We Love: Nell Merlino

Among the many obstacles that lay in the path of starting your own business, some may argue that being female is one of them. Women represent nearly 50% of all privately-owned businesses—nearly ten million of them—but only 3% of all women-owned firms have revenues of $1 million or more, compared with 6% of men-owned firms.

But Nell Merlino is out to alter that disparity. Merlino is the cofounder, president, and CEO of Count Me In, a national not-for-profit provider of business loans and resources for women to grow their businesses into million-dollar enterprises. The organization makes business loans between $500 and $10,000 available to women across the country that often have a harder time accessing financing than male business owners; they’ve granted approximately 700 business loans to about a quarter of the people who have applied. And seeing that only such a small percentile of women-owned businesses have revenues of a million dollars or more, Count Me In has recently launched the Make Mine a $Million project, a loan program to help women reach the million-dollar mark, with the goal of pushing one million women entrepreneurs over the $1-million-in-revenue-mark by 2010..

Among Count Me In’s success stories are women who’ve started computer software, information technology, fashion design, public relations, and advertising firms to a winery, a chocolatier, even a dog apparel company and a cloth diaper service. For their commitment to helping women entrepreneurs build and sustain small businesses, we say hats off to Nell Merlino and her terrific group!