Empowerment Works approach to job creation has evolved into a two prong approach; promoting, mentoring and teaching entrepreneurship to individuals who own or are considering their own businesses, and assisting individuals to gain new skills for new careers.
Empowerment Works’ three programs are Entrepreneurship, Apprenticeship, and Scholarship.
Entrepreneurship
A 2014 Forbes article published an article about studies performed by the Kauffman Foundation and the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity that found that over a 25 year period, almost all of the private sector net new jobs were created by businesses that were less than five years old. Since most net job growth is derived from new companies, Empowerment Works created an Entrepreneurship Program to teach entrepreneurship and mentor individuals who are considering opening or already have their own business.
Empowerment Works has offices at the Southwest Florida Enterprise Center. The Southwest Florida Enterprise Center was formed by the City of Fort Myers as a business incubator dedicated to assisting start up or early stage businesses to succeed. Empowerment Works offers pro-bono consulting on business formation and tax issues to those who are either considering opening a new business, or have recently started one. We also teach a number of classes at the Enterprise Center to enhance small business owners business skills.
As of August 24, 2019, Empowerment Works has held 142 individual entrepreneurial consultations and classroom sessions.
The Entrepreneur School is a six week class that meets for two hours a week held at the Enterprise Center that teaches individuals the steps to starting their own business and how to become a successful entrepreneur. Classes are generally offered once every quarter with a class size of less than 10 students. Smaller classes enable collaboration between the instructors and the students who vet each other’s business ideas. The program starts with exploring a business idea and determining what makes the idea different and competitive, choosing an entity type during business formation, and creating short and long term business goals. The class ends with students creating a business plan for their new business which includes sales and marketing, financing, and financial plans.
The Small Business Owner Accounting School is a four week class that meets for two hours a week held at the Enterprise Center that teaches individuals how to keep score with their business’ finances using QuickBooks accounting software. Classes are generally offered once every quarter with 8 or fewer students. The class includes hands on training in QuickBooks entering data, running reports and setting up a new company data file.
Apprenticeship
Our Apprenticeship Program is a Social Enterprise (see What is Social Enterprise?). Individuals that are accepted into the apprenticeship program are paid a sustainable wage while they learn to perform a career skill on the job. After working twelve to eighteen months, the apprentices are then transitioned into full time entry level jobs in industry. Empowerment Works currently has an apprenticeship program which teaches qualified individuals bookkeeping skills.
Apprentices perform bookkeeping tasks for small businesses that do not have the expertise or time to keep up with their own accounting. The small businesses pay Empowerment Works for bookkeeping services which in turn funds the apprentices salaries. The primary goal of the program is to provide on the job career training and a sustainable wage to individuals who would like a new career. The secondary goal is to mentor small businesses and provide a high quality, reasonably priced service until they are able to have their own accounting staff.
As of August 24, 2019, Empowerment Works has held 498 individual and classroom apprenticeship training sessions.
Scholarship
One in four Americans has a criminal record that impacts their ability to access to education, jobs and housing. 45% of Florida’s current prison population are repeat offenders. Without the ability to get a job, many former prisoners return to crime.
Empowerment Works, Inc. sponsors a technical education program at the Fort Myers Technical College for individuals who reside in the Fort Myers Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Corridor that are reentering society after leaving the justice system.
The Fort Myers Technical College provides career training in over a hundred different careers. Generally most training programs are completed in a year and yield high paying jobs. About 80% of the individuals that start a career program there complete it, and about 80% of the individuals that complete their programs find work in their field upon graduation.
As part of their mission to empower lives through economic change, Empowerment Works, Inc. is offering the right individuals training for new careers that will change their economic circumstances and their lives.