Bank of america certificate in womens entrepreneurship

Bank of America Corp. is doubling the capacity of its Ivy League education program catered to women business owners.

The company will add 50,000 seats to its Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell University, according to Pam Seagle, global manager for Bank of America’s women’s programs. That brings the total enrollment of small-business owners to 100,000, on a rolling basis.

“The original size of the program never seemed to keep up with the demand we saw,” Seagle said, adding that the expansion will accommodate the current wait-list and add additional seats.

The free, virtual program gives participants a certificate in women’s entrepreneurship through six classes offered over 12 weeks. The goal is to give entrepreneurs skills and connections to grow their businesses.

Raquel Solomon holds her certificate from the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell.

Source: Bank of America

Raquel Solomon, 52, graduated from the institute in 2021, and has been working to grow her Sacramento, California-based small business officiating weddings.

“I have been able to use the certificate to validate the integrity of my business,” she said in an interview.

Registration is open to anyone, even outside the U.S., regardless of gender, educational or stage of business. Since its founding in 2018, the institute has enrolled more than 50,000 individuals, predominantly women, 90% of whom identify as women of color, Seagle said.

Over the last decade Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America has invested more than $50 million to help female business owners through partnerships that connect entrepreneurs to tools like mentoring and capital. Last year, the company launched a database to help women business owners access and learn about financing.

Read More: BofA Offers Database for Female Entrepreneurs to Unlock Capital

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To contact the editors responsible for this story:
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Dan Reichl

The Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell is a collaboration between Bank of America and Cornell University to deliver an online learning portal that provides women entrepreneurs with the skills, knowledge, and resources to build, manage, and scale a successful business.

The new institute draws on the expertise of faculty from Cornell Law School, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Entrepreneurship at Cornell and eCornell, among others.

Guidelines for Participants

The program targets women who are starting, running, or expanding a business. Participants should be past the stage of early brainstorming, should have taken some initial steps towards focusing on a particular context, and should have assembled at least modest levels of human and capital resources.

There is not a strict guideline regarding years of operation, but a rough guideline is 0-5 years. For companies operating with more years of experience, the curriculum may still be useful if the business is in the process of reinvigoration or is launching an entrepreneurial initiative.

For additional participants guidelines and enrollment, click here

Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell

The new Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell offers an unparalleled opportunity for women to earn a certificate in business from this Ivy League university. Through a free online program made possible by Bank of America, students will gain the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to build, manage and scale a successful business.

Eligibility
To determine if the online certificate program in the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell meets your needs, please read through the following guidelines:

Guidelines for Participants
The program targets women who are starting, running, or expanding a business. Participants should be past the stage of early brainstorming, should have taken some initial steps towards focusing on a particular context and should have assembled at least modest levels of human and capital resources. There is not a strict guideline regarding years of operation, but a rough guideline is 0-5 years. For companies operating with more years of experience, the curriculum may still be useful if the business is in the process of reinvigoration or is launching an entrepreneurial initiative.

Eligibility for BofA Institute at Cornell
Participants will benefit the most from the curriculum if they are still seeking or have received early stage financial resources but have not already done multiple rounds of venture funding. The participants’ businesses should have the potential to create jobs and may already have employees beyond the founder. The curriculum may be less appropriate for sole proprietors who have no intent to grow the business or employ others. Goals for the business can include modest to aggressive growth. It is not required that there be a rapid trajectory that is characteristic of high-tech/high-growth companies.

Entrepreneurs from all industries are eligible. Social innovators are welcome, but they ideally are seeking to build a financially sustainable business. Although not-for-profit entrepreneurs can benefit from the curriculum, the legal and financial courses are focused on for-profit businesses.

We welcome participants from diverse industries, nationalities, and geographies, and we encourage applicants of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientation, or other dimensions of diversity. Participants do need to be proficient in English to benefit from the English-language version of the course. As of July 2021, we are also offering a Spanish-language version of the course for those who would feel more comfortable completing the program in Spanish

While this program was designed with women entrepreneurs in mind, the Institute understands that there may be those in the community who work with or provide services to women entrepreneurs who may find value in the coursework. We applaud your investment in understanding more about entrepreneurship from a woman’s perspective and encourage you to participate in the program as available space allows.

Curriculum
Sequence of Courses
To receive the Certificate, participants must complete all six of the two-week courses. While the courses are largely independent of each other and are designed to be taken in any order, it is highly recommended that participants start with the first course. From there, participants have flexibility to base the sequence of their study on their availability, and the timing of their professional responsibilities.

Our curriculum
Curriculum Overview
The curriculum is designed to meet the needs of emerging entrepreneurs who are developing their own leadership skills and approaching their business decisions to maximize the chance for success. The six courses include topics such as assessing readiness for entrepreneurship, performing customer discovery, creating a business model, executing product development and digital marketing, building a legal framework for success, assessing and obtaining financial resources, developing leadership capacity, and enhancing communication, negotiation, and persuasiveness skills. In each course, participants will hear about specific aspects that impact women entrepreneurs and each entrepreneur will be given the opportunity to adapt the learning to her specific context.

What to Expect in the Curriculum:
Course 1: Creating Your Venture – Start with Customer Discovery.
You can expect to:

Understand yourself better as an entrepreneur and business owner as well as learn about the gender issues that can impact you and your business.
Develop specific goals for your business that match your individual situation.
Learn how to talk to customers to uncover their most urgent problems so you can create a product with a market.
Create a business model and action plan to take advantages of opportunities you uncover.
Course 1: Creating Your Venture
Course 2: Laying the Legal Building Blocks for Your Venture.
You can expect to:

Learn how to set up the right legal structure to protect your interests and maximize your options.
Anticipate legal challenges you may face and consider how gender affects the way you approach those challenges.
Have guidelines for when and what counsel you need.
Create a personalized plan to prepare and protect yourself and your venture from common pitfalls.
Course 2: Laying the Legal Building Blocks
Course 3: Assessing and Obtaining Financial Resources for Your Venture
You can expect to:

Learn to estimate how much funding you need to start or grow your business and when you will need it.
Get familiar with different sources of capital for new and young companies, the pros and cons of each, and what sources best fit your personal situation.
Understand the challenges women face in capital-raising and what strategies you can employ to overcome them.
Course 3: Assessing and Obtaining Financial Resources
Course 4: Growth Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs
You can expect to:

Learn how to assemble a founding team that meets the key needs of your business.
Understand how to establish an effective culture to attract and retain employees who are the right fit for the strategy of your business and for the key roles needed to implement that strategy.
Understand how to develop positive working relationships with partners, employees, customers, and investors, including by understanding and navigating the gender issues that may come into play.
Build your personal level of resilience and help your leadership team respond effectively to challenges and setbacks.
Course 4: Growth Leadership
Course 5: Product Development and Digital Marketing
You can expect to:

Draw a roadmap for a customer-focused product development and marketing process.
Create an early brand that is connected to your value proposition.
Learn how to interpret customer analytics.
Explore digital marketing techniques to get, keep and grow your customer base across multiple channels.
Consider ways to capitalize on your strengths as a woman to springboard your marketing.
Course 5: Product Development and Digital Marketing
Course 6: Communication, Negotiation, and Persuasiveness
You can expect to:

Develop your leadership (executive) presence to be credible and compelling.
Be prepared for various negotiation situations.
Understand how gender impacts you in communication situations, such as pitching.
Develop strategies to be persuasive as an entrepreneur.