The Maricopa SBDC is dedicated to providing high impact resources and leadership to the amazing diversity of entrepreneurs that make our Phoenix communities stronger. Our team has been an integral part of  leadership for Empowered PhXX; an innovative community collaborative dedicated to strengthening Phoenix’s economic future by leveraging female entrepreneurship.

Our own Kristin Slice, is one of the many community representatives to help create a robust new research report entitled A New Vision for Phoenix Entrepreneurship:Recommendations to Maximize the Economic Impact of Women-Owned Businesses. The research for this report included the largest, most comprehensive survey targeting today’s Arizona women business owners.

We are also proud to be listed as one example within the report for the key recommendations for building our future: Focus on financial management, investor mindset, and value-building, as well as the capital resources available to diverse populations. Congratulations to April, Tinhorn of Tinhorm Consulting for your business growth and to Paula Wittekind and Katie Boddy from the SBDC team for your tremendous work on the Financial Foundations program. Below is an expert from the report. For the full report check out the Empowered PhXX website.

For example, Arizona State University Entrepreneurship + Innovation led an initiative to identify potential best practices for more inclusive entrepreneurship by supporting design thinking experiments in twelve entrepreneurship organizations across the university and in the community. As part of that initiative, during Money Month AZ 2017, Stephanie Sims presented at the Maricopa Small Business Development Center on value creation, identification of resources, understanding the different types of funding, and finding the right money for your business. Stephanie’s expertise was integrated as part of a comprehensive program that was created using design thinking, in-depth business counseling and innovative delivery formats.

One of the participants was April Tinhorn of Tinhorn Consulting, LLC, which is a full-service integrated marketing and  consulting firm specializing in telling  their clients’ stories in the most powerful way that has a lasting and far-reaching impact, whose clients come from a variety of industries including health, government, education, non-profit, and business. April directly applied the knowledge she gained from the presentation to land her one of the largest contracts, complete her first year with comprehensive financial reports, and win an award as the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Arizona business of the year. The SBDC works with their clients long-term and was able to track that impact to identify best practices and share with all of the partners involved.

April’s experience is a great example of how partners collaborating to bring quality resources directly to diverse business owners can create significant economic impact.