A Look at the 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative is one of the featured articles for the September issue of the Babson Insight for Entrepreneurship Educators Newsletter. In late 2009, Goldman Sachs, through the GS Foundation, launched the 10,000 Small Businesses initiative, a $500 million, five-year commitment aimed at boosting job growth in the U.S. In early 2010, Babson was invited to join the curriculum development effort. Babson Professor Patricia Greene, entrepreneurship faculty member and former provost, led Babson's involvement, which started with observation of the LaGuardia program and rapidly evolved from being a member of the team, to leading it. She has since assumed overall responsibility for the curricular efforts. The initiative was modeled on Goldman's 10,000 Women, a global initiative that was started in early 2009 and whose performance was exceeding expectations in helping women business owners around the world create value. Both programs target entrepreneurial owners of small companies that were poised for growth, but unable to access market-based business education and assistance resources.
