Massachusetts · Nonprofit
CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC
CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,759,884 to it, the largest being FIDELITY FOUNDATION ($1,850,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $4.0M
- Funders on record
- 70
- Grants received
- $6.8M
- Net assets
- $248k
What Center for Women & Enterprise Inc does
Mission
Cwe is an economic empowerment organization whose mission is to help women business owners and aspiring female entrepreneurs launch and grow their business by providing greater access to the resources, tools, and support they need. We achieve this mission by providing education, training, technical assistance, access to markets, and paths to funding to women entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Education: since its founding in 1995, the center for women & enterprise has trained 60,600 aspiring small business owners who have created 57,500 jobs and paid $1.6 billion in wages to their employees. We provide comprehensive programs and services for entrepreneurs and business owners in ma, nh, ri, and vt, which address the full continuum of their businesses' lifecycles. Cwe offers onsite, online and workshops in the communities we serve on critically relevant topics including financial literacy, business plan creation, financing options, and visioning, all designed to strengthen women and veteran owned businesses. In 2024 alone, participation in our programs and events totaled 8,613 and we served 3,455 individuals, providing them with the tools they need to successfully create new income opportunities for themselves and their families, while also boosting the new england economy.
$2,543,363 spent$20,049 earned by the program80% of program spendingCertification: the center for women & enterprise offers women business owners the ability to obtain formal status of their diversity through a variety of certifications. Certification allows businesses to bid on contracts as a diverse vendor in both the private and public sector. It is an important tool for expanding the visibility of a company among decision makers in supplier diversity and procurement. Cwe is the regional provider of the women's business enterprise national council (wbenc), the premiere private sector certification that gives women-owned businesses an advantage in the corporate bidding arena. We also offer the women owned small business (wosb-federal) as a secondary certification at no additional cost. This certification is required for women-owned businesses that want to bid on federal contracts in the public sector. In 2024, cwe certified 569 women-owned businesses through the wbenc.
$632,101 spent$501,352 earned by the program20% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,175,464.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $1.2M to $2.1M (+73%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 42% · 2018 46% · 2019 49% · 2020 56% · 2021 54% · 2022 51% · 2023 37% · 2024 35%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
88% of CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (16% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Gabrielle King Morse
CEO & president
Board chair
Lisa Wood
Board chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 11 funders to 40 funders, grant income rose $195k → $1.4M.
20 of 70 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 44% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $601k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Women's Business Enterprise National Council). These are real filings, and they are not money CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC raised.
From the IRS filings of CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 70 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
50% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 34% · 2019 27% · 2020 22% · 2021 35% · 2022 41% · 2023 40% — growing more concentrated.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
54% of CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
72% of CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.9M arriving through sponsors registered in 12 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC's funding base is broadening — from 11 funders to 40 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,551 employment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $12.5M on record.
- Small Business Administration$11.6M
- Department of Agriculture$862k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
73% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
95%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 4 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC?
- CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC (Massachusetts) receives grants from 70 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,759,884 to it, the largest being FIDELITY FOUNDATION ($1,850,000). 47 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC have?
- IRS filings report 70 organizations giving $6,759,884 in grants to CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC, 47 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC?
- FIDELITY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,850,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CENTER FOR WOMEN & ENTERPRISE INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Center for Women & Enterprise →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 70 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing