NatWest Back Her Business has provided £1,500 of match funding
Help Women's Society grow!
Rossendale, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Raising money to expand Women's Society events and launch a subscription service to provide support and training for female entrepreneurs.
Who am I?
I'm Gaby, the founder of Women's Society. My passion lies in female entrepreneurship, encouraging women to start businesses and supporting those who already have! I have been self employed for almost 5 years and prior to Women's Society I had a children's wear business, it was during this time that I realised the lack of support for female led businesses, especially in small towns. After I graduated university in October 2018 with a Ba Hons in Business, I started to think about how I could make a difference to other female entrepreneurs by sharing my knowledge and passion.
For the past 5 weeks I have been through a gruelling application for funding through a government backed scheme. After lots of false promises, the application was rejected and I received very little feedback as to why. Which is why i find myself here!
What is Women's Society?
My business is Women's Society and for the last 6 months we have been successfully hosting networking events and workshops in Rossendale. These events are 10 a penny in cities and larger towns, but lacking in smaller and lesser developed areas. Women's Society's plan is to expand events into other small towns across the North West as well as launching an online subscription service where members can access all the resources and training necessary to start and scale their businesses.
Your donation will help us champion small female led businesses and provide a community of like minded and supportive women. As well as opportunities to collaborate with larger brands and get their businesses out there!
Women's Society is serious about getting smaller towns on the map and one of our proudest achievements so far is partnering with Google Digital Garage on a free event to bring digital skills training to Rossendale!
We have achieved so much so far and are determined to continue to support small female led businesses through Women's Society. Your support will create these opportunities for growth for the members of Women's Society.
This crowd funder will not only help me as the founder of Women's Society, but will help women across the North West too!
Why it's important?
Female entrepreneurs are the key to accelerating economic growth. According to the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, up to £250 billion of new value could be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men.
But there are so many barriers to this, including childcare, lack of networking opportunities and mentoring, fear of failure, psychological barriers and bias against women. But the biggest barrier is the lack of funding available, which is something that I have witnessed first hand. Alarmingly, only 13% of senior people on UK investment teams are women and less than 1% of UK venture funding goes to all female teams!
Where will the money go?
The money raised will go towards the launch of the Women's Society subscription service and the tools and resources required to do this. It will allow female entrepreneurs to access workshops and support local to them. Your support will create empowered females across the North West! Part of Women's Society's aim is to provide talks in universities and colleges encouraging female students to start their own business and provide them with access to tools, resources and coaching to help them achieve this.
This project successfully funded on 19th December 2019