Women Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Exchange of experiences between OECD and CEI countries

Seminar in Ljubljana, Slovenia

9 / 10 December 2003

Project Profile

Project name: WiRE (Women in Rural Enterprise) Region: , , (plus national remit) Organisation in charge of the project: College

1. Project Presentation

1. Project name WIRE (Women in Rural Enterprise)

2. Organisation in charge of the project and its legal status if applicable (enterprise, association, public initiative, private initiative, etc) Harper Adams University College. Higher Education Institution (Charitable Status)

3. Location (country, region, city or place) and date of creation Research into Farm Family income and business networking started in 1997 First project income was given in 1999 and the project was launched in 2000 with a conference. More project funding in 2002 to start to spread the offering nationally

4. Name of the person(s) in charge of the project Izzy Warren-Smith – Director Hannah Robinson – Outreach Manager Clare Hill – Shropshire project Officer

5. How many people are involved? Number of female and male workers On the West Midlands project we now have 4 members of staff (all female). Nationally we have 11, (10 female, 1 male!)

6. If appropriate do you work with family members on a full time basis? Or do you involve family members occasionally? Not at all? For participants we occasionally work with other family members when needed, with regards to staff this question would not apply

2. Identification of the organization in charge of the project

PERSON(S) : CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Last name/ first name: Hannah Robinson/Clare Hill Function(s): Outreach Manager/Shropshire Project Manager Language(s):English Address: Harper Adams University College, Edgmond, Shropshire TF10 8NB, UK Tel./ 01952-815338 Fax.:/ 01952-825849 E-mail:/[email protected] or web:www.wireuk.org

3. Original diagnosis, Objectives and Methods

BACKGROUND AND GENERAL CONDITIONS IN WHICH THE PROJECT WAS LAUNCHED

The last 5 years have not been an easy time for farming and related industries in the UK. Falling farm incomes and the disruption caused by foot and mouth have caused business failures and pressed the need for the industry to diversify. At the same, changing demographics and the in-migration of a professionally qualified middle class population into many rural areas has created both opportunities and a need for employment. Research conducted at Harper (Warren-Smith 1997, 1999) suggests that, in line with the national picture, this employment is taking the form of micro-businesses, particularly in the service sector. During the process of this research it was also identified that there was a dearth of available help and advice that was targeted at the female rural entrepreneur. Whilst other networks exist for female entrepreneurs it was felt that they were aimed at a different, more urban focused business. Similarly, they were invariably located in the larger towns that were not always easily accessible to rural female business owners. Available business advice providers were largely perceived to be ill equipped to help with queries for businesses that had very cultural and location specific problems. Many of the respondents during the process of this research began to address their needs to the researcher Izzy Warren-Smith, and as a result WiRE began as Izzy organised the first conference in 2000. Initially she expected 70 –80 delegates to attend and was overwhelmed with a response of 450 delegates from rural areas all over the UK, which merely served to highlight the need for such an organisation as WiRE to exist

DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECTIVES IN QUALITATIVE AND/OR QUANTITATIVE TERMS

1. Do you have specific objectives in qualitative terms?

WiRE is a dynamic networking and business members club aimed at helping as many rural women in whatever way possible, towards starting and maintaining their own rural enterprise. WiRE is particularly aimed at active promotion of business startups, and support for rural micro business. In addition existing business can benefit from access to expert advice, business mentors and financial packages. Based around WiRE’s long standing research of ‘what works’ there is a need for the provision of rural specific training, mentoring, access to finance and furthermore the comfort of a network of ‘likeminded people’. Rural isolation and lack of confidence can prevent women starting a new business in rural areas however the WiRE provisions have proved a means to overcome these barriers and build on business opportunities.

2. Do you have specific objectives in quantitative terms? (example: number of actions to be taken, expected number of beneficiaries, target groups) Since recently being awarded an ESF grant for the West Midlands regions we now have specific outputs for the West Midlands

GENERAL APPROACH

1. What was your strategy to achieve the objectives? WiRE is particularly aimed at active promotion of business startups, and support for micro- and SME businesses, targeted at already identified client groups in the rural economy, and across the rural/urban divide. It is not political, but seeks rather to provide help that is currently unavailable to the target group at the present time. Recent awards, such as the sought after DTI/HEFCE Business Fellowship (awarded to Izzy Warren-Smith, WiRE Project Director), and more recently the HEIF bid award, highlight that it is recognised as an exemplar project for ‘reach-out’ in the HE sector. The focus to date has been initially on the West Midlands region. Now, in tandem with Business in the Community (BiTC), it has the potential to expand to a national scale. It aligns closely with the RDA's (eg Advantage West Midlands) Economic Strategy and Action Plan and directly addresses some of the key sectors and clusters identified for growth, namely specialist business and professional services, as well as assisting in the process of creating entrepreneurial communities in the region's rural sector. Public and private sector providers have been consulted with regard to the proposal, and have committed themselves to it. These include Business in the Community (BiTC), The Countryside Agency (CA), HSBC, Harper Adams University College (HAUC), Shropshire Business Link, British Gas and Strawberry Fields Marketing and PR.

