Small Business Development Center at COD Wins Prestigious Award

The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at College of DuPage recently received the Roger Luman Project Excellence Award at the annual Illinois Entrepreneurship and Small Business Growth Association (IESBGA) conference.

Created by SBDC Program Manager Martha Carney through a partnership with the Itasca Bank Women’s Initiative, “Project CEO – Helping Women to Create Great Companies” was one of only three programs chosen out of approximately 40 SBDCs in Illinois to receive the award. Project CEO comprises a series of training modules aimed at women who are preparing to scale a business or are functioning at an executive position within an established company.

Carney said the award was an honor and that she was pleased with the Center’s statewide recognition as an organization that identifies a workforce training need and acts quickly to implement something new.

“This program and the resulting success and recognition provide wonderful validation of the Center’s ability to identify a workforce training need and act quickly to implement a new solution,” Carney said.

Designed to address both a workforce education initiative and a skills gap, the program provides training to women entrepreneurs who wish to achieve a higher level of business success, leading to increased economic impacts such as job creation and high-growth employment. The four module series includes training in key skills such as profit mastery, sales organization building, process improvement and confidence during contract negotiation.

Carney said Project CEO came about after feedback from SBDC’s clients helped to identify a need within the community.

“With the aging of baby boomers, more family-run businesses are being turned over to be managed by daughters and women,” she said. “This program is important because it recognizes that entrepreneurs can be taught to run a business and scale. Women have unique training needs in managing both career and work-life demands.”

“This program and the resulting success and recognition provide wonderful validation of the Center’s ability to identify a workforce training need and act quickly to implement a new solution,” Carney said.

Designed to address both a workforce education initiative and a skills gap, the program provides training to women entrepreneurs who wish to achieve a higher level of business success, leading to increased economic impacts such as job creation and high-growth employment. The four module series includes training in key skills such as profit mastery, sales organization building, process improvement and confidence during contract negotiation.

Carney said Project CEO came about after feedback from SBDC’s clients helped to identify a need within the community.

“With the aging of baby boomers, more family-run businesses are being turned over to be managed by daughters and women,” she said. “This program is important because it recognizes that entrepreneurs can be taught to run a business and scale. Women have unique training needs in managing both career and work-life demands.”

Carney also said that while the partnership between COD’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Itasca Bank & Trust Women’s Initiative has been instrumental in providing sustained support for the program, another equally important factor is the SBDC’s forward-thinking and proactive approach to education and workforce development.

“We at the Center for Entrepreneurship and the SBDC are grateful that COD as an organization understands and supports the importance of ideation, fosters innovation, and sees that small business training and entrepreneurship is important to future job growth,” she said.

Click here to read an article about two Project CEO graduates.

Project CEO will be offered in biweekly classes this fall from 8:30 a.m. to noon, Friday, Sep. 18 to Friday, Oct. 30. Click here for more information and to register.

Named in honor of Managing Director of the Turner Center for Entrepreneurship in the Foster College of Business Administration at Bradley University and founding member of IESBGA, the Roger Luman Program Excellence Award was created to recognize outstanding, innovative and best practices in programs and services offered by IESGBA member centers. Nominated programs are evaluated on a broad range of factors including tangible outcomes, the contribution of outside organizations, longevity of the program, the need addressed by the program, anticipated future benefits and the opportunity for the program to be replicated by other SBDCs, as well as the impact the program has had on businesses, the community and the region or state.

A division of COD’s Center for Entrepreneurship, the SBDC at College of DuPage provides a variety of resources, services and training aimed at small business owners and entrepreneurs. New and existing business owners can also receive free one-on-one advising and help including business plan analysis, strategy and market planning, financial analysis, finding potential funding options and management assessment.

Click here for more information about the services College of DuPage provides to entrepreneurs and business owners.