Celebrating Our Impact on Economic Equality

If it were up to me, we would celebrate women’s entrepreneurship every day of the year. The benefits to women’s economic security, their families and their communities, not to mention the broader economy, are far reaching.

November 19, however, was the day selected by the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization founder, social entrepreneur and humanitarian Wendy Diamond in 2013 (an initiative that made me the first Oceana ambassador of the event), to empower, celebrate, and support women in business worldwide. So as you can imagine, today is a very important day on the Rare Birds calendar.

To celebrate, Rare Birds have released an Impact Report on all of our activities and outcomes of the past year and you can read it HERE

Rare Birds is a proud enabler of women’s entrepreneurship in Australia and we are fortunate to have thousands of supporters in our community, both men and women, who contribute to our success. By providing one-to-one mentoring, delivering business masterclasses, providing peer-to-peer support and expanding our community, these gender equality champions have worked hard alongside the team at Rare Birds to deliver real social impact in 2021.

The Power of Partnerships

If I had to pick a theme for this year, it would have to be the power of partnerships. Rare Birds was able to support hundreds of women navigate job loss and business pivots due to Covid and its impact on the economy by partnering with both federal and local governments.

Our Women’s Business Scholarships program for female founders from marginal demographics was run with the support of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office For women. The cohort was made up of 90 women who were either from rural or regional areas (47%); migrants or refugees (23%); indigenous (12%); living with a disability (8%); or from a low socio-economic background (10%).

Designed to lessen the impact of Covid on their economic security, the program provided one-to-one mentoring, business building masterclasses and networking opportunities. One participant said: “Living in regional areas, it’s harder to come by people who are big thinkers and ambitious. So you don’t have anyone to bounce off, become excited with, open up new opportunities to each other and discuss the bigger picture. The ‘joy’ of my ‘enjoying the mentoring program’ came from having another like-minded person to learn from and have a conversation with each fortnight. It was so stimulating and refreshing.”

In 2021 Rare Birds also delivered two programs for the City of Sydney to support women in business. The PropelHer program was a business accelerator designed for women who had lost work due to Covid and wanted to start a business or take their side hustle full time. The main component of the program was a series of six 90-minute business masterclasses that was open to all eligible participants nationally. The course was delivered over 3 months, covering: Strategy and Purpose; Customer Identification; Product Development and Pricing; Legal and Governance; Digital Marketing; and Sales. Graduates were invited to apply for one of 15 scholarships to receive 6 months of 1:1 mentoring with a handpicked mentor from Rare Birds.

The InvestHer program was designed to close the gender gap in access to funding, providing women entrepreneurs with the knowledge and confidence to successfully navigate the investment community and improve their chance of raising capital. First class training was provided by investment experts over a series of three workshops and participants were then invited to an event where they were able to meet and connect with members of the investment community, including venture capitalists, angel investors and crowdfunders. Female founders who participated were also invited to apply for one of 10 scholarships to receive 6 months of 1:1 mentoring.

To read the full Impact Report on all of our activities and outcomes of the past year you can download it HERE