Fifth Wave Initiative Archives - LiisBeth https://liisbeth.com/tag/fifth-wave-initiative/ ¤ Field Notes for Feminist Entrepreneurs Fri, 31 Mar 2023 20:58:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 Wealth Planning for the Not Wealthy https://liisbeth.com/wealth-planning-for-the-not-wealthy/ https://liisbeth.com/wealth-planning-for-the-not-wealthy/#respond Thu, 30 Mar 2023 22:25:11 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=25418 In capitalist economies, everyone needs to think about wealth--especially women. Here's why.

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Collage of blue/green background with money floating around and black and white head/shoulder photo of a woman with blonde hair mid length. wearing glasses.
CEO and co-founder, Kristine Beese, Untangle Money | Photo Supplied

Women don’t make as much money as men. Full stop.

That’s true in a very short-term, dollars-to-donuts way– in Canada, as of 2021, a woman makes 89 cents for every one dollar a man makes. In real world terms, this means that if a man has to work 1,000 hours to make enough money to pay for something–a car, a piece of clothing, rent–a woman has to work 1,110 hours to purchase the same item, an amount that comes out to an extra 2.75 40 hour work weeks. 

The matter only compounds when you account for other intersections: as a racialized woman makes approximately 59 percent of what a white man makes, only 16 percent of women with a disability report being paid fairly compared to their peers and trans women make, on average, one-third less after transition than they did prior. 

The larger problem however, is that the buck, as they say, doesn’t stop there–these upfront short falls, along with social expectations and responsibilities around motherhood, caretaking and the culture of wealth and investing itself all conspire to create a situation where women not only earn less on the dollar than their male counterparts, they take longer to catch up and longer to accrue wealth, and are less likely to take “aggressive” investment options to maximize returns,  says says Kristine Beese, founder and CEO of Untangle Money. 

All this, says Beese, not only contributes to the wealth gap between men and women, but can have big impacts on women–who tend to outlive their male partners by a significant margin–on their quality of life and financial stability when it comes time to retire. 

Untangle Money, Beese says, strives to correct for this imbalance by creating “financial plans specifically designed for women and their lived experiences.” 

Cool–so what does that actually mean

Beese, who got her start in more classical financial management working for Bay Street firms in wealth management and investing, says it means looking at the actual culture of financial planning, which isn’t geared towards real, everyday women, but to wealthy, largely white and cis, men–the exact demographic that makes that 11 percent more on the dollar, and makes it earlier on, for longer, than women. You can’t take that tool, she says, and just try to slam women–especially women of colour, or women with disabilities, or working class women–into it and expect it to work for them. 

“The first step is to define your financial goals–but you have to remember that a traditional financial plan is geared towards people who already have money,” Beese says. “When you have money, it’s great to define what goals you have for yourself…but when we start with clients and they define their goals, they (say) things like ‘well, I’d like to have a car, I’d like to go back to school,’ things like property, education–things which, for the middle class, are actually very (financially) tight.” 

When you look at these goals and the income of the average woman and put it into the usual investment and financial planning strategies, it often looks like they not only can’t afford to meet these goals, they “can’t afford to retire,” says Beese. “I think that really shows what happens when you inadvertently take a tool that was designed for really wealthy people and try to apply it to the average person,” she says. 

Instead, Beese asks clients to create realistic portraits of their “now money” and set expectations around that. 

“So, we (Untangle Money) says ‘okay, here’s what you’ve told us about your money, here’s where we envision you’re going to be able to go with that, and here are the drivers that go into that picture–and so we’re trying to get your money to work harder to you,” she says. 

One facet of this is understanding that women have consumer needs and spending that men don’t have, and pay more for basic consumer goods–women’s clothes, for example, cost an average of 8 percent more than men’s clothes, and toiletries like deodorant or razors cost an average of 13 percent more, even when they’re chemically and practically the same product. This is important to think about, because that markup had to be adjusted to account for the lower earning power women have in the first place–that dress shirt that costs 108% instead of $100 was already 11 per cent more expensive for a woman even we account for gender-based inflation, because is only making 89 cents on the dollar in the first place. 

Moreover, “women’s spending is often seen as frivolous,” Beese says; both scotch and manicures–for which Beese herself has been “lambasted for getting” in the past– are consumer goods with social cache, but while scotch is seen as serious purchases, manicures are seen as silly. There are also social ramifications, Beese notes, for not being able to engage in certain kind of spending for women–’attractive’ people make between 10 and 15 percent more than people perceived to be ‘unattractive’ in the same position. While this is true for both men and women, to meet this standard, women have to put in more time–and spend more money–in order to avoid the ‘beauty gap’ standard, which makes these purchases, to a point, personal investments, as opposed to consumer luxuries. 

“There’s nothing more discerning about getting your nails done than buying a fancy bottle of scotch,” Beese says. 

“One can actually (see nails) as an investment, but when I talk to a financial advisor, they see that as a discretionary spend.”

