Women’s Foundation helps Camden business owner with grant for women, minority business owners

As a Black woman business owner, Kimberly Moore-Davis, owner of Moore Accounting and Tax Services, says that the general view of women- and/or minority-owned business are relegated to nail salons or beauty shops.

She said, “I think it’s a lane, that you know, like I said, women of color go in and with that, when you go to banks and try to get financed or you are looking for outlets, it’s kind of like, how do you even know that this is usually what you do? How did you get over to that? And it’s just like more questions and different requirements and responsibilities on you that normally wouldn’t be there.”

To aid women like Moore-Davis, the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas created the Women’s Economic Mobility Hub.

Moore-Davis said, “The specific program is designed to support Black women0owned businesses by providing technical assistance along with additional resources, including $5,000 in unrestricted grant funds to help scale their business. It was a six-month program and we received access to Taylor Support Services through a combination of online trainings and in-person meetings.”

Moore-Davis said she learned of the program after seeing it advertised. She told a client about it, and they were among grantees last year. She was then contacted by the organization to participate herself, she said.

Moore-Davis said that throughout the program, she attended online panels and in-person discussions with individuals with expert knowledge in their respective fields.

“We did accounting, financial management, business development. We had legal services.”

Moore-Davis said her biggest takeaway was learning from other women of color who have faced speedbumps on the road to business ownership.

Moore-Davis said, “There are people like me that are going through the same things I’m going through, because especially being a Black woman, there aren’t really businesses in Camden, Arkansas that I have to network with. You know, I’m fine with networking with anybody, but still, our specific struggles or experiences are different in business than, you know, some of my white friends, So, being able to navigate that with someone just like you was probably the best takeaway I could ever have, because you have somebody to lean on and understand exactly your issue.”

Anyone interested in learning more about WFA or the WEM Hub program can go to womensfoundationarkansas.org