EEDA - East of England Development Agency

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Supporting women in business

EEDA’s support to female entrepreneurs covers pre-start as well as start-up and and business growth activities.

Inspiring Women

This initiative is a £900,000 project co-funded by EEDA and the European Social Fund. It is designed to meet the needs of women who are at the very start of their employment journey.  It focuses on economically inactive women encouraging them to think about self employment as an opportunity. The programme works through a wide range of community and special interest groups to gain access and acceptance from a diverse range of clients.  These include, but are not limited to, groups with a focus on; age, ethnic background, geographic location or disability.

The initiative facilitates networking opportunities in locations and at times suited to the target audience. The prime purpose of the meetings is to develop self supporting peer groups who meet informally to share experience and subjects of mutual interest. The subject material is to be designed to appeal to women at the very early stages of their enterprise journey.  The courses will focus on early stage confidence building, idea generation, and early stage survival. Please note that funding is not available through this project.

This project is delivered by Norfolk and Waveney Enterprise Services (NWES) and if you would like to find out more about it please contact Michele Stewart on michele.stewart@nwes.org.uk.

Enterprising women

Enterprising Women is a vibrant and dynamic networking community providing comprehensive business support and specialist information to help women start-up and grow their businesses. The community comprises over 5,500 entrepreneurial women members and over 230 business organisations to further support members with their enterprise journey.

Founded in 2006 in response to a recognised need to unlock and stimulate the economic potential of women's entrepreneurship, this nation-wide organisation offers members a host of invaluable benefits. These include:

• business and personal profiles 
• business support resources and information
• networking events and training workshops
• fortnightly newsletters and members’ updates
• mentors database
• ask the expert

The community offers excellent business promotion opportunities, including home page Woman of the Week publicity, complemented by a huge range of information-rich resources to help members grow their business. Members can share information and experiences through dynamic networking activities and virtual debates via the blog, forum, Facebook and Linkedin

Members can also access the £10m loan fund Enterprising Women has arranged with Lloyds TSB Commercial. Over 30 dedicated female relationship managers support members on their individual business journeys, providing further support to businesswomen across the region.

As a dedicated, national networking community, Enterprising Women has gained industry-wide respect, winning the Prowess Best Newcomer 2009 Award, the prestigious Prowess Flagship Award in 2007and for being selected by the European Commission as one of three examples of national best practice for supporting SMEs.

To find out how the Enterprising Women members view the community’s services, view the Enterprising Women video or visit the website at http://www.enterprising-women.org/ for more information on the community and the benefits (PDF 1.1MB) of becoming a member.

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