This is more true of some industries, such as customer service or sales, than in others, adding that, for example, when she was a server she actually had a contract that said she was required to meet a certain standard of grooming in order to keep her job. This is especially true for racialized women, who–in some unfair, racist, and biased workplaces–are often expected to meet a white-centric “standard” of beauty around their hair for example, which has additional social, economic and temporal costs. 

“When we talk to black women, for instance, and they talk about all their hair maintenance, that is not discretionary (spending),” says Beese. “And so (Untangle Money) includes recurring hair maintenance as part of the cost of living that you incur (in your financial plan).”

Lower earning power and higher costs of living aside, women have another big problem when it comes to their financial and retirement goals, which is the culture of investment and finance itself. Women, says Beese, are culturally perceived to be less successful with money and investment than men–but we aren’t talking about anecdotal evidence, we’re talking about numbers, and the numbers say that not only is that not true, but that women are, overall, better with their money than men in the long terms, says Beese. In fact, when men and women invest at a similar level of risk, women’s investment portfolios outperform men’s by 1 percent; essentially, at a certain risk level, if a stock is expected to give a 4 percent return on investment in a man’s portfolio, women are seeing 5 percent–which is a bigger deal than it sounds, because that 1 percent return is compounded annually. 

What does that mean, in real world terms? Imagine you have 100 cows and your friend has 100 cows. After selling calves to meet your costs, you have four cows extra in your herd to start off next year, but your friend has five cows–a four and five percent increase for each of you, respectively. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but after five years you have 117 cows and your friend has 121; after 10 years, you have 142 cows, and your friend has 156. 

This one percent overperformance is so significant that, for a professional investor like Beese, it would be “career defining.” 

“If we consistently outperform the market by one percent, that makes you an incredible investor,” she says. 

Women, however, tend to be attracted to–and steered towards–lower risk, lower reward investment strategies, says Beese. On the surface, this seems like a safer bet–and one which might offer a cash-first safety net, even if it comes at the cost of paying off interest heavy debt–but have long term repercussions, especially when you consider that women make less, start generating investable wealth much later, and will live longer than their male counterparts. Part of what Untangle money does, Beese says, is take these things into account and give women all the information they need, including options that might look riskier up front, but have higher payoffs to help generate the cash needed to close that gender pay gap and shore up funds for the future–investment strategies women may have been taught to consider to “aggressive” for their own portfolios, but which men are encouraged to make. 

Upfront, women-focused financial planning aside, Untangle Money has a social, as well as economic focus, says Beese. For one thing, the company only creates financial plans – it doesn’t sell you any stocks or other investments, because that creates situations Beese feels can lead to “conflicts of interest.” For another, the company–acknowledging that their primary clientele is middle to upper middle class women at the moment–has several tiers of access in order to try to make their services more widely available to a broader set of income brackets, although only one of them is up and running at this time. 

Untangle Mini ($500+HST), the entry level program currently available, offers the “basics” for middle-class women looking to take control of their finances, plan for the future and get grounded in the basics of investing. Untangle Maxi ($2,500+HST) is a more advanced program with greater focus on investing and long term planning; it’s not currently available, but should be ready for purchase soon. Untangle Auto is an app that will provide all the same tools as Mini and Maxi, but with more capacity for the user to proceed at their own pace, checking in annually to observe their progress and set up notifications to make sure they are meeting their goals. 

Beese says she hopes to have Untangle Auto up and available by next International Women’s Day. At $50, the app is geared to a more lower-middle or working class bracket–the group of women Beese says she most wants to reach and help take control of their finances. Beese says she recognizes that the Maxi and Mini programs aren’t really useful to these groups, because in order to invest money, you need to have money to invest, and the Auto program is designed to make that easier and more realistic for a broader set of women. 

“Our goal is to get a financial plan into the hands of every woman in the world,” says Beese. 

Publishers Note:  Untangle Money participated in the Fifth Wave  Initiative, a year-round program offered by CFC Media Lab and its partners to support the growth and development of women entrepreneurs in the digital media and commerce sector in southern Ontario. All enterprise founders in the Fifth Wave community are selected for both their potential and commitment toward weaving intersectional feminist ideals of equity and fairness into sustainable and scalable business growth strategies. Fifth Wave Initiative is committed to a minimum of 50% participation per cohort by members of underrepresented groups. The Fifth Wave is a LiisBeth ally sponsor at the Lighthouse level

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Emphasizing Empathy Pays Off https://liisbeth.com/emphasizing-empathy-pays-off/ https://liisbeth.com/emphasizing-empathy-pays-off/#respond Fri, 17 Mar 2023 13:07:13 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=25309 Melanie Grad and Ruth Wylie bring empathy and flexibility to Perspective Squared through their approach to strategy, creative, and production.

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Image of two women working on a computer with a colourful art background/collage style image.
Ruth Wylie (left) and Melanie Grad (right), cofounders, Perspective Squared.

When she was head of production at Variprix, Grad says she tried to lead with flexibility, because caregiving extends to many people.

“There was a man who lived in Newmarket (ON) who would drive downtown to Liberty Village everyday,” she says. “He had basketball with his boys twice a week and I said, ‘You better get your ass up there. Those are the important things.’

