment in MDOs pay off: 80% of businesses that received some form of
technical assistance from an MDO, many of which receive PRIME grant funding, were still in
business after five years. This compares to an overall five-year business survival rate of
approximately 50%. 5

In October 2010, during the last round of PRIME grant announcements, SBA Administrator
Karen Mills said, “PRIME grants remain a major source of funding for providing small
businesses with essential training and technical assistance. We are very pleased that this year we
have been able to provide this funding, which will translate into new jobs and stronger local
economies.” 6

PRIME Is Not Duplicative Of Other SBA Programs

Recently, it has been suggested that the PRIME program and the services provided by PRIME
grant recipients are duplicative of other entrepreneurial development products and services
housed within the SBA. AEO strongly disagrees with this suggestion. It would appear that the
conclusion has been drawn between the services provided by PRIME recipients and the
availability of other SBA programs to provide those services. This is not the case. Although
AEO and its members recognize the value of these organizations – and work closely with them –
we do not believe that they are equipped to provide underserved business owners and aspiring
entrepreneurs with the services they require. What differentiates the PRIME program from other
SBA programs – indeed, the common differentiator among all of them – is not necessarily the
distinctiveness of the counseling and TA itself, but rather the unique requirements of the target
populations and the ability to serve them.

The PRIME program provides grants to conduct rigorous, intensive one-on-one counseling and
technical assistance for people who need substantially more support, training, encouragement,
and engagement than other target populations. Very often, MDO clients have never been
exposed to the concept of microbusiness and have therefore never considered starting a business.
Many of these clients, especially those in rural areas, are multi-generational families living at or
below the poverty line. AEO Member and PRIME recipient Good Work Network, an MDO
located in New Orleans, LA, tells the story well: of its clients counseled, 92% were African
American, 69% were female, and 67% were low-income. The median age of their clients is 38
and the average household income is just $25,665. Clearly, the requirements of these
microentrepreneurs will be different than those of more established business owners who have
access to a wider range of resources.

5
FIELD/The Aspen Institute, “Facts About Business Ownership,” http://fieldus.org/Stories/FastFacts.html.
6
Karen Mills, Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration, Press Release October 5, 2010,
http://www.sba.gov/about‐sba‐services/7367/5515.

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AEO Member and MDO MaineStream Finance of Bangor, ME is a compelling example of the
positive returns on investment in the PRIME Program. With its PRIME grant, MaineStream
Finance provides rigorous one-on-one business technical assistance to microentrepreneurs in
combination with a 12-session course (“Incubator Without Walls”) that exposes participants to
all facets of starting and operating a business. In FY2010, MaineStream Finance received a
$67,000 PRIME grant, which it used to serve 350 individuals, each of whom received an average
of 15 hours of counseling and technical assistance. As a result, 200 jobs were created or
protected at a cost of just $335 per job. As the economy struggles to recover from the financial
crisis and subsequent recession, this seems like money well spent.

PRIME grants have also enabled MDOs to expand their reach into surrounding rural areas,
which oftentimes lack access to any other form of business counseling services. For example,
AEO member Business Resource Center in Corpus Christi, TX, was able to expand its service
area into nine surrounding counties. In another example, Unlimited Future, Inc. of Huntington,
WV, was able to expand its service area beyond city limits to serve thirteen counties in three
states with a $90,000 PRIME grant in FY2010. In MaineStream Finance’s case, its counselors
are located outside of the major service centers and actively conduct programs in communities
that are 1-2 hour drive from the nearest SBA supported center.

In addition to technical assistance, another PRIME Program differentiator is the grant money
available to MDOs for capacity building initiatives and for research and development of best-
practice/best-value products and services. The PRIME Program is designed to set aside 25% of
grant award for these two tracks.

