MAESTRO LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION
Accelerating Business Growth
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
In San Antonio, Texas, we found that in our city we had an average of 40,000 small businesses with only 2% of those businesses to have annual revenues of over $1 million. We found the same statistic to be state and nationwide. Our city was good at starting businesses but not at growing them. This meant that 98% of existing businesses were small and going to stay small. There was no place that small business could get training that took them from small to medium then to large. There is a great need for this type of small business accelerator center in our community. According to the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA), approximately 40 to 50% of those start-ups in the U.S. fail in their first five years of operation. As a center, we are improving economic development in the area. We are addressing the issue of the high crime rate and the lack of equity in the area for small business owners to thrive and accomplish their goals.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Entrepreneurship Cohort Program
This 12 Week Intensive Accelerator Program for existing small business owners who seek to accelerate their growth through a rigorous curriculum. Sessions are held Tuesday Nights 5:30pm to 8pm and all sessions are taught by successful entrepreneurs. Each week a new topic is introduced to help establish a strong foundation for every entrepreneur. Topics include: Jump Start your Business Development Plan, Diversifying Your Marketing Plan, Managing Cash Flow, Cost Pricing, Keeping Score of Your Success, Developing the Right Team, Succession Planning and Investing, Leading and Decision Making, etc.
After Cohort Entrepreneurship Forum Sessions - 10 Months
After Cohort Graduation, our entrepreneurs are provided with small group forum sessions on a monthly basis. These forum sessions are set up to provide the entrepreneurs with a support group where they can continue their journey to success knowing they will have like-minded individuals sharing real life experiences, overcoming challenges and celebrating success together. These Monthly Sessions provides a place where our small businesses can come together and become great leaders who are empathetic, transparent with their challenges and a place where they can keep developing the traits needed to keep advancing. Topics are voted by the group and NO topic is off limit.
Phenomenal Women in Leadership
This program is in partnership with the local Housing Authorities. Each quarterly session features, a panel of Three Phenomenal Women Leaders who will share conversations on overcoming real life challenges in business. These successful women motivate, educate and empower our women to want to do more to build a better life and better business. Topics include: Overcoming the Unthinkable, Raising Entrepreneur Minded Children, Future Financial Planning, Decision Making and Leading with a Plan, Successful Women in Non-Traditional Roles, etc.
Maestro Leadership Life Lessons
These training sessions are designed to help entrepreneurs learn from successful entrepreneurs or “Maestros” in the community from all industries. These sessions will be intimate conversations with successful business owners who will share their businesses’ beginnings and the keys to their success. Each Session will be themed to learning topic for example: Mastering Business Development, Joint Venturing to Win, Every Decision Counts, Keeping it Ethical, Legacy Building to the Next Generation, Marketing and Social Media on a Low Budget, etc.
Maestering your Money
This monthly program is offered to successful business owners who have built wealth by diversifying and investing in multiple business ventures to share their experiences with other entrepreneurs. The sessions are designed to have intimate conversations and help entrepreneurs think about opportunities to enable them to build wealth. The training sessions are designed to help enhance entrepreneurs with their skills and develop a foundation for increasing their financial capacity. Topics include Credit Building and Leveraging Credit to Grow Your Company, Managing Cash Flow, developing a Diversified Financial Portfolio: Real Estate, Stocks and Bonds, Planning for Retirement, Legacy Building thru Franchising, Developing Succession Planning and Exit Strategies, Etc.
Youth Entrepreneurship Program
This weeklong youth program is in partnership with the local Housing Authority Agencies to assist middle-school and high school students to develop life skills, encourage the importance of developing a business concept, and implementing effective strategies for selling a product or service. To teach our youth how to develop Entrepreneur Ideas into Action by developing business plan, marketing strategies, a website and an elaborate pitch for potential investors. The youth will learn the key components needed to run a business including banking and financing, product or service pricing, making a profit and record keeping of financials.
On the last day, the parents are invited to participate in the RISE educational session on Raising Entrepreneur Minded Children. This free educational training is for parents to be able to take advantage of the many RISE resources, workbooks and skills provided so each parent can continue the entrepreneur spirit in their daily lives.
During the course of the week, additional sessions are offered for parents relating to raising entrepreneur minded children and on the last day, we also hold a training session for the parents to come learn about the RISE Program where workbooks and skills are provided so each parent can continue the entrepreneur spirit in their daily lives.
Going Global - 3 Day Bootcamp
This 3 Day Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs ready to Go Global and market to the US. This program is designed to help international business owners enhance their skills in all the important areas of operating a successful business in the US and develop a foundation for growth. Training courses are the leading source of education for professionals at all levels and all over the world. Covering both key topics and specialized issues, courses are designated to be interactive and provide an international perspective with a focus on real life experiences, best practices, and training that will assist you and help you expand your business in the U.S. and succeed.
