SCORE is the largest volunteer-based business network in the nation, dedicated to fostering the success of local entrepreneurs through a vast pool of resources and strong industry partnerships. SCORE is funded by the SBA and was founded in the mid 1950’s to help returning service women and men returning from WW2 to start business and create jobs. Our chapter, Score Santa Barbara County, is one of over 250 chapters located in all 50 states. Nationally, we have over 10,000 volunteers and do over 5 million hours of free mentoring to entrepreneurs and small business owners in 2023. In the last year alone, SCORE mentors nationally helped create over 155,000 jobs and start over 32,000 businesses. The strength and the effectiveness of our chapter is the excellence of our mentors; a group of successful, articulate, and intelligent individuals who can create logic and simplicity out of complex issues. Our members are diverse in their backgrounds, have experienced deep failures and incredible successes, but have only one goal at SCORE: they want to help! As a nonprofit organization, SCORE has a real-world impact on the success of small business owners.