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The Ohrenschall Center for Entrepreneurship (OCE) commits the faculty to provide expert support services for new venture creation and thereby improve the infrastructure and general environment for entrepreneurship to encourage the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. We recognize that venture creation is powered by the entrepreneur, not physical resources. This is critical in encouraging small business development among low income and otherwise disadvantaged segments of the community. Since the mid-90s the OCE has provided services to the small business community including:

2003: An agreement pending with the state Employment Development Department designed to consider how small businesses can be more involved in contracting with the Employment Training Panel of the state. About $75 million dollars are committed annually to help train/retrain California workers. Small businesses are significantly underrepresented as recipients of these funds; we expect to develop recommendations that would positively correct this.

Since 2002: The OCE has pioneered the "Living Case" concept in partnership with the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. The OCE has initiated a format for selecting small business owners at the more mature level of development. The entrepreneur presents a real business challenge to SFSU Entrepreneurship graduate students. Two student teams independently develop analyses and propose concrete action steps to address the business challenge.

2002 to Present: The OCE is a grantee of the Kaufman Foundation which has provided funds to support over 40 paid internships to small businesses throughout the greater bay area.

2002: The Electronic Benefit Transfer project funded by the state department of Health and Human Services which included a survey of small businesses regarding acceptance of the new food stamps program. The state is changing the food stamp program from a paper- to an ATM-type delivery system. The OCE managed the process of surveying over 800 Californians targeted by the change. We also interviewed a representative sample of over 125 small retailers to gain insight into problems related to the changeover.

2002: Evaluation and Strategic Plan for the Renaissance Center (student internships). A team of graduate students developed and implemented a prototype for evaluation of the strategy and mission relevance of a non-profit and provided a written report to the Board and the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Community Development.

1999-2002: Cyber Business Center Project in partnership with the Bank of America and the Oakland Black Chamber to develop an Internet-based procurement system to provide timely information to small business owners (this activity was partially supported by OCE graduate students doing thesis project work). Over 800 web pages were developed through the project for small businesses, primarily from the minority community. This effort raised strong interest in the Internet by the targeted community and demonstrated an effective strategy to attack the Digital Divide.

1995/96: Grant from PG&E to survey small business. The OCE surveyed 6000 small businesses in the city and county of San Francisco. The study provided significant insights into the concerns and issues of the small business community. Survey results are available upon request.