The Suazo Business Center, in a partnership with the Mexican Consulate of Salt Lake City, Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, has announced it will incorporate entrepreneurship training program DreamBuilder into its ELLA accelerator program for women entrepreneurs. The Suazo Business Center is a Salt Lake City-based business resource committed to the development and empowerment of Latino/Hispanic and other underserved communities.
DreamBuilder is an entrepreneurship training program that was started by Phoenix-based mining company Freeport-McMoRan, in a partnership with the Thunderbird School of Global Management, to create an effective curriculum that teaches women the fundamentals of owning their own business. The program consists of courses covering the foundational business knowledge needed to start and grow small businesses and includes courses in marketing, pricing and bookkeeping. The program utilizes games, exercises, testimonials from successful entrepreneurs and video storytelling to make the learning fun and engaging.
The program has led to business success and greater adoption of beneficial business practices for participants as evidenced by responses to surveys of graduates in 2016. More than 55 percent of graduates reported an increase in sales after finishing the program. Ninety-six percent of graduates started tracking their expenses and 56 percent expected to start paying themselves a salary. Graduates, on average, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that DreamBuilder increased their confidence.