Ron Consolino
Small business owners often reach a point in their careers when they are ready to slow down but are not ready to stop working entirely. Others may want to just give back to the community while they are still running their business. A good option for these folks is to volunteer with SCORE, a national non-profit organization that provides free business counseling and low-cost educational services to those who want to start or are running small businesses.
With SCORE you can spend some of your time helping promising entrepreneurs start or run their own small businesses. You can share your business expertise, give back to your community, gain satisfaction from seeing others succeed, and connect with like-minded people also serving as volunteers. Each year, SCORE counselors touch thousands of lives, generously sharing their knowledge and experience so that entrepreneurs can realize their dreams of business success.
Nationwide 13,000 men and women in 364 SCORE offices donate their time and talent to assist America’s small businesses. At SCORE Houston, volunteers provide confidential one-to-one and team business counseling and low-cost training workshops and seminars. In addition, many counselors are virtual volunteers, providing email counseling directly from their homes or offices. SCORE members can not get paid for the services they provide to their small business clients.
Counselors come from a variety of occupations and backgrounds. Both retired and working professionals are welcome in SCORE. Many volunteers owned small businesses for years while others worked for large corporations.
Whatever their background, SCORE counselors share a belief that small business owners are more likely to succeed if they have a business mentor to guide them. We currently are seeking new members of diverse backgrounds and experiences to complement our current team of over 70 volunteers in the Houston area.
Our members choose from a variety of ways to contribute to our mission, but, most of our counselors are focused primarily on helping aspiring entrepreneurs develop their business plans and launch their first business. Many work with clients to find the financing needed to start or expand a small business. Others are involved in organizing client educational or networking sessions, arranging outreach programs with other Houston organizations, publishing newsletters, or other management and administrative functions.
New members go through an orientation program to get familiar with SCORE and comfortable with the counseling process. All members stay up-to-date by attending regular monthly training and networking sessions.
SCORE is a resource partner of the Small Business Administration and the main SCORE office in Houston is located in the offices of the SBA. We have 10 other satellite counseling locations throughout the broader Houston area. Check out our web site, www.scorehouston.org, and send an email to scorehouston@gmail.com to arrange to talk to someone about volunteering.
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Ron Consolino is a business counselor for SCORE, a non-profit association whose volunteers help start small businesses and reach new levels of success in existing businesses. Send questions or volunteer enquiries to scorehouston@gmail.com , call 713-773-6565, or visit www.scorehouston.org.
