Volunteering with SCORE

Q: I’m at the age of retirement and have an opportunity to sell my business. Although I’d like to slow down, I’m not ready to stop working entirely. Any advice?


A: Why not spend some of your time helping promising entrepreneurs start or run their own small businesses? You could share your business expertise, give back to your community, gain satisfaction from seeing others succeed and connect with like-minded people by volunteering with SCORE. Each year, SCORE counselors touch thousands of lives, generously sharing their knowledge and experience so that entrepreneurs can realize their dreams of business success.

Nationwide 10,500 men and women in 389 SCORE offices donate their time and talent to assist America's small businesses. At SCORE Houston, volunteers provide confidential one-to-one and team business counseling and low-cost training workshops and seminars. In addition, many counselors are virtual volunteers, providing email counseling directly from their homes or offices. SCORE members can not get paid for the services they provide to our small business clients.

Counselors come from a variety of occupations and backgrounds. Both retired and working professionals are welcome in SCORE. Many volunteers owned small businesses for years while others worked for large corporations.

Whatever their background, SCORE counselors share a belief that small business owners are more likely to succeed if they have a business mentor to guide them. We currently are seeking new members of diverse backgrounds and experiences to complement our current team of over 70 volunteers in the Houston area.

Our members choose from a variety of ways to contribute to our mission; but, a most of our counselors are focused primarily on helping aspiring entrepreneurs develop their business plans and launch their first business. Many work with clients to find the financing needed to start or expand a small business. Others are involved in organizing client educational sessions, carrying out our chapter treasury and accounting activities, managing our internal computer network, publishing newsletters, or other administrative functions.

New members go through an orientation program to get familiar with SCORE and comfortable with the counseling process. All members stay up-to-date by attending regular monthly training sessions.

In Houston, we share offices and work closely with the Small Business Administration. We have several satellite locations throughout the city. Check out our web site, www.scorehouston.org.

If you have any questions or would like to volunteer, please e-mail us at score37@scorehouston.org, or, call our office at 713-773-6565 and leave a message for our membership coordinator to call you.