“Men and women – we all have other priorities. That opportunity really taught me that’s not something to compromise on when we’re running our business.”

 

Although they are at different places in their life, Grad says she’s learning a lot from Wylie, who, at 52, brings a “menopausal lens” to their partnership and business.

 

“For so long, for so many decades, no one spoke about it,” says Wylie. “Yes, you see women in later stages of their lives change their careers and do different things and that’s amazing. But how many of those women made those changes because they couldn’t navigate their current career path feeling the way they were feeling?”

“(Menopause) ebbs and flows – particularly (for me in) the last three months, I’m ebbing in the most challenging of ways. I adapt, sometimes daily, to my energy and focus levels, taking breaks and shifting tasks/priorities when possible,” she says. “ It most definitely makes me more aware of other people’s energy and trying to make a space for people to share feelings, ask for help, or to just be if that is what they need.”

Like the flexibility that Grad has sought out as a single parent, Wylie says she now finds herself adjusting her work schedule to prioritize her well-being as she goes through menopause.

“I grew up with the notion that to succeed you need to work harder and longer and keep your emotions in check. Success was intrinsically linked to performance, how much I did and how well it was received. I am working on reframing that notion, and today my success is more about being self-satisfied with the work I produce, how it is done and in the environment I help create for others to work within.”

The lack of these important conversations about their lived experiences have encouraged Grad and Wylie to open up space for more human conversations with their partners and colleagues. One area they strive to invest their time and energy in is through mentorship. As Wylie puts it, they, “want to make the time to be able to give back to the next generation of super producers and female entrepreneurs.”

“For example, we just wrapped up six days on set with a really lovely crew,” says Grad. “The conversation at the end was: we really loved working with you, but let’s have a coffee to talk about what you like to do so that we’re putting you in the right position next time. Just because you came on as an associate producer or camera assistant, we realize you have other skills and other interests. We can definitely put you in the same role the next time, but if we know what you like to do and we have opportunities to provide that, then let’s make that happen. Those conversations are important to us.”

“I feel very strongly about our efforts to create a business where we work collaboratively with others, creating a space that supports our team learning and growing and contributing to our shared success,” adds Wylie. “Growing the business and being profitable is unquestionably a goal, but the first priority is always the people and community we develop and grow the business with.”

Grad and Wylie emphasize the empathy and generosity that they aspire to bring to all aspects of their work. As Grad says, “It’s important for us to take what works and share it with other people. If you like our process, take it. If you like the way we structured our call sheets, take it. If you like the way we build, take it. Our success is not the ultimate goal. We want to see everybody’s success.

“Let’s all rise together. If we figured it out the hard way, take the easy way.”

Publishers Note: Perspective Squared participated in the Fifth Wave  Initiative, a year-round program offered by CFC Media Lab and its partners to support the growth and development of women entrepreneurs in the digital media and commerce sector in southern Ontario. All enterprise founders in the Fifth Wave community are selected for both their potential and commitment toward weaving intersectional feminist ideals of equity and fairness into sustainable and scalable business growth strategies. Fifth Wave Initiative is committed to a minimum of 50% participation per cohort by members of underrepresented groups. The Fifth Wave is a LiisBeth ally sponsor at the Lighthouse level

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Slaying Overwork and Overwhelm https://liisbeth.com/slaying-overwork-and-overwhelm/ https://liisbeth.com/slaying-overwork-and-overwhelm/#respond Wed, 01 Mar 2023 20:27:35 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=25110 More than 745,000 people died in 2021 from overwork that resulted in stroke and heart disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Jenn Hazel has apps for that--and more.

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Photo of middle aged woman with turquoise, mid lenght hair wearing a hat, riding a bike on a sunny day.
Jenn Hazel, founder of Curate Concierge. Photo by Emily Doukogiannis @emilydphotography

As an entrepreneur, what’s your time worth to you? 

Now, what’s having control of your time worth? 

For most people who own their own business–especially small businesses owned by women–the answer is a lot. Studies show small business owners regularly work more than 50 hours a week, with 68 percent of those hours spent just managing daily tasks, such as emails or phone calls, and only 31 percent of that time spent actively growing their business. Moreover, in a 2021 survey, 41 percent of small business entrepreneurs reported being called away to handle a work-related matter, even when they were actively trying to take a break.

These are the kinds of problems Toronto-based Jennifer Hazel of Curate Concierge has set out to solve. 

Essentially, Curate Concierge helps entrepreneurs design and implement tightly curated, streamlined, technology-enabled work flows so that founders spend more time on their business rather than in their business. 

“My services appeal especially to growing small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to scale their systems operations to fit the budget, the needs, and the projection of their own growth,” Hazel adds. “ Our solutions are also really customized, scalable and agile– ones that can adapt.”

Similar to the way a scientist needs carefully crafted, systematically controlled research practices in order to conduct a successful experiment and gather the most accurate and useful data, small businesses too, need efficient, personally tailored operational and data gathering  systems to be successful.

Everyone knows this. But there is seemingly never enough time. And few founders go into starting a business dreaming about building a starship enterprise style operating system or healthy approach to work. They figure out the importance later on. 

