Crowdfund-her this International Women’s day #IWD2023

Over 60% of female business owners reported greater confidence, skills and support from others after crowdfunding.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Crowdfunder.co.uk have released a white paper which reveals that, for women in the UK, crowdfunding their new business idea can be a more productive route to securing real, lived power and freedom over their life choices. Crowdfunder are also announcing a free ‘Crowdfund-her’ webinar on Wednesday 8th March, in order to show their continued support to help drive women-led startups.

In 2019 Natwest’s first female CEO, Alison Rose, launched the UK Treasury’s review: The Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, to deliver interventions that would help women into business. A partnership between Natwest and Crowdfunder was explored through a Crowdfunder programme called #BackHerBusiness, which focussed on how crowdfunding could help overcome the barriers to female entrepreneurship.

The Rose Review estimated that if women chose to start and scale up their business at the same rate as men, this would have a £250 billion impact on the UK economy. But in the UK in 2019 only 6% of businesses in the UK were led by women. The research found that just 8.6% of women said they planned to start a business in five years, vs 14.3% of men, with women being half as likely as men to launch an idea.

The review looked at the barriers women face when it comes to starting or running a business. The top six barriers identified were:

• lack of finance
• resources
• access to networks
• business knowledge
• skills
• support from others.

Throughout 2022, Crowdfunder have been able to report that businesses started up from crowdfunding have been able to show:

• Over 60% of female project owners reported greater confidence, skills and support from others after crowdfunding.*
• Around 40% of female project owners felt they had greater access to resources, networks and finance after crowdfunding.*

In addition, research conducted by DCMS and Nesta, showed that over 82% of projects reported receiving non-financial help as a result of crowdfunding.
The 2019 Rose Review identified that the top reason women set up their own business was independence and the chance to make their own decisions, with 52% citing it as the main reason for doing so.

In 2022, of the circa 55,000 of projects that were added to Crowdfunder, close to half (43%) are female led, suggesting that women were finding crowdfunding a more accessible way to try out new ideas and start a business compared to traditional routes (eg bank loans).

Dawn Bebe, Co-founder & Director at Crowdfunder UK commented:

“Every year we see thousands of women crowdfund their ideas on Crowdfunder – and start their economic journey to having more power – not just empowerment.

For many women crowdfunding has become a more attractive way to start a new business or social enterprise than going to a bank.

We know it’s something women find they are good at, and they tell us that it helps give them confidence, a sustainable income and ultimately choices around independence and freedom to make their own decisions.”

Based on Crowdfunder’s conversations with woman-led crowdfunders, they believe that for a significant proportion of female project owners, their crowdfunded ideas have given them greater access to a livelihood in the future, with greater control of their life, career or family decisions.

This aligns with the statements from Melinda Gates in 2022 in regards to Women’s real, lived power:

“True equality depends not only on a woman’s ability to access a livelihood, but also on her ability to control it fully. It means not just putting food on a kitchen table, but also being able to make decisions for her family around that table. It means not just benefiting from a government policy, but designing those policies. It means not just empowerment, but real, lived power.’

As this work continues, we are announcing a free webinar; ‘Crowdfund-her’ on Wednesday 8th March live on LinkedIn to continue to help women-led startups, side hustles or small businesses grow to their potential. Whilst entering all eligible projects into a startups campaign to gain further investment into their projects.

To join the webinar please visit
crowdfunder.co.uk/crowdfund-her
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For more information please email [email protected] and visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/crowdfund-her