Silver Jacket Program - Fashion Business Start Up Program
This 12 Week Intensive Start Up Program is in partnership with Texas Fashion Industry Institute. This program is offered every spring for individuals who want to start a business in the fashion industry. Each session is set up to provide a roadmap for these individuals to become entrepreneurs. Each session is taught by successful business owners in the fashion industry sharing intimate conversations of overcoming challenges in a structured goal setting and projected achievable outcomes during the program. Each week is structured to develop a strong foundation and covers a different topic including business planning, marketing, finance, social media, developing personal profiles, communications, etc.
Where we work
Affiliations & memberships
LiftFund 2017
External reviews
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of jobs created and maintained
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 59 new jobs created.
Number of contracts awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 151,9757 contracts awarded.
Number of events
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 45 events.
Number of attendees at events
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 2,391 attendees.
Number of volunteers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 4,310 volunteers.
Number of participants (cohort/tenants)
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In 2019 there has been 36 participants.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Maestro Entrepreneur Center aims to serve as an educational innovative catalyst in the economic development of small, minority, women and veteran-owned businesses. The goal is to grow existing small businesses beyond the $1 million mark and to help generate jobs in an economically disadvantaged area of town. We are bringing economic development to a historically underutilized (HUB zone) or the poorest zip code. With this, we will help young and old entrepreneurs achieve their goals of being successful in our ever-advancing technological world. This will bring equity to all in the area and give them a chance to know that no goal is out of reach. No person should not have the opportunity of thriving in the nation's fastest-growing city, so we provide services to these clients of ours in the way that they can pave their own path towards success.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Tenants of Maestro Entrepreneur Center (MEC) have the support of the center through the participation of fundraising events, programs, including the Entrepreneur Cohort Program. The Entrepreneur Cohort Program is a unique program held every Fall for a twelve-week period offering small business owners an opportunity to learn from other successful entrepreneurs. Each participant receives a minimum of two-hour weekly sessions with experience and successful entrepreneurs who then offer them structured lessons based on real-world experience, structured goal-setting and projected achievable outcomes during the course of the program. The Phenomenal Women in Leadership, Maestro Leadership Life Lessons, Mastering your Money, Go Global with Maestro, and the Youth Entrepreneurship Program are just a few of the programs that the center provides. MEC provides mentorship and connection opportunities so that new business owners can understand what it is like to work in the competitive market of business. The center also provides growing companies access to logistical and technical resources as well as shared office space so that they can store their products and services. This space will allow for a more efficient and smooth learning environment for business owners and their customers. Lastly, MEC connects companies to networks of peers whose experience they can learn from so that they can communicate ideas and recognize each other's perspectives. This will allow the business owners to take into account their own actions effectively and efficiently.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The Maestro Entrepreneur Center is a collaborative partnership with the Maestro Leadership Foundation and the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Hispanic Leadership Development Foundation, a 501(C)(3). MEC is a non-profit who has the capability to provide numerous resources such as goal-setting, but they only way we can help these small business owners meet their goals is through the generous funding from partners and through partnership support. It is our mission to aid the growth of businesses but we can not help everyone without assistance from the community. Our operational budget is mainly covered by the rent collected from leases, although, we need resources to carry the programs through. Our goal is to partner up with other key organizations that believe in our mission and support us monetarily to carry through the desired goals of others.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Our Proven Record: Maestro Entrepreneur Center has been open since May of 2016. Since 2016, MEC reported 165 new jobs created, incubated 30 companies with trackable growth from 10% to 75%, provided over 4,000 volunteer hours specifically supporting our small businesses and reported small business contracts awarded of $3.6 million. We have also had over 7000 people volunteer with our center and over 4000 people attend the programs that we offer. The objective for MEC is to continue to grow and help more businesses in the San Antonio area as we also bring more awareness to the center. The awareness will give our center a place in the community and will attract more people from the surrounding area to come and learn what it's like to run a business in our new world that is full of technology. In all, growing as a whole would help our center tremendously because we will be able to help more business owners and transform this economically disadvantaged side of town into a place where dreams can become a reality.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
MAESTRO LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION
Board of directorsas of 07/13/2021
Julissa Carielo
Tejas Premier
Term: 2016 -
Willie Ng
Blue Armor Security Services
Sherrika Arch
Straight Line Management
Hector Carrillo
HXH Solutions Inc.
Heather Crump Martin
RSM US LLP
Roland Gonzales
Cokins, Bosien & Young
Hugh Stevens
St. Mary's University
Siew Pang
Sunshine Uniforms
Waldinei Lafaiete da Cruz
Lafaiete Photography
Dennette Buenrostro
EPICC Vascular
Janelle Davila
Woodforest National Bank
Robert Ortiz
Wells Fargo
Liz Medina
BBVA Compass
Leslie Garcia
RSM US LLP
Chris Martinez
Central Electric
William Fernandez
Merrill Lynch
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Not applicable -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No