Small Business Majority offered testimony on the Ohio Fairness Act, which would revise Ohio’s nondiscrimination code to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The bill will ensure that all of Ohio’s citizens receive equal protections in employment and public accommodations.
Ohio Small Business Owner Highlight

To say that Columbus entrepreneur Victoria Calderon wears many hats is an understatement. In addition to co-owning two successful businesses with her sister, Virginia Nunes Gutierrez, Victoria is a marketing expert, policy advocate and published author with more than 10 years of experience in the media, corporate, non-profit and small business sectors. Victoria is also a first-generation immigrant from Venezuela who is fluent in Spanish, English and Brazilian Portuguese.
Ohio Events
Ohio Policy
Ohio Research
Small businesses in Ohio are still struggling to hire and retain a ready workforce, persistent challenges in the wake of the pandemic.
While small businesses employ nearly half (46.4%) of the private workforce in the United States, many are struggling to hire and retain a ready workforce. One viable solution to their persistent workforce challenges is the passing of Clean Slate policies, which seal and expunge certain criminal records and allow justice-impacted individuals to seek employment opportunities and entrepreneurship. Individual state analyses of small business responses in Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas found widespread support for Clean Slate policies at the state and federal level.

Small Business Majority released a national scientific opinion poll—including oversamples in five states—that found small business owners oppose denying services to LGBT customers based on religious beliefs, rights to free speech or freedom of artistic expression. Further, the poll showed that a majority of small businesses support enacting federal and state laws to protect LGBT individuals from discrimination in places of public accommodation. Small business owners feel that nondiscrimination policies are good for their state’s business climate and their own business’s bottom line.