Everyone counts clients. Almost nobody checks if they are still standing a year later.
After 14 years building The Acceleration Project, the number I trust most is not how many small business owners TAP has served. It’s how many come back. When a TAP client returns, it means something real was built the first time, not a transaction but a true relationship. That is the standard I hold The Acceleration Project (TAP) to, and the numbers show what happens when a support model is built for the long game rather than the short transaction. TAP is a nonprofit that connects under-resourced small business owners with skilled volunteer consultants at no cost with the goal of helping them strengthen their businesses, create jobs, and build lasting wealth for themselves, their families and their communities.
Why I Stopped Counting the Easy Things: Rethinking Small Business Impact Metrics
In the world of economic development, success is often counted in the simplest terms: clients served, hours of consulting delivered, programs launched. But they are rarely the ones that keep me up at night, or the ones that tell me whether we are actually making a difference.
The question I care about is what happens after the engagement ends. That is why at TAP we track a broader set of outcomes, ones that reflect the depth and durability of the work we do alongside small business owners every day.
Small Business Survival Rate: The Number That Tells Me We Are Doing Something Right
93% of the businesses we work with are still operating a year later, based on internal survey results for clients who completed TAP Deep Dive programs. The national picture is far more sobering: more than 1 in 5 new U.S. businesses (22.1%) fail within their first year, and nearly half (48.6%) close within five years.
What a 95% Satisfaction Rate Actually Tells Me About Trust in Small Business Programs
There are metrics that measure what you did, and there are metrics that measure whether it mattered. A 95% satisfaction rate falls into the second category. To me, it is not a feel-good number. It is a signal that something human is working: that trust was built, that the relationship was real, and that the person on the other side of the table felt it.
My own path into this work shaped how I think about that. Early in my career, I was so focused on technical mastery, getting the grades, building the expertise, that I missed something. A classmate pointed it out: I was working hard on the wrong things. He was building relationships, and those relationships became a network that opened every door. It took me years to fully understand what that gap cost me, and what it costs the entrepreneurs we serve every day.
“It’s really human. The human is who people are attracted to, 100%.”
Jane Veron, CEO, The Acceleration Project
I shared more of these reflections in a recent episode of the Wings of Inspired Business podcast, hosted by Melinda Wittstock, where I go deeper into all of this. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts.
That belief runs through everything we do. For the entrepreneurs we serve, many of whom have been overlooked or underestimated by mainstream institutions, being truly heard by an expert who shows up prepared, follows through, and treats their business as worth the investment is not a small thing. For a lot of them, it is something they have never experienced before.
And that trust, once built, does not go away when the engagement ends. It is what brings clients back. It is what makes a 95% satisfaction rate mean something. And it is the reason I answer the same question the same way every time a small business owner asks whether they really need outside support:
“Most of our business owners are on their own. You don’t have to go it alone. Come to us, to TAP. We will be your advisors and help you think 360.”
Jane Veron, CEO, The Acceleration Project
Satisfaction rates and return rates are not vanity metrics. They are evidence of what it looks like when support is built around the person, not just the problem. And they are the metrics I will keep measuring, no matter how hard they are to explain.
Why Our Clients Keep Coming Back: What the Return Rate Really Means
The metric I find most meaningful of all is also the most personal: client return rate. Our clients do not come back because the first engagement fell short. They come back because their businesses are growing, their challenges are evolving, and they experienced the tangible value of TAP’s support. For time-pressed small business owners, choosing to come back says everything. We have what they need at every new stage, and they know it.
Our return rate is 48% in 2026. Among clients who first came to us on the topic of auditing their website, it reached 64%. Nearly half of our clients choose to come back, which is remarkable for any service, and especially so for small business owners who have almost no time to spare. To me, those numbers tell a story about trust.
We meet business owners where they are. For someone just getting started, that might mean a single 1:1 consulting session on building a value proposition or preparing for funding. For a business owner two or three years in, it might mean joining a small group coaching cohort on AI, marketing, social media, loan readiness, cash flow, or operations to work through a specific challenge. For someone ready to scale, it might mean a deep-dive engagement with a dedicated consultant team. We are designed to grow alongside the business, which is why clients keep coming back.
Why the Economic Development Field Needs to Measure What Actually Matters
I am seeing a shift across the economic development field, and I welcome it. Communities and funders are starting to ask harder questions, ones that go beyond the metrics easiest to report. That conversation is long overdue.
Counting heads in seats or dollars disbursed does not capture whether a family-owned restaurant survived its second year, whether a first-generation entrepreneur finally feels confident managing her books, or whether a small business owner came back six months later because she trusted us enough to ask for help again. Those are the outcomes that matter. Those are the ones worth measuring.
We do not just ask funders to take our word for it. An independent analysis by The Bridgespan Group found that every dollar invested in TAP generates ten dollars in economic value through revenue growth, job creation, and local economic recirculation. That is what rigorous impact measurement looks like, and it is the standard I think the whole field should be working toward.
I built TAP because I believed something was fundamentally broken: the best business advice in this country was flowing only to companies that could already afford it. The small business owners on Main Street, the ones keeping families employed and communities alive, were navigating it alone. At TAP, we are committed to changing that, and to building the evidence base that shows what lasting small business support actually looks like. Because these owners deserve more than a one-time resource. They deserve a partner who is invested in the long game, just as they are.
To hear Jane tell it in her own words, listen to the full episode on the Wings of Inspired Business podcast.
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