Women's Small Business Ownership Act of 2015

Women's Small Business Ownership Act of 2015

This bill amends the Small Business Act to direct the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Women's Business Ownership to address issues concerning specified disciplines required for starting, operating, and increasing a small business.

The Office must work with SBA officials and collaborate with non-SBA entities to ensure that the work of the women's business center program:

• maximizes taxpayer dollars, and
• coordinates effectively with and is not duplicative of other federal and private sector programs.

The mission of the Office is to assist women entrepreneurs in starting, growing, and competing in global markets by providing quality support with access to capital, access to markets, job creation, growth, counseling, and training in a specified manner.

The SBA must:

• provide annual programmatic and financial examination training for women's business center representatives,
• award grants or enter into contracts or cooperative agreements related to the training, and
• develop plans for a professional development training program for women's business centers and for a women's business center accreditation program.

The SBA may provide up to $250,000 per project year of financial assistance to eligible entities to conduct projects designed to provide training and counseling meeting the needs of women, especially socially and economically disadvantaged women.

The SBA, upon request by a recipient organization, may waive for a fiscal year (but no more than two consecutive fiscal years) the requirement to obtain matching non-federal funds for the organization's technical assistance and counseling activities carried out using financial assistance under the program.