The founder is the system
Decisions, relationships, and know-how may all live with one person. A transition plan begins by naming the dependencies.
Stewardship Initiative
A continuity initiative by Go Fund Your Life®
You built the business.
Now build the plan around it.
If you could build a wall to protect everything you've built so far in business and in life, how tall would you build that wall?
1988 Her Legacy Stewardship Initiative helps women founders think beyond starting and growing. It brings protection, people, continuity, and what comes next into one connected conversation.
A first-generation founder focus, with room for every woman building a business legacy.
1974Equal Credit Opportunity Act
1988Women’s Business Ownership Act
38 yearsFrom the 1988 Act to 2026. Access matters. So does the infrastructure that helps a business endure.
Historical context: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on credit protections · Public Law 100-533, the 1988 Act
The longer view
From access to continuity.
Federal policy shapes more than the right to own a business. It affects access to credit, contracts, business data, and support. Each milestone below explains what changed for women business owners then and what it can mean today. The timeline separates changes in effect from Project 2025 proposals that have not been enacted. Similarity to a proposal does not, by itself, prove that the proposal caused a later action.
- 1974
Credit protections
Then: The Equal Credit Opportunity Act made credit discrimination based on sex or marital status illegal. It gave women a legal basis to challenge unequal treatment when seeking credit, including credit needed to start or run a business. Today: Fair access to credit remains a basic part of business opportunity, but a law alone does not guarantee equal access to capital.
Read the law’s history - 1988
Women’s business infrastructure
Then: The Women’s Business Ownership Act removed remaining state rules that required a male relative or husband to co-sign some business loans. It also created the National Women’s Business Council, the SBA’s Women’s Business Center program, and better data collection on women-owned businesses. Today: These steps moved the focus beyond the right to apply for credit toward advice, training, visibility, and practical support for starting and growing a business.
Read Public Law 100-533 · SBA history of the Act - 2025
Rules and guidance begin to shift
- Federal contracts: Executive Order 14173 revoked Executive Order 11246, ending that specific affirmative-action framework for federal contractors after a transition period. For women-owned firms: companies that relied on contractor goals or related supplier-diversity efforts faced a changed federal contracting environment. Other civil-rights laws still apply. The Department of Labor halted enforcement in January 2025 and formally rescinded the rules in August 2026. White House order · Department of Labor final rule
- Fair-lending guidance: On May 12, the CFPB withdrew several guidance documents, including its 2021 interpretive rule on sex discrimination under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. For women seeking business credit: the statute still prohibits discrimination, but lenders and the public lost one agency explanation of how the law applied. CFPB withdrawal record
- 2026
Credit rules and business data narrow
- Fair-lending rule: An April Regulation B rule removed the effects test and changed rules on discouragement and special-purpose credit programs. For women-owned businesses: this changes how unequal lending outcomes can be challenged and how some targeted credit programs can be designed. Read the CFPB rule
- Small-business lending data: A May rule narrowed which lenders, credit products, and data points are covered under Section 1071 and moved compliance to January 1, 2028. For women-owned businesses: less complete data can make it harder to see who is getting small-business credit and where gaps remain. The statute remains in place; the rule was narrowed, not repealed. See the Section 1071 rule status
- Women’s Business Centers: This support network remains active. On October 2, the SBA awarded $5.3 million to expand statewide Women’s Business Center networks, showing that support infrastructure continues even as other rules change. Read the SBA announcement
Proposed, not enacted
What Project 2025 says could go further
Project 2025 recommends that Congress abolish the CFPB and repeal Dodd-Frank Section 1071. As of October 7, 2026, neither proposal has been enacted: the CFPB still operates, and Section 1071 remains law. The 2026 changes narrowed the rule implementing Section 1071; they did not repeal the statute. If enacted: ending the CFPB could remove a federal agency focused on consumer financial protection, while repealing Section 1071 could end the law’s small-business lending data requirement. For women business owners, less oversight and less consistent lending data could make unfair treatment harder to spot and credit gaps harder to measure. That is a possible future effect, not a change that has happened.
Project 2025, Chapter 27 · About the CFPBMy hypothesis and response
From hard-won access to lasting legacy
Each milestone in this timeline changed the support women could use to build a business: credit protections, business counseling, better data, and access to new opportunities. These supports helped open doors, but they did not remove every barrier.
My concern is that as some of these supports erode, women-owned businesses could lose ground if we do not act. I believe this is a real risk.
That is why we need to strengthen the businesses women already own. Protect the work, prepare the people and plans a business depends on, and decide how its value can continue. This way the next generation will not need to start over, but instead pick up where we left off.
The gap between ownership and continuity
Ownership is a beginning.
Durability is the next milestone.
A business can be successful today and still depend too heavily on its founder, lack a clear path through a disruption, or have no plan for who carries its value forward.
Women have built businesses, hired teams, served customers, and strengthened communities. But growth alone does not create continuity. A sudden illness, a key employee leaving, an uninsured loss, missing records, or an unplanned transition can put years of work at risk.
The thesis behind this work is simple: business ownership should create something durable. That takes more than one policy or one plan. It takes the right people, protections, documents, financial readiness, and next steps working together.
Protection is disconnected
Insurance, contracts, employee needs, and continuity plans are often reviewed in separate conversations, if at all.
Success has no handoff plan
Without documentation, valuation readiness, or succession choices, a valuable business can become difficult to transfer.
“If you could build a wall to protect everything you’ve built so far in business and in life, how tall would you build that wall?”
The guiding question for 1988 Her Legacy Stewardship Initiative
Who this is for
For the woman who is building something that needs to last.
This initiative is being shaped for women business owners who want their work to hold up through change, and for the people and communities that count on it.
01
First-generation founders creating a business without a family playbook.
02
Owners with employees or contractors who depend on the business and its leadership.
03
Established founders preparing to grow, step back, transfer ownership, or protect family wealth.
04
Women leading nonprofits and community institutions who need leadership and mission continuity.
A note on nonprofit founders: Nonprofits are not owned by their founders. Their continuity work focuses on board governance, leadership succession, key-person dependency, mission protection, and preserving institutional knowledge.
A connected way to think about continuity
Build the fortress
one strong layer at a time.
Insurance is one part of legacy stewardship. The framework connects the business risks of today with the transitions and legacy goals of tomorrow.
Protect the work
Review the risks around property, liability, contracts, cyber exposure, and the people who keep the business moving.
Prepare for the unexpected
Reduce dependence on one person with practical plans for illness, disability, key roles, and emergency decisions.
Support the people
Treat employee stability, retention, and voluntary benefits as part of business continuity.
Strengthen the foundation
Bring financial readiness, documentation, reserves, and business value into the continuity conversation.
Plan what comes next
Make room for retirement, succession, transition, family priorities, philanthropy, and a legacy that can continue.
The right mix depends on the business, its people, its structure, and the founder’s goals.
What better preparation can support
A stronger foundation for the next chapter.
01 Clear priorities when everything feels connected
02 Fewer decisions that depend on one person
03 A more prepared team and more resilient operations
04 Better readiness for transition, transfer, and legacy
The agency behind the initiative
Her Legacy is part of
Go Fund Your Life®.
Go Fund Your Life® helps families and business owners manage risk and plan for their financial future. Her Legacy brings that work into a wider conversation about women founders: protecting the business, preparing the people and plans it depends on, and making room for what comes next.
The interest list helps shape this initiative. It is not an application for insurance or a commitment to buy a service. For current business protection and planning options, visit Go Fund Your Life®.
This conversation is still taking shape
Help shape what
comes next.
Join the interest list to receive updates and share what continuity means for your business.
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