This is a story Hazel knows well.

After returning from a maternity leave, Hazel says she returned to a job in which her duties were so “dramatically altered that I couldn’t really work it anymore.” With her young daughter at home and dependent on her, Hazel, who had initially been studying to be a lawyer, found she had to “make a shift very quickly,” and went into a retraining program to be a paralegal. 

Why Entrepreneurship?

“It wasn’t like I chose to be an entrepreneur at that point,” says Hazel. “Paralegal seemed like a good middle ground and timing wise, it fit. I was relying on a childcare subsidy that I absolutely had to keep – but you absolutely have to be employed or in school or…you have to be working.”

When she finished the program, however, Hazel found herself in an awkward position–she couldn’t work as a paralegal yet, because she was waiting for her licensing to come through, but was severely over qualified to be an administrative assistant. Hazel began thinking about the practice management skills she had learned during her certification as a paralegal, and that’s when the idea of running her own business “started to gel.”

Taking the Busy out of Business

Entrepreneurs–particularly women and especially women with kids– come up against “structural barriers” within contemporary work culture that not only make it harder for them to succeed, but create an emotionally and professionally damaging environment. 

Hazel soon realized she had skills which could help other entrepreneurs not only build less “busy” time sucking businesses, but better lives., Hazel’s business, Curate Concierge started as a business admin company for “twenty bucks an hour, in between (her) daughter’s naps and after she went to bed.”

“I think I posted an ad or responded to an ad (for work) or something in a Facebook group for East End Toronto mom entrepreneurs,” she says. “These were all women with businesses who, a lot of them, were on maybe their second mat leave, or were in between jobs or had recently left their place of work because (the job) didn’t work for them–the hours didn’t work for them, or the work was not aligned (with what they needed). 

Despite the freedom on being an entrepreneur, “They (the women entrepreneurs) were burning the fuck right out because, I mean, insert any one of a million reasons why the traditional job market is hostile to women working parents– and, you know, add in any other intersectionalities on top of that–and you just start to find yourself lower and lower down in the economy.” 

From these experiences, Hazel conceived Curate Concierge–although it certainly wasn’t easy, she says, noting that in the beginning she was under charging for her services and over extending herself personally–things she seeks to help her clients overcome now. 

“It cost me in the beginning way, way more to offer my services than I ever made from it,” she says. “I started learning the lesson (that I) had to value my time–that came very very quickly.”

That lesson became even more important, she says, when she and her partner split, taking her from a dual income parent to a single one–an incident that helped guide her to incorporate feminist ideology into her business, albeit “by accident.”  

“That split came, and suddenly the stakes got so much higher–I had to support myself and two little kids by myself as a solo parent…Toronto is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and I found myself tied here in a co-parenting relationship.”

Although this was difficult, Hazel says the split was ultimately good, because it allowed her to see herself and her work from new, feminist-oriented perspectives. 

“The imbalance (in my work life) started, really, when my children arrived–or, really, if we go back a little bit further than that, the fact that I got knocked up before I could even start my career,” she says. “This was where my life was at the time, and these were things that were not as smack-in-the-face prominent to me at the time, when you start to realize the gender imbalance in the home and in the workplace.” 

“The only reason my new business could take off,” Hazel adds with a laugh, speaking of the unpaid  domestic and emotional labour she juggled prior to her separation,  “is the fact that I wasn’t cleaning up after after a quote unquote  ‘third child’ in addition to my other two actual children.”

Beating Toxic Productivity Culture

The idea that you have to be constantly on and constantly available as a worker–or as a business owner–is a toxic one, says Hazel, and something she works hard to recondition both systems and her clients to fight against. One client, for example–a lawyer who was used to always being “on”–was getting ready to take a vacation for a week, and asked Hazel to watch her inbox for her, even though no one was in litigation and she didn’t really need someone to be paying attention to her emails–she was just so accustomed to being available that she assumed she had to be, even though it wasn’t necessary. 

“I said, ‘Okay, does the auto responder work on your email? Then why don’t you just turn it off, save yourself the money and enjoy your week at the cottage?” she says. “It was honestly so unheard of for her, and she wrote back to me in such shock at such a simple suggestion…those are really common stories that I get with clients.”

Hazel says helping her clients see and beat these toxic patterns is incredibly rewarding for her, especially when it leads to realizations for those clients about creating better and more balanced lives –and businesses for themselves.  

“This is exactly why I went into business for myself,” Hazel says.

Publishers Note: Curate Concierge participated in the Fifth Wave  Initiative, a year-round program offered by CFC Media Lab and its partners to support the growth and development of women entrepreneurs in the digital media and commerce sector in southern Ontario. All enterprise founders in the Fifth Wave community are selected for both their potential and commitment toward weaving intersectional feminist ideals of equity and fairness into sustainable and scalable business growth strategies. Fifth Wave Initiative is committed to a minimum of 50% participation per cohort by members of underrepresented groups. The Fifth Wave is a LiisBeth ally sponsor at the Lighthouse level

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StrikeUp’s Uppers and Downers https://liisbeth.com/strikeups-uppers-and-downers/ https://liisbeth.com/strikeups-uppers-and-downers/#respond Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:38:59 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=15336 From a Brit who zoomed in for the Canada's women entrepreneur StrikeUP conference.

