“We don’t want to be checking the box.”
VR Small
Founder and CEO
Veteran Women’s Enterprise Center
.…on how her coworking program aims to help veteran women entrepreneurs at Comerica Bank’s Business HQ, via Dallas Business Journal.
VR Small means business when she helps participants in her Veteran Women’s Enterprise Center’s coworking program.
“This is about businesses that want to grow,” Small told the Dallas Business Journal’s Plamedie Ifasso. “If you’re not doing the work, there’s not going to be any grant money for you.”
After recently losing her nonprofit’s former work space, Small has found a new one in Comerica Bank’s BusinessHQ collaborative space on the first floor of the bank’s East R.L. Thornton location near East Grand Avenue. The VWEC will be Comerica’s community incubation partner, offering six small businesses dedicated/private office space, one-on-one cultivation support, and consultations with small business capital providers, as well as exclusive access to a content creation studio.
Rendering of Comerica’s BusinessHQ [Image: Comerica Bank]
Small knows the importance of hard work firsthand. “I am a reflection of the statistics as a Black woman and minority-owned nonprofit,” Small told the DBJ. “I’ve got to get 30 grants to add up to what my colleagues who are not minorities get [in] one grant.”
And about doing more than checking boxes?
“Every time they do a training [session],” Small told the DBJ of the coworking program, “we want to find out what did you get from this? How are you going to use it? How can we help?”
Comerica’s BusinessHQ space is slated to officially open next month.
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