Women-owned small business owners located in rural areas are invited to apply to join the US Small Business Administration’s free Ascent Rural program. Ascent offers group virtual learning sessions that provide a forum for program participants to meet with other women who have been selected for the upcoming Ascent cohort. The program is a combination of online self-guided learning using the Ascent platform, as well as group virtual sessions.

The program is open to:

• Women-owned small businesses located in a rural area of New Mexico
• Start-up businesses or organizations that have been in business for less than 5 years
• Businesses that have an average revenue from the last 5 years of less than $50,000 (To calculate, divide the sum of each year’s annual gross revenue by the years in business. For those that have been in business less than five years, state the number of years and use the average revenue based on those years. For partial years in business, round down to the number of full years in business. Pre-revenue startups should identify themselves as pre-revenue and indicate $0 revenue.)

Applications are currently being accepted, and interviews for those who meet the criteria will be held January 30 through February 3, 2023. The program launches March 1.

Interested applicants can join one of two remaining virtual information sessions on Thursday, Jan. 19 and Thursday, Jan. 26 at 10:30 am to learn more about the program, find out how to apply, and get an overview of what is expected from participants. Contact Mercedes Chavez at the SBA New Mexico District Office at mercedes.chavez@sba.gov to get Teams-Meeting login credentials.