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Katie Chappell, UK Entrepreneur

I’m a UK illustrator and I draw pictures for conferences and events to make the boring stuff more interesting and accessible. 

In the olden days (pre-pandemic), I got to travel around the UK and Europe to draw at events. Alas, for the past year, I’ve been drawing virtually from my studio in the rural windy North-east coast of England and was thrilled to be invited along to illustrate and write about StrikeUp 2021 Digital Conference for Women Entrepreneurs. Usually held in Canada, this year it was 100% online, and therefore global and accessible. Hooray for COVID! Silver linings an’ all that. AF means ‘as fuck’, but if you don’t know what it means probably other people will also be confused so I’ve removed it.

The event overall had a slick, interactive online environment, and a diverse range of speakers: The Hon. Mary Ng (Canadian minister of small business), Manjit Minhas (from Dragons’ Den), Melissa Davis (President & Brand Architect of Ugly Dukling), Dr. Shimi Kang (Author of The Tech Solution), and Elana Ben-Ari (toy designer turned social entrepreneur) to name but a few. 

StrikeUP Conference opening, March 4 2021
StrikeUP Conference opening, March 4 2021

The conference began with an acknowledgment of territory – something I’d only seen from Australian course creators, but I was so excited to see here. Claudette Commanda acknowledged Canada’s Indigenous land (that colonial settlers *cough* Brits *cough* took from First Nations) and looked to the promise women entrepreneurs hold for our global economic recovery. We are leading the financial recovery. Yes, we bloody are! *punches the air*. Mmm. A bit of female entrepreneur pride palette cleanser to cancel out the ancestral colonial guilt?

Immediately, I was blown away by the accessibility of the event. Not only were there closed captions (a rarity in UK/US online events, in my experience) but also a sign language interpreter! It made me pause – is the UK just completely and utterly behind the times? We’re over here banging on about accessibility but, in reality, we are miles and miles behind. We have so much work to do.

Anyway, after a rich cultured introduction, the first speaker, Manjit Minhas, started the conference off with a bang. The co-founder of Minhas Breweries and Distillery and one of the dragons on CBC’S Dragons’ Den spoke energetically about how she and her brother created a small craft brewery they grew to include several companies with revenues over $100 million.

The bits that stood out for me were Manjit’s incredible strategies for pitching:

1 Who are you?

2 What are you selling?

3 When are you selling it? 

4 Where does your business take place?

5 Why does your business exist?

I also admired her attitude toward negotiation. 

Dream bigger! 

Ask for more. “You get what you negotiate!” 

I was feeling inspired by her talk and buoyed by the discussions, until somebody asked Manjit, “How do you stay confident?” and she responded.

While I can’t bear to remember the advice word-for-word, it boiled down to this: looking good = feeling good. Take pride in your appearance! Eat healthily. Dress well.

My face dropped. You wot, mate?

Um…forgive my ignorance but I was over here thinking that confidence came from pride in your work. Doing a good job. Feeling like you are making a difference in the world. Not picking out a good outfit and eating carrot sticks! URGH. 

My experience as a teenager dealing with an eating disorder gave me first-hand evidence that closely linking self-worth to appearance is a Bad Idea. A first-class ticket to crazy-town. A lose-lose scenario. “STOPPPP” I wanted to yell into the event’s fast-flowing chatbox. “IT’S NOT TRUEEEE.”

If, as female entrepreneurs, we are reduced to looking good = feeling good then ewww, no thank you. I don’t want any part in it. I’ll be over here being visually unappealing, yet confident in my abilities, thank you very much. Pass me another cookie. Have I got crumbs on my dungarees? Oh well. #sorrynotsorry

Ok, rant over. Moving on to the rest of the sessions, there was a wonderful pick-your-own adventure feel to the whole thing. 

The menu of tasty entrepreneurial snacks on offer:

Real-Time Strategies for Business Success: A Conversation with Women Leaders

  • Wellness, Connection & Adaptability Solutions for Times of Challenge
  • Become the Only Logical Choice (French Only)
  • Women at the Forefront: Women Entrepreneurship Fund + Economic Recovery
  • Fireside Chat With Hon. Mary Ng (Canada’s Minister of Small Business)
  • Relentless Adaptation

I opted for ‘How To Grow’ with Sarah Stockdale. Here’s an abbreviated blurb: “You’re a founder or exec planning out your growth strategy (and) probably feeling uneasy about how to find, prioritize, and plan for growth… we’ll… dig into how to build your strategy and set your team up for success.” Or, as Sarah says it: “Founders ask me all the time when they should hire their first growth marketer, and I look at them and say, it’s you.” 

Sarah is the founder of Growclass, “…an intensive marketing course to help level up as a professional in an inclusive, friendly learning environment.”

If I had to sum up the whole session in one sentence it would be this: Find out what is working well and do more of that. 

