In this interview, Virginia Littlejohn recounts NAWBO's remarkable rise from the mid‑1970s through the late 1980s, highlighting bipartisan presidential support for women’s entrepreneurship and the organization’s strategic, high‑performance approach. She describes the 1980 National White House Conference on Small Business as a stepping‑stone, then details the 1986 initiative where NAWBO deliberately avoided a “women’s agenda” label, securing 25 of 26 policy recommendations. The narrative culminates with the 1988 Women’s Business Ownership Act, where NAWBO, led by President Jillian Rudd, pursued five key objectives—creation of the National Women’s Business Council, Census counting of women‑owned firms, establishment of women’s business centers, removal of loan‑co‑signing barriers, and a 5% public‑procurement goal. She shares the powerful testimony of a single mother forced to have her teenage son co‑sign a loan, which shocked congressional members, and notes that President Reagan signed the Act without formally recognizing NAWBO’s role. Throughout, Littlejohn emphasizes the strategic foresight, teamwork, and unexpected victories that reshaped the landscape for women entrepreneurs.
Chapters
Every president from Richard Nixon on was very supportive, supportive to very supportive of women's entrepreneurship because they saw it as an economic growth opportunity. And some women who were in the Carter administration later became members of NAWBO. There was this absolutely astonishing period from the mid-'70s to 1988 or 1990 where we just had incredible strategy, unbelievably high-performance teams that were working together. And so they were very strategic, very strategy-driven. And so we punched massively above our weight. It was extraordinary. Sometimes we could barely imagine what we had just accomplished. In 1980, we had the first National White House Conference on Small Business. That was like training wheels. We decided for 1986, we decided this was going to be one of our punching above our weight type initiatives. We decided ahead of time on 3 issues that were going to be really big ones that would be unlike anything they would think that we would be interested in. None of our policies had to do with women because Because we didn't want to be dismissed, we got 25 of our 26 recommendations in Framework for the Future adopted. The world changed. The world absolutely changed. And all of a sudden, all of the male business groups, which were most of them exclusively male at that point, they all then wanted NABO members to be members of their organization, members of their board. But we really did not have a women's agenda. At that point at all. And, and we basically saved that for 1988 with the Women's Business Ownership Act. Jillian Rudd, our president in '87-'88, found herself opposite, over a shrimp bowl, Congressman John LaFalce of New York, and she asked him if he would be open and receptive to a hearing on women's business ownership. John said yes. he would, but they didn't have deep staff expertise on that topic, and NABO would have to help them. Would NABO consider doing that? And oh yes, would we ever. So we decided that we were that weekend going to have a strategic slumber party. Really, we, we couldn't sleep because the ideas were so exciting. Everything that we had not done for the '86 White House Conference, this was really what we had been waiting for, an opportunity like this. We had 5 key things that we wanted to achieve. One was the creation of the National Women's Business Council. We also wanted to have the Census Bureau count all women-owned businesses. We also wanted the creation of women's business centers. And hugely important on the access to finance front was that women could not get a loan in their own name. They could only get a male relative to cosign. And then the 5th issue was access to public procurement, and we wanted a 5% goal. So we had witnesses for all of those areas. Our most amazing reaction was to our financial witness. Divorced, her father had passed away, she did not have a brother, so her 16 or 17-year-old son had to co-sign her application for a business loan, and the members of the committee were absolutely stunned. stupefied with this information. And that, that was like one of the big headlines out of the hearings. President Reagan was who officially signed it, and I was not invited to the event. Nauba was not officially honored as the key architect, but we celebrated nevertheless. We could barely believe what we had pulled off.