2. Did you have different stages in your general strategy and what were the practical steps taken to implement your strategy?

WiRE is a nationwide business membership club and is able to offer its central services to members all around the country, as a listed below : Annual membership of WiRE costs just £20, and nationally, includes; • HSBC preferential Business Banking Package • Business Mentoring • Grant signposting • Phone support • Newsletters • WiRE website facilities (www.wireuk.org) • Business listing in the WiRE directory • Umbrella Marketing (web based) • National Conferences

Once these offerings are established wherever possible (funding permitting), following the success of WiRE Shropshire, in partnership with SBS/Business Link Shropshire we have begun to offer networking and rural specific training sessions in three market towns, at differing times and locations to facilitate easy access. These have proved to be extremely popular and effective in their outputs for both WiRE members and Business Link Shropshire who provide some of the trainers and mentors. More recently we have branched out into the East Midlands, East of England, Yorkshire and the South West. There is a particularly strong partnership with Business Link Gloucestershire who is partnering WIRE in a number of bids. We are working closely to develop and foster relationship in the other areas, specifically with the Rural Business Desk in Lincolnshire and Business Links throughout Yorkshire. WiRE is keen to establish satellite partnerships in new areas. The strength of these partnerships lay in WiRE’s fast growing membership base in a market segment notoriously difficult to access (the rural community). This arises out of the unique position that Harper Adams University College has within the rural community. It is widely recognised as a ‘brand name’ that is for and thoroughly understands the community it serves. As policy, in any new area that WiRE is invited into it will always seek to work in partnership with SBS/Business Link and the local Agricultural Colleges.

3. What kind of difficulties did you encounter when implementing your strategy? Try to be specific (administrative, economic, financial problems, mentalities…)

Some of the problems have been highlighted above but the most time consuming problem is that of access to finance for the project. WiRE often finds itself in the unusual position of having clients that are asking for help but is unable to find the funding that it needs to give that help. Ironically at the same time we are invariably approached by agencies and institutions that have accessed funding, but do not have the customer base to meet their targets and objectives. Although WiRE works wherever possible with these other projects, the objectives, methods of delivery and self imposed constraints mean that their approach is unsuitable for our customer base. Conversely, now that we have ESF funding in the West Midlands the bureaucratic process is so overwhelming there are times when we wonder whether it is worth the funding! The process of accessing funding is often very complex as well as long winded. WiRE can establish an urgent need for its services in an area, apply for the appropriate funding by meeting tight deadlines only to be left waiting for up to 18 months before anything comes through. Unacceptable public sector procrastination! Overwhelming demand without sufficient resources to meet the need is ongoing. The general attitude towards us in rural areas has been helped by the Harper Adams banner but we are often ‘pigeon-holed’ as ‘lifestyle’ helpers as we have women in the project title!

RESULTS 1. Did you achieve your results as planned? Only business-wise? Do they have a social dimension (see also section 5)? We are constantly over exceeding our funding dependant targets business wise but take enormous encouragement from the successes with regard to the social dimension, which we measure from membership response via telephone calls, cards, emails. Some of these are personal but have much wider ripple effects in the communities that these women operate within.

2. When did you achieve your results? At the beginning, during implementation, or afterwards? Thankfully at all stages – the project is ongoing although its ultimate success will be that it is no longer needed (ie that women’s enterprise in rural areas will be thoroughly mainstreamed)

4. Financing

Please indicate the amounts in Euro

1. How did you finance your project? (self-financed, public/private financing) A mixture of university support, private and public sector financing

2. What were the amounts involved? In Shropshire we began in 1999 with a conference budget of 3900 euro’s and 16250 euro’s of private sponsorship. We then in 2002 received HEIF (Higher Education Innovation Funding) funding of 111.150 euro’s over 3 years. With this help we recruited 2 personnel and have been able to now lever up to 975,000 euros funding to date.

3. How did you identify your financing sources? By matching European, national and regional policy objectives to our own and bidding accordingly as well seeking private business sponsorship opportunities

4. What were the advantages and the constraints in the financing process? See Section 3!

5. What are your current financial needs? Ongoing help is needed to reach new areas of the UK where no such help exists We estimate 153000 euro’s per area per year minimum 6. What are your estimated future financial needs? Impossible to quantify how much and for how long help will be needed as it is so dependant on so many mitigating factors!

