Entrepreneurship
Theme: Entrepreneurship
Cross-cutting themes covered: Tailored Business Support
Name of project: The Urban Project
City: London
What is it? The Urban Project works to promote entrepreneurship and the option of self-employment among hard-to-reach groups in London, enabling priority groups to move closer to starting up businesses.
Who is it? The project is delivered by GLE oneLondon.
Where is it? The project operates in Stockwell and Larkhall, areas of London that suffer high deprivation . Unemployment in the area is more than twice the London average at 10.9% in Stockwell, and 11.8% in Larkhall. This is exacerbated by a low level of economic activity, low skills base and a continuous stream of new arrivals into the area, including high levels of homelessness among young people.
Who funds it? The project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Urban II and the local authority, Lambeth Council.
How does it work? Tailored business support: The project provides detailed advice and guidance about self employment, enabling people to move closer to starting-up businesses. This includes not only core business skills, but also a programme to develop the softer skills – such as confidence, presentation, negotiation etc. – that are integral to being successful in business.
Personal development sessions to build confidence: During personal development sessions, the team took time to help people explore their business ideas, rather than immediately discussing the practicalities of raising finance and writing a business plan. Sessions also aimed to break down business stereotypes, for example the idea that you need to be aggressive to be a good salesperson, or that entrepreneurs are young, white men in suits.
Often, this personal development training is more about helping people to identify what skills they already possess, rather than giving them new skills. Demonstrating to people what transferable skills they already have (such as accounting skills from managing household finances) the team help to build up people’s self-confidence and self-esteem considerably. A key area is to give people a bit of ‘polish’, helping them to develop presentation and communication skills, so they can sell themselves and their businesses.
Anything else? Reaching the target group is the key challenge of the project. The team aimed to engage the community, through the following strategies: -
Is the model transferable ? Many aspects of this model, which makes business support services more accessible to priority groups, are transferable to other areas.
For example, offering personal development training to beneficiaries alongside more traditional business support provision would also be possible in other localities. This ensures that beneficiaries build up the softer skills for enterprise, such as communication and presentation skills. When working with priority groups, it is important to remember that only a small minority will actually go on to start up a business. Training in personal development, however, is never wasted. The skills people learn can be beneficial to them in many areas of their lives, helping them to find work (if they are unemployed) or to find better, more fulfilling work (if they are underemployed).
Employing local community members as outreach workers, to market services to local groups is also replicable in other areas. Where possible, outreach workers and business advisers should speak the same language as the target group.
Engaging local agencies, gatekeepers and ‘opinion formers’ to help recruit beneficiaries onto projects is another transferable element. These groups will already have the trust of the local community and will add much value to the project. Of course, a barrier to transferability is the willingness of local agencies to engage with business support providers.
In addition, experimenting with different timings and locations is a straightforward way of making the service as ‘easy-to-reach’ as possible.
The use of role models – from the same communities as those the project is seeking to engage – is also an effective way of building people’s confidence to start a business.
Building on local competitive advantages? The willingness of local agencies and opinion formers to engage in the project has been a significant local competitive advantage.
What are the barriers to transferability? Ensuring that business support is well-linked to advice on benefits, childcare and access to finance – likely to be key barriers to enterprise for hard-to-reach groups – is essential.
Finding adequate finances to deliver this resource intensive model could be a challenge to transferability; the Urban Project benefited from a concentration of public sector funding, through being in a designated Urban II area.
