Women's Initiative Measures Up report
The Women's Initiative Measures Up Report reveals that Women’s Initiative for Self Employment entrepreneurship training program contributes to an economic return of $21 for each $1 invested in the services clients receive. Microenterprise training, technical assistance, and financing is a proven economic development strategy to help low-income women to realize the American dream of economic self-sufficiency through business ownership. The results below are based on interviews during a three-year study period (1999 through 2002) with 180 program participants.
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Publications in collaboration with the Aspen Institute's FIELD Program:

Measuring Success: A Report on the Post Training Outcomes of Microenterprise Training Program Participants (February 2002)
Learn about our recent Outcome Evaluation report. One significant finding is that the women we serve are dramatically increasing their incomes, with the average income of the participants nearly doubling (an average income increase of $13,226) within 18 months following completion of our comprehensive business management training.
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Measuring Success: Outcome Evaluation in Action (January 2001)
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Improving Microenterprise Training and Technical Assistance: Findings for Program Managers (2002)
Describes the makings of effective training and technical assistance by examining the findings from research projects undertaken by five FIELD grantees. Provides a synthesis of key research findings and includes the executive summary of the research report written by each grantee.
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Practitioner Manual - Assessment Tools for Microenterprise Training & Technical Assistance (2001)
This manual features 13 easy-to-follow tools geared to practitioners who want to more systematically understand and assess the value of their training and technical assistance services. Included are tools designed by and used at five microenterprise organizations.
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FIELD Best Practice Guide: Vol. 1: Entering the Relationship: Finding and Assessing Microenterprise Clients (2002)
This training module explores how program practitioners can conduct market research, develop effective marking strategies and appropriately screen and assess incoming clients. Each of these topics is discussed in depth, along with lessons and findings based on research into best practices in use in the microenterprise industry today. Also included is a set of tools practitioners can use to adapt these best practices to their own institutions.
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FIELD Best Practice Guide: Vol. 2: Building Skills for Self-Employment: Basic Training for Microentrepreneurs (2002)
This publication focuses on best practices in core training and its implications for improving training services. It distills practitioners' experiences into relevant observations and recommendations that should inform both managers who develop and monitor training, as well as front-line trainers who deliver it. The module attempts to balance current thinking about best practice with illustrative, useful examples. Users also will find a helpful set of tools in the final section of the volume.
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MIS for Microenterprise: A Practical Approach to Managing Information Successfully
by Charles Waterfield, for the Aspen Institute
This 190 page manual is a step-by-step guide to help microenterprise development practitioners develop an effective management information system. It provides practical guidance on understanding the parts of an MIS and their relation to each other, what organizational factors influence how an MIS should be designed and managed, how to define information needs and assess the appropriateness of available software to meet them, and how to implement and use an effective MIS.
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Research Brief No. 2 - Improving the Climate for Self-Employment: Recommendations for TANF Reauthorization
This 8-page brief presents the most recent findings from FIELD's evaluation of the Mott Foundation's 10 site demonstration project. Also presented is a set of policy recommendations that could help TANF recipients use self-employment to transition off assistance and toward economic self sufficiency. These recommendations are based on findings from FIELD's work , as well as a set of case studies and site visits conducted by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
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Research Brief No. 1 - Microenterprise as a Welfare to Work Strategy: Client Characteristics
This 6-page report is a summary of Research Report No. 1. In addition to summarizing findings about client characteristics (drawn from the first wave of a longitudinal survey), the publication also compares those findings with other national data sources and earlier studies of low-income entrepreneurs.
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Research Report No. 1 - Microenterprise as a Welfare to Work Strategy: Client Characteristics
This 22-page publication takes a thorough look at the findings from the first wave of a longitudinal survey of clients participating in a 10-site demonstration project exploring ways that self-employment can become an alternative to employment for TANF recipients. Described in some detail are the survey methodology and various client characteristics. In addition, findings are compared to two national TANF data sources, as well as to two previous studies of low-income entrepreneurs.
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