#23 What I Learned from Supporting 10 Micro-Orgs Through Funding Challenges
Last week I ended a 4 month pilot programme supporting founders with funding. Here's what I learnt, plus, new opportunities and events to grow your knowledge.
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Whats in this edition:
💸 Exciting awards to green your business
💸 How I helped 10 female founders navigate funding
💸 Celebrating founders winning awards, pitching and closing funding rounds
💸 November is a busy month for events, here are my favourites
This Weeks Top Opportunities
Award The Esies - The Investec Early Stage Entrepreneur of the year awards is back, with 4 awards for various entrepreneur categories (including consumer, female and impact). There is $50,000 up for grabs and incredible PR exposure.
Programme The Kindling Programme - Catalyst are opening this unique programme to SME’s working in tech justice. There are 10 £3k prizes plus peer to peer learning via The Kindling Retreat.
Award Small Business Britain Green Growth Award - Win £5000 towards greening your business. From cutting waste and saving energy, to rethinking supply chains and attracting new customers, these businesses are showing that sustainability isn’t just good for the planet, it’s good for business too!
These Top Opportunities were lifted from the Funding Opportunities Database, a unique listing of over 60 grants, awards, accelerators and other funding opportunities for your small business (with a focus on creatives and social & environmental impact). For full access to the database, upgrade for just £4 a month. Plus get Friday Funding Chats Live, and interviews with founders who have funded.
What I Learned from Supporting 10 Micro-Orgs Through Funding Challenges
Last week I wrapped up my very first funding support pilot programme with 10 micro business founders. It was the culmination of a 4 month experiment to understand their funding challenges better and figure out how best to support the founders in The WIP’s community in 2026.
I initially spoke to about 18 founders, all women, and was really pleased to have 10 sign up for the full programme. Every other week we met on Zoom for accountability sessions, I also created short (less than 5 minute videos), a grant application toolkit, plus a Whatsapp group to allow the cohort to share resources and ideas.
In all honesty, it lacked structure but the whole point of the activity was allow the founders to shape it themselves. I wanted them to have space to think more deeply about what they needed and why they weren’t succeeding so that we could problem solve together. On each call I asked people ‘how was business’ and in the 4 months we met, some went through massive pivots from potentially closing their business, to having to a find a new emergency workshop, developing a new corporate partnership strategy or just getting started.
The programme taught me a lot, and so in no particular order, here are the major learnings I took from running my first pilot programme;
You can make things as flexible as possible but people will still struggle to show up. Some of the cohort were mothers, or side hustlers, and finding times that suited everyone to meet was tough.
That being said, I was pleasantly surprised that we always had at least 30% attendance for each call. This was enough to provide a breadth of experience, as well as challenges to tackle.
Most of the cohort had limited knowledge of funding, so a lot of education was required. I tried to back this up with short videos so that if people couldn’t make calls, they could still swot up. We covered everything from cashflow, revenue streams and grants, to application techniques, partnership strategies and investment via Angels.
Even though the videos were really short, only a few people watched them, siting a lack of time. Time will always be a factor, but I will also look for more valuable ways to deliver information to people.
We also spoke a lot about building toolkits, to enable founders to confidently and efficiently apply to opportunities. I wanted to spend more time developing this so I’m exploring ways to make this better for the next programme.
I’m still waiting on feedback surveys so will share a more detailed report of the programme’s impact later this year. All in all I am really proud of what was achieved. My passion is to help small and micro orgs (particularly ones founded by under represented people) to thrive, not just survive, so if this made even a 1% dent in the success of their companies, I will be so happy.
Watch out for updates regarding next years programmes. If you are interested in what I am doing, and want to get involved or be part of the next cohort please email me. I will also be offering a 5 Days To Quick Funding Wins Challenge in November, into which I will be pouring all my learnings from the programme, plus everything that I know from spending 5 hrs a week putting this newsletter together! Scroll down for more information.
Funding News & Resources:
Congratulations to Chamiah Dewey, founder of DEWEY Clothing who will be pitching at The Great British Pitch next week. I featured the opportunity in the newsletter a while back so it’s great to see someone getting to the finals!
Estonian based secondhand marketplace Yaga has just announced a successful pre series A funding round of €4m. The round was led by Specialist VC, with additional investment from H&M Group as well as existing investors Trind Ventures, Startup Wise Guys, and a group of angel investors.
Eniye Okah, founder of BEAME spf won an award! However, as she shared on LinkedIn, she was then asked for £1000 to display the award logo on her website, socials and packaging!! Whilst I’ve been asked for entry fee’s for competitions before, this one is a new one on me. Watch out for hidden costs when it comes to awards and competitions. (FYI - I will never promote anything here which requires a buy in from you, I just think thats a bit gross and inauthentic!).
A few week’s ago I met the power house that is Sarah Angold, founder of 29acacia which makes textiles from agri-waste streams. She told me she needed £50k this year to keep going, and was currently fundraising. I wished her good luck and sent her a few ideas for investors to approach, and today I opened up with incredible post on LinkedIn! Congratulations Sarah, I hope you can get some sleep now!
Events
The Blueprint to Becoming Investable: SeedLegals x BLUE GARAGE - Join an evening of practical insights and honest conversation about what investors really look for, featuring SeedLegals founder Anthony Rose and founder Ged Equi. (I’ll be going to this one so come along to say hi).
4th November, London
Female Founders Rise Fundraising Meetup - A totally unmissable event for any female entrepreneurs seeking to raise investment. FFR is an incredible connection to investors but also to a supportive community of female founders.
4th November, London
#LovePadel: Bristol Edition - A friendly evening of padel plus networking for founders, investors and ecosystem partners bought to you by VC Love Partners.
4th November, Bristol
Pricing Strategies to unlock 7 figure growth: Enterprise Nation - I love EN’s free Lunch & Learns and I’ll definitely be popping along to this one. Vic Taylor will explore 15 different pricing strategies you can apply in your own business – whether you’re refining an existing offer or bringing something new to market.
7th November, online
Rare Founders: Open Mic Pitching and Networking - This edition is being hosted straight after The Business Show (12th-13th Nov). The format is the same, founders are picked at random from the audience to pitch, so be ready to get on stage!
12th November, ExCel London
Small Business Britain: Breaking Down The Autumn Budget for small business owners - Join Michelle Ovens CBE, founder of Small Business Britain, as she breaks it down in plain English. She’ll explain what the key announcements mean for you, highlight changes you need to be aware of, and share ideas on how to make the most of any new opportunities.
28th November, Online
The 5 Days to Funding Quick Wins Challenge
Launching in November, this week long challenge is designed to help values-driven SME founders identify immediate, realistic funding opportunities (grants, partnerships, and revenue tweaks) — and finish with a 90-day funding action plan ready for January 2026. No jargon, no gatekeeping, just clear, relatable tasks for you to do each day to get you on track for 2026.
Join the waiting list to be notified of the launch.
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