Integra has been providing communications advice and support to Prowess for three years. Prowess is a national organisation established to promote women’s enterprise and effective business support to women. Prowess, like Working Ventures is financed by a combination of public money, fees from members and income from training and events.
Prowess core objectives have been to promote the concept of women starting in business, so as to lift the levels of women’s entrepreneurship in Britain and to encourage providers of business support, normally funded through government resources, to adopt best practice in providing business advice to women.
Integra has worked closely with the Prowess team to implement communications strategies which promote women’s business success, publicising weaknesses and failures in the provision of business support to women and engaging the opinion formers, funders and policy makers in the needs of women entrepreneurs.
Particular planks of the strategy were:
A high level of national media work based around successful women’s business startups, research commissioned by Prowess and policy comment national quarterly magazine distributed to Prowess members and all individuals identified as important opinion formers and policy makers in the sector. The magazine was tailored for its role by Integra and we also found a funder who was prepared to finance the publication for two years.
A particularly effective communications device was the publication of regional directories of business support for women in which the local business support organisations and networks were listed together with the facilities they offered for women. This was a particularly effective piece of communications as it enabled Prowess to engage with individual RDAs to ask them to develop a clear resource for women which helped map provision in their regions, identifying weak spots. It also provided a focus on women’s businesses with case studies and top tips included offering women thinking of starting businesses, encouragement, advice, guidance and role models for success. Finally it also acted as a spur to the provision of good business support to women and all the business advice organisations in the regions were being challenged on the extent to which they provided “women-friendly” business advice. The directories are a good example of how creative thinking can turn a mundane communications strategy into a highly effective one.
Prowess established a strong reputation for staging highly effective events around which Integra always achieved high levels of media coverage including television, radio and broadsheet coverage.
The work of Prowess has led to the issue of effective business support for women becoming a mainstream issue for central government and the Regional Development Agencies. The latest major campaign that Integra established for Prowess was a lobby through the national media for the establishment of a National Women’s Enterprise Task Force. It is understood from key individuals in Whitehall that the media campaign was major driver in the establishment of the Task Force which started its work in April.
Erika Watson, Executive Director of Prowess says of Integra’s work
“Integra’s knowledge of the enterprise sector enables them to grasp issues quickly and know which publications or journalists will be interested in our news. They have done an excellent job in getting the Prowess agenda of encouraging women’s enterprise into the national and business press”