Position: Director
Employer: The Women’s Business Center at True Access Capital
Age: 36
Ever since her days as a Girl Scout, Sara A. Crawford has been a champion for women’s success. As the director of the Women’s Business Center at True Access Capital, Crawford develops and implements programming to educate and empower small business owners, especially women-owned businesses.
Crawford is also the founder, head designer and creative director of Anara Original Fashion. As a small business-owner herself, she seeks to equip women entrepreneurs with the resources they need to start and run a business with one-on-one counseling, training sessions and networking events.
During the pandemic, Crawford created a project to allow the Women’s Business Center to train current and new business owners on how to maintain their businesses through COVID-19 and prepare for the future.
Last year, Crawford secured $829,000 in loan capital for small businesses, trained 1,320 aspiring and existing business owners, counseled 300 people, and hosted 83 events and training sessions. She has worked with disadvantaged areas to revitalize communities and teach up-and-coming business owners as part of True Access Capital’s “Community UP! Building Communities Through Business” initiative.
Crawford helped plan and participated in Delaware State University’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Week event. She also led and curated “Her Story, Our History,” an event that celebrated women in business and community changemakers in honor of Women’s History Month.
Delaware Today Magazine named Crawford a 2019 Women in Business honoree. She is also a member of For(bes) The Culture’s networking group and was appointed to the board of the Association of Women’s Business Centers.
As a Girl Scout, Crawford earned her Gold Award, the organization’s highest award. Today, she educates and empowers girls on their journey into womanhood, life, financial literacy, ideas for their Gold Award projects, and business.
Crawford spoke about being a Black woman with albinism in her TEDxTalk titled “A Signature Pigment” at TEDxWilmington in 2017.