Investing in thecommunity since 2015

Enterprise Starter works to provide accessibility to enterprise, particularly to those who are less exposed to business support due to socioeconomic factors. Equipping people with the skills and expertise to launch their own enterprise, which opens up scope for employability, is an important part of our core work.

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The Challenges

We are facing an unprecedented time of challenges

There are continued gaps in employment, particularly for young people who have to tackle the root causes of isolation, a lack of experience and deprived skill sets.

Unemployment in London is most prevalent

Youth unemployment is inexplicably higher than any other group, with 525,000 unemployed since May-July 2021 and numbers set to rise each month (House of Commons Library).

Our experience reveals that persistently large groups of young people remain stranded outside education systems and society’s workplaces and this is shown by the statistics below.

Unemployment in 16 to 24 year olds

17.6%

Unemployment in 25 to 64 year olds

4.7%

According to the Trust for London (2020)

Our Approach

We work to create projects that enable young people to have the opportunity to voice their opinions as well as put in place training programmes to improve their employability skills and achieve their personal goals.

A few examples of our projects are below

GradVantage

We worked with City, University of London to give a 4-week paid internship experience to recent graduates.

This partnership was funded by the Santander Universities Employability Scheme as per its SME Internship Programme and City, University of London’s Innovation Fund. The project gave students from ethnic minorities and underrepresented backgrounds valuable work experience, offering them careers guidance and employability support.

City, University of London

Summerversity

We hosted a summer holiday youth activity programme called ‘Website in a Week’ over a 10-day period which was funded by Islington Council. The project gave young people aged 13+ who live or go to school or college in Islington the chance to improve their independent skills, provide practical and new skills development for employment, build self-esteem and confidence, develop interests and talents, establish a hub for social connections and advice and most of all, have fun.

Islington Council

Mind Your Own Business

We secured a contract with the Education & Skills Funding Agency, where we support unemployed people into self employment over the course of a year. The project supported people who, due to effects of a disability, physical or mental health condition, had found it harder to find and sustain employment. Since the contract ended, 75% of attendees have gone into employment and others to run their businesses, with 10% of these people successfully in the growing stages of their business.

View the project

Eduction & Skills Funding Agency

Micro-Placement Programme

We worked with City, University of London to provide 4-weeks full time work experience to socio economically disadvantaged students. Enterprise Starter does not receive any funding for this project. The project gives socio economically disadvantaged students the opportunity to explore careers different from those traditionally associated with their degrees. It gives students the opportunity to explore and gain real-life exposure to the business environment and enhance their employability skills.

City, University of London

Kickstart Scheme

The Kickstart Scheme gave the opportunity to small businesses to hire young people facing long term unemployment to train them in workplace culture, CV writing, interviewing and more, in preparation for accessing a wider job market. At Enterprise Starter we were able to take the scheme a step further offering many of those who participated in the Kickstart scheme with us the opportunity to continue working for Enterprise Starter as full time employed members of staff.

Department of Work and Pensions

Self Employment Mentoring Circle

In 2022, Enterprise Starter partnered with Department for Work and Pensions to aid and assist unemployed people into self employment by starting their own business. The event was fully funded by Enterprise Starter, Business Design Centre and The Good Eating Company. The aim of this in-person event was to support people who due to the effects of Covid-19, claiming benefits, not bearing any knowledge on how to raise funding or generally not having an idea where to start with creating a business, could not move away from unemployment.

Department of Work and Pensions

Our model

Enhancing the local community

As a social enterprise, the revenue we generate is reinvested back into the community through our projects or into training The Entrepreneurial Team at Enterprise Starter so that we keep up to date and continue to be effective in the support we offer.

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Our Workshops

We have a strong history of developing and implementing hugely impactful outcomes-based programmes aimed at empowering people to start their own businesses or venture a new career path.

A few examples of our workshops can be found below:

Teaching new skills for employment

Advice on starting a new business

Employing an entrepreneurial mindset

Our testament

To empower communities across all of London

Over the last 12 months, 130 people have directly benefited from the works and services that Enterprise Starter provides. We have a proven record of building and managing innovative, effective, high quality business strategy options on time and on budget with in-house support services.

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