Obvious, but golden. 

I really enjoyed Sarah’s infectious optimism around homing (honing!? Never know which one is correct) on what’s going well in your business. It made me think about which bits of my business that are currently working. 

“Look for what is currently working in your business, and supercharge that,” says Sarah.

Yeees, you’re speaking my language, Sarah Stockdale!

I’m all about that: “Improve the good, outsource the bad.” Over here in the UK, business curriculum is obsessed with getting you to improve the things you’re naturally terrible at. I never understood this. The main thing about being an entrepreneur that I love is that business asks, what are you good at? Do more of that! What do you absolutely suck at? STOP. Hire somebody else to help you, or take it entirely off your hands.

After a break for a late lunch – with actual crumbs on my dungarees now – I tuned in for “Women at the Forefront: Women Entrepreneurship Fund + Economic Recovery.”

I was surprised/shocked/astonished (I never know which word is appropriate) to learn that in Canada, only 16% of small and medium-sized businesses are owned by women. The Canadian government, however, is investing $5 billion to double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025. Yaaas.

In the UK, 29% of SMEs are owned by women. I’m one of them, and I can confirm that not having a gross man-boss is 100% worth the scary tax stuff, the patronising financial advisors, and the occasional waves of self-doubt.

Get that Canadian Government Women Entrepreneurship Fund dollaaaaar.

At the end of the day, I closed my laptop feeling inspired, if slightly Zoom-fatigued. 

I know it’s a long flight, but can we meet up in person next time?

THis is a graphic recording of things talked about at the March 4th StrikeUp conference
StrikeUP Conference Graphic Recording by Katie Chappell

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Buddies for Life https://liisbeth.com/buddies-for-life/ https://liisbeth.com/buddies-for-life/#respond Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:38:03 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=15481 A new grant buoys the hopes of rescue dogs and rescuers alike.

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Photo of woman drying dog's hair
Stella and Jada. Photo by Jack Jackson, Toronto

In the lead up to International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31st, we asked Toronto photographer Jack Jackson to talk about the inspiration behind the newly launched Don’t You Want Me Rescue Grant, which provides a queer or trans person with the means to adopt a rescue dog.

Jack answered, by sharing stories of some of the folks who inspired the Don’t You Want Me photography Project and Grant, including his own.

Picture of trans man
Eli. Photo by Jack Jackson, Toronto

Eli is a trans-masculine person who is most comfortable in the liminal space between “F” and “M”: “I acknowledge that life is really hard AND really wondrous, and I believe the more that we can fearlessly be honest about our struggles and come together as loving supportive chose family and community, the more ‘life preservers’ we will ALL have to share. I can’t own a dog right now because I’m living a life that has weird hours and a low paying job that I believe, is in part, connected to my queer and transness. I wish I could.”

IMage of man and dog
Pam and Storm. Photo by Jack Jackson, Toronto

Pam and Storm: “The love of a dog who is terrified of everything is one of the most special and gratifying bonds imaginable. We are constantly helping each other grow and push past our hardships.”

Person with a dog
Nic and Chuck. Photo by Jack Jackson

Nic and Chuck, Non Binary, Kichwa Otavalo: “It’s funny how we transform ourselves to survive. Chuck, being from Australia, grew more fur to survive our winters; me, I grew more self awareness. I found where I needed to be in life. Chuck is my constant reminder of the power of resilience and of giving ourselves second or sometimes third or fourth chances.”

Man with his dog
Finch and Freya. Photo by Deb Klein

Finch and Freya: “On days that I’m really struggling, she can still make me happy or proud or laugh or less alone. And when she’s anxious I can reassure her that the world is scary but she can do it because she has before and will again and just saying that out loud sometimes is a good reminder to me.”

Reuben and Luna. Photo by Deb Klein

Reuben and Luna: “Going from being so scared to be left alone, not having a name or knowing how to walk on a lead to being her happy, balanced, wonderful self has been nothing short of a joy to behold. Taking a lead in her rehabilitation gave me the purpose and connection I was craving.”

Photo of woman drying dog's hair
Stella and Jada. Photo by Jack Jackson, Toronto

Stella and Jada, Pansexual Femme: “Growing up there had always been a dog by my side. I moved away from home at 18 and not only lost my best friend but also myself. I struggled for years with depression and mania, not being diagnosed with bi-polar until my early 30’s. I felt extremely lonely and always the outsider…. Baby Jada’s huge now. She’s also been a huge factor in me getting clean and sober. She has turned my life around and I will never be able to thank her enough.”

Picture of man and a dog
William and Bella. Photo by Jack Jackson

William and Bella, Man of trans experience: “She saved me, I know it’s meant to be the other way round, but without a doubt, she saved me. The 3 best decisions I’ve made in my life are transition, sobriety and Bella.”

Picture of man with his dog
Jack and Jet Jackson. Photo by Max Lander

The Project was in part borne out of my own experience of coming out as trans in a new country. I was in a relatively ‘good’ position compared to many trans people, yet it was still the most traumatic and isolating period of my life, far more so than a pandemic. My story isn’t unique. I moved from a small conservative island to a more liberal progressive city but, with that distance, you often lose all sorts of safety nets. I lost almost everything during my transition. And then came Jet.

