The challenge

Women’s social entrepreneurship* is both a powerful tool for women’s empowerment and a powerful driver of sustainable development.  It generates multiple wins: economic, environmental and social. Since women make up a third of the world’s entrepreneurs, it’s clear both that women remain an under-tapped resource and that promoting women’s entrepreneurship has vast potential. Women’s entrepreneurship is an increasingly recognized force, but it still lags behind men’s in all but seven countries around the world.

Women face various barriers to unlocking their entrepreneurial potential. For example, many women struggle to access the capital they need to spur economic development. Discrimination plays a negative role, with laws and customs limiting women’s property ownership, which in turn hinders women’s access to capital, since banks often require collateral for a loan. Lack of financial education and business networks can also limit women’s access to capital.

The solutions we're proposing

Why-Not Women (WnW) is an innovative project launched by French students who are passionate about female social entrepreneurship! WnW is mobilizing a network of students, across several countries, to support local, women-led micro social businesses as they scale up.

By connecting students who are interested in social business with small, women-led social businesses, the project simultaneously enables students to get involved in social business and provides female social entrepreneurs with valuable, in-kind support in various domains, with the aim of helping the women entrepreneurs to scale-up their micro businesses. The project also promotes community awareness about the multidimensional value and huge potential of promoting female social entrepreneurship.

This field project’s needs in terms of skills & expertise

This project is in its start-up phase. The founding team of passionate social entrepreneurs needs skills support in various domains, including:

• Impact evaluation methods, reporting and transparency

• Marketing

• Offline and digital communications

• Fundraising

• Writing, editing and translating 

Support this project by becoming an e-Mentor

W4’s e-Mentoring program connects the (carefully identified) needs of our women’s empowerment field projects around the world with the W4 community’s wealth of professional and personal skills. 

The e-Mentoring program enables our W4 supporters and donors to not only give financially to grassroots’ women’s empowerment projects but also to offer effective, non-financial help by contributing skills and expertise. The e-Mentoring program is flexible: e-Mentors contribute digitally, at their convenience, and support can range from just 1 or 2 hours per month to full-time.

If you’d like to become involved as an e-Mentor and donate your time and skills to the Why-not Women project, please follow the link to let us know your domains of expertise and areas of interest.

Read a little more about the e-Mentoring program. 

* Social enterprises are businesses whose primary purpose is the common good. They use the methods and disciplines of business and the power of the marketplace to advance their social, environmental and human justice agendas.