Military Spouses' Entrepreneurial Information Page

Welcome to the Military Spouses’ Entrepreneurial Information Page. This site is provided as a public service to military family members.

In a time when both spouses in most families must work to make ends meet, military families face a special challenge. Because they must move often, and are seldom in one location for more than two or three years at a time, it is difficult for many military spouses to get good jobs, even harder to advance or build careers.

To help meet this growing need, the SBA and the Department of Defense funded a two-year pilot program to provide entrepreneurial training to military spouses that would help them develop portable businesses that could easily move with the families. Two pilot sites were run by entrepreneurial experts from the National Women’s Business Center of Washington, D.C., and the Women’s Enterprise Development Corporation in Long Beach, Calif.

The information in this site is the result of this unique and successful program. It includes frequently asked questions and success stories. What the FAQs and their answers cover are those things that make entrepreneurship unique for military spouses: military regulations and portability issues. The answers are, however, very general; sometimes rules can vary from service to service and base to base. Before taking any step that commits you to a business on or off base, it is important that you first secure the approval of your spouse’s commanding officer.

Included in the FAQs are links to numerous other helpful web sites, including the SBA’s Online Women’s Business Center. The Online WBC provides a full business-training curriculum for every level of business, from start-up to going public. It also offers worldwide networking, chats, bulletin boards, resources and links, mentoring and even individual counseling. And it is available anywhere in the world that the Internet reaches, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so, no matter where your spouse is stationed, you can continue your own entrepreneurial development.

The linked references included in the FAQs are subjective choices. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of relevant sites; we have chosen a few to get you started. As is true with any site providing links, you may occasionally find older information or a site that is no longer available, but be assured that we make every effort to keep these links current. You should also use your search engines to look for information on relevant topics--but pay careful attention to the date, origin and authority of any information the web offers you.

Continue on to The Entrepreneurial Option for Military Spouses