On paper I was in no position to get a dog. I really had nothing other than crippling anxiety and a roof over my head for the next six months. But Jet changed everything. Because that’s what happens when people have something to love, something to nurture, something to fight for. She was the start of a business, photography work that I love, a completely new life and a new family. Without a doubt, she saved my life.

Some people think the name of the Project is sad, but the Project was always meant to not only provoke dialogue about the effects of discrimination to a mainstream audience, but also to be an absolute celebration, to show how, against all the odds our participants have triumphed. What we should be sad about, however, is the people that were not able to take part in the Project as they are no longer with us. Trans people are an absolute gift to the world; their experience and insight are an invaluable contribution to the advancement of equality for all.

Statistics on Trans People in Canada

75%

of trans adults have considered suicide

43%

of trans adults have attempted suicide at some point in their lives

20-45%

of Canada’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQ

49%

of trans Canadian earn less than $15,000 a year

42%

of the queer and trans community reported significant impacts on their mental health due to the pandemic compared 30% of non queer/trans people

LGBTQ people may experience intersecting forms of discrimination- such as racism, sexism, o r poverty alongside homophobia or transphobia that negatively impact their mental health.

Publishers Note:  We must do more to support the trans community. Please consider a donation to the Don’t You Want Me campaign here and learn more about the fight for trans rights organizations here. 

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The Feminist Recovery Strategy https://liisbeth.com/the-feminist-recovery-strategy/ https://liisbeth.com/the-feminist-recovery-strategy/#respond Wed, 17 Feb 2021 12:04:57 +0000 https://liisbeth.com/?p=14021 A new study shows how feminist business practices can help companies recover from the pandemic – and thrive in the future

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Dee Brooks, founder of Accelerate by Design and Pandemic Study participant
Dee Brooks , founder of Accelerated by Design, says "It is all one complex, interconnected mess.”

As Dee Brooks (she/her) prepared to launch a consulting business, she was understandably excited. She had worked more than a year to develop a market strategy for her company, Accelerated By Design. Aimed at corporate and not-for-profit clients, her firm would commercialize years of academic research into collaborative future-making through dialogue.

By February, 2020, Brooks had assembled a team of four, including herself, and expected to hire more staff. She had rented a space in Toronto’s downtown core, designing it as an immersive digital media experience for clients. She had sold tickets to a launch event. Revenue was trickling in. Future-making looked bright.

Then, the pandemic ruined everything.

“It was an utter catastrophe,” said Brooks. “We were in the middle of going to market with a new offering, something we thought was super innovative. That strategy was destroyed, the market changed, and we lost access to child care for six months.”

Brooks let her team go and refunded the ticket buyers. As she watched her big dream drip away, she grieved. “It was indescribably difficult. For me, this was my baby. It was the culmination of years of effort.

“Not all that work was lost, but a large portion of it was,” she said in a recent Zoom interview from her home office.

Brooks planned to offer a blended in-person and digital collaboration experience for her clients. But now, she has switched gears to go fully digital — which she had anticipated doing — but the pandemic fast-forwarded everything.

Digital-only delivery is a different ball game. Accelerated By Design will no longer be differentiated by its in-person experience. But the switch also means the   can serve a global audience, rather than a regional one.

Brook’s story is emblematic. A recent study — The Pandemic Effect: Exploring COVID-19’s Impact on Women/Womxn-led Digital Media Businesses in Ontario — chronicles the challenges Brooks and her contemporaries face through disruption and recovery.

The Pandemic Effect

The research collective,  Canadian Film Centre’s Media Lab (CFC Media Lab), OCAD University and Nordicity, funded by Ontario Creates Business Improvement Program, surveyed 28 women/womxn-led digital businesses in Ontario over five months in 2020. They gathered quantitative data through a survey and qualitative insights through a series of interactive workshops. The study report was released today.

The Pandemic Effect drew participants primarily (though not exclusively) from existing networks established by the CFC Media Lab’s Fifth Wave Initiative, Canada’s first and only feminist accelerator program. These businesses value purpose as much as they do profit, according to Nataly De Monte (she/her), managing director of Fifth Wave.

“Women in this space had a feminist perspective at the start,” said De Monte. “They’re already thinking about business in a regenerative sense, rather than an extractive one. And we wanted to know how feminist business practices could be applied to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.” 

Below is a ranking of the top impacts from the time of the survey data and the respondent’s 3-year future projections if COVID-19 was to continue. Impacts coming down in priority might be a sign of others taking priority - or - may indicate that the companies expect to have already dealt sufficiently with it within the 3-year window.
Above is a ranking of the top impacts from the time of the survey data and the respondent’s three year future projections if COVID-19 was to continue. Impacts coming down in priority might be a sign of others taking priority - or - may indicate that the companies expect to have already dealt sufficiently with it within the three year window.

