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Nonprofit gets federal grant for women’s business center

From staff reports

A Spokane nonprofit said Wednesday it has landed a five-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration to establish a women’s business center downtown.

The Inland Northwest Women’s Business Center will offer advice on business planning and technology and referrals to other programs, said Karen Michaelson, executive director of TINCAN, the nonprofit that applied for the grant. TINCAN, the Inland Northwest Community Access Network, has been around for a decade and helps businesses and community organizations with computer technology and telecommunications.

Michaelson said she was “quite delighted and surprised” to be told that TINCAN had landed the SBA grant.

“We heard (the SBA) wasn’t going to have much money to fund” women’s business centers, she said. The SBA supports such centers around the country, but the agency has faced budget cuts in recent years.

Connie Marshall, the SBA’s Seattle-based regional advocate, announced the grant at a women’s business roundtable Wednesday.

TINCAN was joined in its application for the grant by the local chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners and AHANA, the African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American Business and Professional Organization.

Michaelson said the new office should open its doors within two months, although it’s uncertain where those doors will be located. TINCAN is considering leasing space for the center in the same building where it’s located, at 1011 W. First Ave., or else in the Spokane Regional Business Center, at 801 W. Riverside Ave., where a number of business-assistance organizations have their offices.

The center will employ two people full time and one person part time, and hiring for those positions will begin soon, she said.

The Inland Northwest Women’s Business Center won’t duplicate services already available here, Michaelson said. Instead, it will refer women to mentors or business services wherever they are in the community.

“There really is a need for a place women can come where they feel supported and also have services packaged for them,” she said. “We will create a package and a plan, a kind of pathway for them to take to achieve their goals.”