In 1981, Nancy Engel took $30 of her last welfare check and launched The Sunny Window, a fragrant soap and potpourri business. To grow her business, Nancy enrolled in the Center for Women & Enterprise's First Step FastTrac course to develop a comprehensive business plan. With the business plan completed, Nancy began working with a CWE volunteer marketing consultant, Joyce McClure, to develop her marketing strategy. Working with Joyce, Nancy secured publicity for The Sunny Window in national publications like Family Circle, Parade and The Boston Globe. This enabled her to significantly increase her business, get her website launched, and eventually become the Small Business Administration's "Welfare-to-Work Entrepreneur of the Year" for the state of Massachusetts in 1998.

Today, Nancy's thriving enterprise distributes products from around the world in addition to her own locally manufactured soaps and sachets. Nancy has not only been able to support herself and her daughter, but she has also been able to send her daughter to college solely from the profits of her business.

Nancy has since become a charter member of CWE's Entrepreneurs Fund, a group of entrepreneurs who financially support aspiring or existing women business owners by giving back to CWE. Nancy decided to market a new product, a watering can purse, and donate $2 from each sale to CWE. To date Nancy has contributed $2,000 and the orders keep on coming! She has also recently joined the Worcester Advisory Board as a voice for CWE clients.

To learn more about The Sunny Window, please contact Nancy at www.sunnywindow.com, or (508) 485-8132.

To learn more about giving to the Entrepreneurs Fund, please contact Meredith Pierce Hunter at or 617-536-0700 ext. 237.