“That larger adaptation is the growing pain,” for digital media, De Monte explained. “It is not that they have to learn technology and become tech savvy. These businesses are already there. It is about how they adapt to the new and changing ways of the current context.”

The Hits and the Misses

One might assume digital media companies would be well positioned to respond to an increasingly tech-focused economy. In fact, the survey showed that only 21 per cent had seen sales or personnel grow during the first six months of pandemic. About 50 per cent reported being fine for now. Another 18 per cent said they would survive but may have to lay off people, and 11 percent indicated they were in dire straits and may go bankrupt.

The pandemic also affected productivity—about 21 per cent reported they were more productive than usual during shutdowns, 61 per cent were operating at a slower pace and seven per cent had stopped working entirely.

The survey and workshops used a strategic foresight model to examine the trends and drivers behind deep social change, asking respondents to evaluate the issues affecting them both now as well as three years into the future.

Increased stress and focus on mental health was the top concern among respondents, both now and in the future.

 
The purpose is to show the 22 drivers and trends the participants came up with
Pandemic Effect Study, Page 19. This is a snapshot of the trend/driver board created in Miro from the first workshop. These are the top 22 trends/drivers noted from the survey, as well as 8 new trends created by the workshop participants.

That is no surprise to Brooks, who said her mental-health challenges are far from over. As a new business, Accelerated By Design is not eligible for most government support programs, which are based on past revenue. She is still hoping to be eligible for rent subsidies.

Having her younger child back in daycare since September has freed up some hours for Brooks, who is working from home alongside her partner. But now she is a team of one at her company, strategizing her business recovery in isolation. Having paying clients is still in the future.

Little wonder that burnout emerged as a key theme in workshops. Suzanne Stein (she/her), director of OCAD’s Super Ordinary Lab, which helped execute the online events, said that participants “moved into an ideological realm” when discussing stress.

“We were starting to see participants questioning how the economy works. They were starting to say: ‘Wait. Why are we working in an industrial revolution model, which is distractive and harmful?’”

The Feminist Future

That feminist questioning can prove tactical. The study report describes specific strategies that digital media companies expect to use in the coming years. Among the ideas:

  • valuing emotional labour
  • developing healthy remote work cultures
  • using virtual reality to host events
  • being more flexible about where and when to work
  • encouraging local economies
  • baking intrapreneurship into business practices
  • creating more and different partnership models

The conversation among digital entrepreneurs kept coming back to partnerships, community and collaboration, said Stein. Companies that act like they are part of an ecosystem will survive the coming years. Entities that were once competitors  see themselves as potential partners.

Fifth Wave workshop for women in digital media on the feminist business model canvas, March, 2020.

Stein pointed out that it is hard for individual companies “to mobilize that kind of impact on their own. The next wave of innovation is not going to be about any individual or company, it is going to be about collaboration.”

Heeding that advice will help companies cope with future disruptions, Brooks suggested. “Maybe the pandemic is the first of a series of shocks… One thing that concerns me is that people are thinking: What are we going to do about the next pandemic? But climate change will present the next problem.”

The Pandemic Effect survey is repeatable, said Julie Whelan (she/her), associate director of Nordicity, a consultancy that designed and analyzed the survey. It could be used to gather information about other disruptions in other sectors and regions. It also includes a set of take-home worksheets participants can use as a thinking tool for planning for future disruptions.

“At the start of the pandemic, we were thinking the shocks or impacts of COVID would be intense but temporary,” said Whelan. “But, of course, what we have seen is that the experience is ongoing. So, there’s a chance to rethink how we operate and how we support businesses, maybe using some of the strategies identified (in the report) to build resilience for future shocks, which are undoubtedly around the corner.”

Despite that uncertainty, Brooks said she is optimistic about the future. While diversity and inclusion have always been a foundational concern for her and her team, she is finding that potential clients are now more interested in that conversation.

“We have this tendency to think that we can separate things out. But you have got to talk about it all at once. As horrible as it is, it is unclear that George Floyd would have been the catalyst that he was if it were not for the pandemic. And it pressured the pandemic. So, I am not so sure we can treat them separately. It is all one complex, interconnected mess.”

An intersectional feminist approach takes into account cultural complexity, which makes it a useful framework for pandemic recovery planning in any sector. But operational changes cannot be stopgap measures, Stein emphasized.

“In some ways with the survey, we were left with a bit of a cliffhanger. The implications of the pandemic are still running forward. What is important now is to keep moving,” she said. “We have to keep the momentum of some of the thinking. We have to keep the dedication to working together.”

To download the study, click here. 

Publishers Note: Fifth Wave Labs is Canada’s first feminist accelerator program for womxn in digital media. It is a year-round program offered by CFC Media Lab and its partners to support the growth and development of women entrepreneurs in the digital media sector in southern Ontario. All enterprise founders in the Fifth Wave community are selected for both their potential and commitment toward weaving intersectional feminist ideals of equity and social justice into sustainable and scalable business growth strategies. Fifth Wave Initiative is committed to 30% participation by members of underrepresented groups. The Fifth Wave is a LiisBeth Media partner and ally. Interested? Apply here.

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