Grant funding for capacity building supports innovations in technical assistance programming,
which is not available to MDOs via other SBA programs. For example, MDOs have used
PRIME grants in this track for seed money to design new technology-enabled platforms. AEO
member and MDO Credit Builders Alliance, located in Alexandria, VA, used PRIME grant
funding to create the “CBA Reporter,” an online credit reporting platform. This new technology
allows low-wealth individuals with little or no credit scores to report repayment history to the
major credit bureaus, thus building their credit and eventually allowing them to access
mainstream financial institutions. In another example, AEO member and MDO Renaissance
Entrepreneurship Center located in San Francisco, CA, used a PRIME grant to scale their award-
winning curriculum by creating a long-distance learning model for entrepreneurs located outside
the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as for persons with disabilities for whom online training was
a more effective option. The Oregon Microenterprise Network (OMEN) in Portland, OR, also an
AEO member, received a $33,500 PRIME grant in FY2010 for capacity building. With that
grant, OMEN helped other MDOs across Oregon to better serve minority, women, and low-
income entrepreneurs. With that $33,500 PRIME grant, OMEN helped train 207 entrepreneurs,
at an average cost of just $160 per person. The other track, the research and development grant,
provides grant money to MDOs interested in developing best practices in the microenterprise

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development field, including new ways to provide high-impact technical assistance to
disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

It has also been suggested recently that the SBA’s network of microlenders and lenders enrolled
in its new Community Advantage Pilot Program (CA Pilot Program) would be able to fill the gap
left by the elimination of the PRIME Program. This is simply incorrect. Whereas PRIME
provides grant funding for technical assistance, the Microloan Program and the CA Pilot
Program are lending programs. Both the Microloan Program and CA Pilot Program provide
counseling; however, it is lending-specific assistance geared towards businesses and business-
ready entrepreneurs. These two programs are targeted for entrepreneurs and small businesses
that are at more advanced stage in the business creation process, and therefore have a different
set of unique assistance requirements. The difference between objectives and target population
requirements is underscored on SBA’s very own website, which uses the following definition for
the PRIME program:

“The SBA’s Program for Investment in Micro-Entrepreneurs (PRIME) provides assistance to
[MDOs]. These organizations help low-income entrepreneurs who lack sufficient training and
education to gain access to capital to establish and expand their small businesses.”7

This testimony is in no way intended to discredit the valuable work SBA Microlenders do. In
fact, a significant number of AEO members are SBA Microlenders. Other AEO members are in
the process of becoming SBA Community Advantage Pilot Program-certified lending
intermediaries. The work these lenders perform is a vitally important piece of the microbusiness
ecosystem, albeit for a different target population. AEO does not believe that PRIME should be
rolled into the Microloan or CA Pilot Programs. Rather, they should work hand-in-hand as
complimentary programs designed to support our nation’s entrepreneurs to create jobs.

Conclusion

As of April 2011, small businesses created 93% of new jobs in the preceding ten months. It is
clear that these businesses provide much needed job growth, especially now during our economic
recovery. For many entrepreneurs located in rural areas and low income communities, starting a
business is employment. These entrepreneurs contribute to their communities, providing jobs
and financial security to their families. AEO research has shown that if just one in three
microbusinesses were to add one additional employee, the U.S. economy would return to full
employment. 8 But they cannot do it alone. They need the assistance from the microenterprise
development organizations that are dedicated to their success. The SBA’s PRIME Program


7
U.S. Small Business Administration, PRIME Program, “What is PRIME,” http://www.sba.gov/content/prime‐
program.
8
Association for Enterprise Opportunity, “The Power of One In Three,”
http://www.aeoworks.org//pdf/one_in_three.pdf.

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provides a vital lifeline to low income, rural, and underserved entrepreneurs struggling to start a
business and succeed. AEO believes that continued support of the PRIME Program is a wise
investment in our nation’s entrepreneurs.

Office 202.650.5580
Fax 202.650.5599

1111 16th Street, NW,
Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036

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AEO SBA Testimony (PRIME)

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