Women’s LEAD is a proud partner with The Forum, helping to uplift and celebrate self-identified women entrepreneurs across the country. Below is an article from The Forum highlighting how they help women entrepreneurs access the resources and community they need to thrive in business.
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The 2022/23 Finalists of The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch: Mehrsa Raeiszadeh of Mintlist, Carlyn Loncaric of Vodasafe Inc., Mehwish Panjwani & Kelly Thomson of QUIL | Image Credit: Fuoco Photography
When women entrepreneurs thrive, we all do.
As the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH) points out in The State of Women’s Entrepreneurship in Canada 2023, women-owned businesses tend to focus more on innovation and improving organizational processes.
Not only does this contribute to the Canadian economy and generate more employment opportunities, but also helps make workplaces more appealing to those who are employed there. That’s because women leaders also play a key role in increasing productivity, enhancing collaboration and improving fairness.
And though women entrepreneurs contribute over $150 billion to the national economy and employ more than 1.5 million people, they continue to face systemic barriers like gender biases and stereotyping that prevent them from succeeding. This results in a lack of access to financial support, and fewer mentorship and networking opportunities.
How The Forum Helps
The Forum, a Canadian charity, is dedicated to toppling these barriers by providing women entrepreneurs with the resources and community they need to thrive.
The Forum directly supports a growing community of over 10,000 through programming that enables women to make the shift to entrepreneurship, make life-changing connections with fellow entrepreneurs, funders and other collaborators, and level up their skills as they scale.
This includes:
· The Forum E-Series: An immersive multi-day program that provides an all-encompassing education to women entrepreneurs in the early and intermediate stages of business.
· The Forum Pitch: A program that helps women entrepreneurs navigate, active, and fast-track access to the different types of capital that are needed to grow and sustain their business.
· The Forum Mentor Program: Connects women entrepreneurs with mentors who provide guidance and support so they can reach their next milestones.
· The Forum Founder’s Circle: A program that provides specialized guidance to women entrepreneurs who are scaling quickly.
· The Forum Financial Fundamentals and Mental Health Resilience programs: Free online learning opportunities that help women entrepreneurs manage their finances and develop habits that will set them up for success.
The Forum is also developing a series of finance-focused DEI tools for Canadian funders that recognize, inspire, and accelerate change in how they serve women and gender-diverse entrepreneurs. The AFIA DEI Index was created in collaboration with a Working Group of funders, diverse entrepreneur organizations, and DEI experts.
In the past year alone The Forum reached more than 44,000 community members with education, resources, and inspiration—who come from 219 unique communities across 13 provinces and territories.
As Carla Smith, Co-Founder of Rolla Skate Club explains, “The network of incredibly smart and well-connected supporters, collaborators, and impact advisors we’ve met and learned from through The Forum has allowed us to create a successful, first-of-its-kind business and business model. Without the Forum's support, we would not have such a great network to draw from, and we would have likely paid many thousands for advising and consulting that we've been able to get for free or very approachable course costs. It’s made us feel like someone's got our back.”
How You Can Make a Difference
The Forum relies on the generosity of its sponsors and donors to provide the programming and community that is pivotal to the growth of Canadian women-owned businesses. When you give, you’re enabling women entrepreneurs like Carla to access opportunities that open the door to success.
Demand for The Forum’s programming has increased by 345 percent in the past three years alone. You can help it build a future where no woman is left behind by donating, sponsoring programming and resources, and becoming a mentor.
We encourage you to sign up for The Forum’s newsletter to see how your support makes a difference and to be the first to know about its programs, resources, and community successes.