5. Social innovation: does your project respond to the following criteria?

1. Does your project respond to a new social need and how (products, technologies)? Research found that most creative diversifications in rural areas were driven by women with regard to 'non farm but on farm' enterprises. The impetus for change is coming in from women who are creating many new businesses that range from trouser production to language translation centres, in a desire to adapt to the economic changes and provide a sustainable future in the countryside for their children. • WiRE has also found that many female professional in-migrants into rural areas are also drivers of rural micro-business start-up. • The peak age group for entrepreneurship is 35-44 for men and 45-54 for women. The Majority of WiRE membership is between 35 and 55 • Research has shown that main areas of difficulty facing these businesses were mostly location specific, which most support agencies could not cater for. Problems of isolation, lack of basic business services in a rural location, specific planning and environmental knowledge that was lacking, access to finance, confidence and time management because of other care commitment issues were also highlighted. • Recent work done by WiRE for LANTRA and the Labour Force Survey have highlighted the need for female friendly business support, help and advice with marketing, access to finance, pump priming and hand holding in the initial stages of business start-up. This corroborates research conducted in the 80’s suggesting that little targeted and sustained help has been available.

2. Did you develop new forms of labour organisation and working methods (e.g. the share and distribution of tasks, functioning of the operational team) inside your project? WiRE operates very much on a team planning development basis with regular updates and creative ‘away days’ to do strategic planning. It attempts to be non hierarchical in its operation, frequently operating on an ‘all hands on deck’ basis despite each team member having specific ‘public’ responsibilities

3. Have you established new forms of collaboration/partnerships between the private, public, non profit sectors or innovative forms of community participation? Yes, both public (SBS etc) and private sector (HSBC bank) partnerships see above particularly sections 3. Examples of this would be HSBC giving us a seconded to work in one of our regions.

Do you utilise local resources in an innovative way? We try to – we operate a ‘use local’ marketing policy where applicable, particularly with members products.

4. Are you using new forms of financing? As yet, no, although we are introducing community financing, micro-finance and venture capital to our members and looking to become self financing ourselves over the next 3 years

5. What are the social impacts of your work on: your employees, your clients, your community? WiRE would hope that, as a project, it provides stimulus and encouragement to all three groups listed above as well as sound practical advice. We know that it has provided political advocacy and that it has contributed in large measure to the mainstreaming of female rural enterprise into national rural policy

6. Does your initiative have a strong probability of having a long life? According to you can it be replicated or transferred to another area? Yes if managed properly it will enjoy a relatively long existence and it is being replicated in South Africa as well as other regions of the UK. It originated from my experience in Nigeria whilst working with the World Bank.

7. Can you think of other socially innovative initiatives in your region? The West Midlands has excellent micro-credit initiatives, women’s enterprise forum and community development projects

6. Future development of your project

EXCHANGING LESSONS LEARNED

1. How would you assess your experience? (in terms of your successes and of existing difficulties). The experience has been a positive one. Despite the difficulties that we have experienced the women we assist are such a dynamic force in their communities it is worth the struggle. We have been fortunate in our success which has revolved around being customer driven

2. What advice would you give to someone launching a similar project?

The first priority is to offer what your client base needs, which means that necessary research must be conducted before the project starts. The second is to ensure you have sufficient funding or income to deliver it before you start and find you are unable to finish due to lack of finance and most importantly, finding the right staff to deliver it. One of our most successful field officers is a secondment from the private sector (HSBC)

3. If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Be much more proactive and less apologetic – we have not been proud enough of our achievements and not publicised them sufficiently!

4. What would be the most efficient way to make it known?

We have found that although the normal routes of dissemination have been used with some success (web, conference papers, word of mouth) the most efficient and successful way is still though networking with the ‘right’ connections (these will vary depending on the project). The personal approach is the only really successful one.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

1. What are your needs today and in what areas (except financing)? And tomorrow?

Other than resources definitely more political goodwill and less marginalisation (most of our bids are immediately placed into the ‘ethnic minorities and specialist groups’ categories instead of enterprise!!!!!!!!)

2. Are you interested in entering new markets (regional, national, international) and having new partners? Yes, always provided we all are working to the same end.

3. Are you interested in being part of a partnership/ network? What would you expect from this seminar? Please try to be specific. Yes, WiRE would be interested. I would expect openness and common vision as well as business contacts for development, sharing ideas and best practice dissemination