SOFT TOUCH—Moorpark resident Kathleen Raulin founded online business Lotus Bebe, which makes eco-friendly, luxurious baby blankets. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers Kathleen Raulin scoured the Internet in search of a soybean-fiber blanket for her baby boy.

In 2004, the new mom had stumbled upon an article about the eco-friendly benefits of the textile.

Unlike traditional fabrics, soybean and bamboo fibers also have hypo-allergenic properties and are resistant to certain types of bacteria, she read.

“I thought, ‘I want something like this now,’” the 41-year-old Moorpark resident said. “I started doing research about where I could get it or how I could get it made.”

But when Raulin visited nearby shops and asked her friends, nobody seemed to have heard of soybean or bamboo blankets. She also saw found few stores that offered environmentally-friendly baby products.

That’s when Raulin came up with her big idea. She decided to get the blankets manufactured herself. She also began toying with the idea of starting her own business so she could make the blankets available to other moms.

Although the idea of entrepreneurship excited her, Raulin had no idea where to begin. She was working as a full-time marketing assistant and had no prior start-up experience.

It wasn’t until 2007 that she discovered Women’s Economic Ventures (WEV)—a Santa Barbara based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women start and develop their own businesses.

Raulin attended an orientation session, then signed up for the 14- week Self-Employment Training (SET) course at WEV’s Ventura office.

The course covered key aspects of managing a small business and helped students write a complete business plan.

“The program really helped me with how to keep track of things, how to keep organized and a lot of the financials,” Raulin said. “If I hadn’t taken those courses I would have struggled much more. I would have had to learn everything the hard way—like the legal and corporate aspects.”

By the time she graduated from the training course in 2007, Raulin had completed a 12-page business plan for her online store—Lotus Bebe. She was also able to secure a business loan and successfully launch the store the following year.

Today, Lotus Bebe offers wholesale “eco-luxurious” soybean and bamboo baby blankets at various boutiques and shops and on Amazon.com, Raulin said.

Economic empowerment

Marsha Bailey, founder and CEO of WEV, said the organization started with the goal of “empowering” women.

“When we started in 1991, there was a lot of publicity around the feminization of poverty,” Bailey said. “It widely publicized the disparity in earnings between men and women who were equally educated.”

Research at the time explored how a woman’s economic status would take “a really deep dive” after a divorce, while men’s lifestyles would improve, Bailey said.

“From my own point of view— I am a college-educated, middleclass, white woman and I still had a hard time supporting myself after a divorce,” she said. “I thought, ‘If this is hard for me, how hard must it be for women without the privileges I had, or for women who have children?’”

Shortly after her own divorce, Bailey founded WEV based on a peer-lending model that was established by Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, where small groups of lenders and borrowers funded each other’s micro-loans up to $1,500.

But by 1994, many women who were taking advantage of the program began expressing their desire for business training.

The organization soon launched the SET course and established a “small business loan fund” to provide larger loans up to $50,000— for start-up capital and business development loans.

Since then, WEV has loaned out more than $2.6 million and has provided comprehensive business training to more than 4,000 people, Bailey said.

About one-third of the organization’s funding comes from government grant funds. Private foundations, corporations and banks invest in the program as well, the CEO said.

In addition to the SET course, the nonprofit offers entrepreneurial coaching, business consulting services, a business plan intensive course and other business development programs.

“Women come to us for all different reasons,” Bailey said. “Some come to us because they’ve hit the glass ceiling. Some want more flexibility, or more money.

“But what we’re really offering women are more options and control over their own lives.”

For Raulin, taking part in WEV’s programs has done just that.

Along with Lotus Bebe, the entrepreneur has started her own graphics and Web design firm— Folded Crane Design.

“I’m pretty busy,” Raulin said. “I have to be organized and I have to plan out my day accordingly.”

Raulin said the skills she learned and the networking from participating in the SET course with other women has been invaluable.

“It’s women helping women,” she said. “It’s just more of a sisterhood connection.”

For more information about Women’s Economic Ventures, visit www.wevonline.org or contact Llewellyn Somers in the Ventura office at (805) 667-8004.