Empowering Small Business Owners to Succeed

The Travelers Small Business Risk Education (SBRE) program leverages our employees’ expertise to help women, minority and veteran small business owners learn about risk management and business continuity, develop safety risk management plans and qualify for microloans. Travelers partners with nonprofit organizations throughout the United States to provide workshops.

Since the program’s inception in 2012, more than 3,500 representatives of women-, minority- and veteran-owned small businesses have attended risk management workshops and other events. In 2017, we launched a veteran-owned business program in select markets across the United States, and since launching this program, we have reached more than 500 representatives of veteran-owned businesses through workshops and events.

In 2019, we launched a partnership with Village Capital to provide educational and financial resources to entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) throughout the United States. In 2020, we announced an expanded partnership to specifically support ESOs led by and focused on business founders of color through Resource, a nationwide project that provides ESOs with infrastructure and investment-readiness support. Resource is co-led by Village Capital and the Black Innovation Alliance.

In 2021, Travelers continued to provide virtual workshops to our nonprofit partners’ small business clients and offered them the Travelers Institute Wednesdays with Woodward® webinar series, which explores pressing topics impacting individuals and businesses, such as cybersecurity, innovation and economic development. A few examples include:

• Travelers Institute Webinar: Small Business – Big Opportunity®
• Travelers Institute Webinar: Small Business in America: Where do we go from here?
• Travelers Institute Webinar: Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset: Employee Safety During COVID-19
• Travelers Institute Webinar: Liability Issues for Businesses in the Time of COVID-19
• Travelers Institute Webinar: PATH to Reopening Your Business
• Travelers Institute Webinar: Leading Through Crisis: A Conversation with Team Rubicon Co-Founder & CEO Jake Wood

Community Benefits

• Women-, minority- and veteran-owned businesses are driving economic growth and job creation in their communities; our support contributes to their success, which, in turn, leads to community vitality and resilience.

Travelers Benefits

• Travelers Risk Control professionals deliver the workshops, increasing employee involvement, raising the profile of Travelers among local business owners and creating a stronger emotional attachment to the Travelers brand.
• The SBRE content serves as a prototype for developing webinars and other helpful materials for Travelers customers.