There is power in the collective impact of women banding together to support one another. For many of our Female Founders, the pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges, making strong female networks more important then ever. In our Mentoring Matters report we talked about how mentoring increased not only knowledge and skills, but importantly self-confidence.
Our Female Founders have channelled the power of collaboration and raised each other up. We are seeing digital events being offered which go beyond technical content and focus on mentorship, well-being and stress management.
In this week’s newsletter, we cover the important policy updates you should know about, including the UK Government's recently revealed COVID-19 recovery plan. We also provide some updates on the opportunities available to our Female Founders. We finish with a wrap up of news highlights from this week.
UK GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
This week, we cover policy updates related to the Government Support schemes on offer and the Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy. We would encourage you to check out the UK Government’s Coronavirus Business Support Hub for more information. Keep an eye out for our business resilience checklists, which we will be releasing in the coming weeks, for tailored support.
1. COVID-19 Recovery Strategy
This week, the UK Government released its COVID-19 recovery strategy, setting out an indicative roadmap to “return life to as close to normal as possible, for as many people as possible, as fast and fairly as possible... in a way that avoids a new epidemic, minimises lives lost and maximises health, economic and social outcomes.”
The precise timetable for these adjustments will depend on the infection risk at each point, and the effectiveness of the Government’s mitigation measures like contact tracing. If you are interested in reading more about the three phases for reopening, check out our recent policy update.
2. Top-Up Grant Funds Scheme
The UK Government has responded to concerns from SMEs who were not able to access the Small Business Grants Fund (SBGF) and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund (RHLGF). The additional fund of £617 million is aimed at SMEs with ongoing fixed property-related costs. We covered this in our recent policy update.
Allocation of funding will be at the discretion of local authorities who have been asked to prioritise businesses in shared spaces, regular market traders, small charity properties that would meet the criteria for Small Business Rates Relief and B&Bs that pay council tax, rather than business rates.
There will be three levels of grant payments:
1. £25,000 will be the maximum.
2. £10,000 grants will also be available.
3. Local authorities will have discretion to make payments of any amount under £10,000. (It will be for councils to adapt this approach to local circumstances.)
You can check out more about the Top-Up Grants here and find your local authority here.
3. Support for our Start-ups
In our previous newsletter, we covered the UK Government’s Future Fund, set up to support start-ups through coronavirus. The Future Fund will issue convertible loans of between £125,000 and £5 million to startups seeking bridge funding for working capital purposes.
Our Member, Emma Sinclar, has written an open letter to Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, calling on the HM Treasury to align the Future Fund with the Diversity Agenda. As Emma highlights in her petition, with only 1% of VC funding going to Female Founders in 2019, they are less likely to have raised the £250k required to receive support. The open letter urges the Chancellor to set an “aspirational target” for backing diverse founders, to ensure that the Future Fund does not set back the Diversity Agenda.
4. Job Retention Scheme
The UK Government has extended the Job Retention Scheme for 4 months, until October. There will be no changes to the scheme until the end of July, whereby the government will pay 80% of furloughed workers’ wages up to £2,500 per month. From August, the scheme will continue for all sectors and regions, but with greater flexibility to enable companies to bring furloughed staff back on a part-time basis. Employers will need to share with HMT the cost of paying employees' salaries.
5. Bounce Back Loans
The Bounce Back Loan scheme for small businesses launched last week. The Government is guaranteeing 100% of the loan and there won’t be any fees or interest to pay for the first 12 months. You can borrow between £2,000 to £50,000. Barclays has launched their Bounce Back Loan Scheme, for more details click here.
BARCLAYS SUPPORT AND OPPORTUNITIES
1. Female Founders Forum - 2020 Events
In our previous newsletter, we announced the regional roundtable Eagle Lab events which will be kicking off in September. The events will be run either digitally or physically, depending on the lockdown guidance. We received a great response from Female Founders in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Southampton, Leeds and Newcastle.
If you know of any female leaders in these regions, we would like to hear from you/them. Please get in touch or pass on my details jess@tenentrepreneurs.org.
2. Barclays Coronavirus Support Hub
The Barclays coronavirus support hub provides the latest information, tools and guidance to support businesses throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This hub includes information about Barclays products, webinars, Facebook live events and more information on how to access the government schemes.
You can also download Barclays’ coronavirus checklist to support your business resilience planning throughout this period. There is also an updated FAQs section on this hub , which provides the latest information for businesses.
3. Barclays Eagle Lab headline RE-Defined
Barclays Eagle Labs are this year’s headline sponsors of RE-Defined. A virtual conference celebrating the successes and resilience of female founders and underrepresented women in business across the UK.
Taking place on Friday 29th May the conference will include practical workshops, curated talks and a panel session featuring inspirational female founders and leading women in business. This is a ticket-only event – to secure your place click here.
FEMALE FOUNDER HIGHLIGHTS
Here is a quick wrap up of some of the news highlights, featuring our Female Founders.
Our FFF Member, Tugce Bulut, founder of Streetbees, spoke to The Times this week, about how quickly her staff adapted to home working, explaining that she is now considering permanent changes: “I don’t think we’ll ever resume full-time office work,” she said. “It’s important for the culture we don’t give it up entirely, but things will change forever.
In an open letter to AWS’s CEO, our member, Emma Sinclair, called on the company to give oxygen to start-ups and scale-ups right now, by extending additional credits. Emma believes that Amazon is in a position to make a dramatic impact on the Global tech community. By giving out free credits, Emma believes, this will give struggling small businesses more runway. If you are interested in reading the letter, you can see it here.
In an effort to support the struggling hospitality sector, our new Regional Member, Julie Grieve, has announced free use of Criton’s hotel guest engagement platform until 2021. Julie said to Insider: "it’s been very hard watching the impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality sector and all of the fantastic people who work in it”.
Our Member, Julia Elliott Brown, has been running a series of online Masterclasses, including a free Masterclass on Raising Investment in Challenging Times. These Masterclasses are aimed at supporting small businesses through through coronavirus. Julia has also been offering personalised support to female entrepreneurs with Enter the Arena’s Fundraising Academy.
In order to help business owners manage their money more effectively, Felicia Meyerowitz Singh, founder of Akoni is providing its cash marketplace and tools for free to SMEs. You can register here for free for access to market-leading interest rate accounts, cash planning tools and tips.
We want to inspire female entrepreneurs across the UK. Do you know any inspiring female entrepreneurs?
Connect them to me at jess@tenentrepeneurs.org and sign up to our Newsletter, which we send out every two weeks.
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