Micro-enterprise
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Broadly stated, a micro-business is a business started with as little capital as possible, or less capital than would be usual for a business. More precisely, the term is often used in Australia to refer to a business with a single owner-operator, and no employees.
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[edit] Overview
Micro and Home Business Network, an Australian organisation, defines a Micro-Business as one with five or less employees [1]. This definition is often used in the United States.[2] In Europe a business with less than ten employees may be officially considered a micro-business [3].
Generally speaking, governments tend to define small- and micro- businesses more broadly than colloquial uses of those terms. This article discusses micro-business in the colloquial sense.
[edit] Concept in Disability Recovery
Utilized as a therapeutic tool within Person centered planning Micro-enterprise has become valuable to persons who for many reasons cannot efficiently participate in typically rigid work environments, i.e. 9 to 5 / 40 hours per week.
Micro-enterprise gives persons whom have a disability flexibility to attend doctor’s appointments or treatments that normally occur in the 9-5 time frame of the day and would eventually conflict with the norm of most typical work environments.
Micro-enterprise presents persons with a disability, business networking avenues into the community that differ greatly from the medical or treatment mode that they may have become confined to.
Persons with a disability who own their own business, often report an increased feeling of worth or an emotional equity that becomes an enhancement to their present treatment.
[edit] Government Programs
Plan for Achieving Self Support is a program offered by the United States Social Security Administration (or SSA) to encourage persons that are Supplemental Security Income (or SSI) eligible who are disabled to set aside moneys for various reasons: Training, Schooling and including funding Micro-enterprise as a Work Goals.
The NEIS (New Enterprise Initiative Scheme) is a government program in Australia, which assists unemployed people to start their own businesses. Although it is not specifically for micro-businesses, many if not most businesses started in this program are micro-businesses (in the senses of having limited capital, and only one person involved in the business).
[edit] Micro-Loans
- Accion is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing loans to self-employed, and is one of the largest Micro-Finance organizations.
- Pass the Bread Program (no longer in practice)
