CREATING YOUNG BUSINESS LEADERS

Ignite Youth Enterprise

CREATING YOUNG BUSINESS LEADERS Andria Takkidou Bea Angier Naveen Tariq

TRANFORMING YOUNG LIVES THROUGH ENTERPRISE. FOREWORD

– Stuart Thomason – CEO of Business Launchpad

Each year, Business Launchpad (BLP) support 200 young business leaders in creating, testing, sustaining and developing their entrepreneurial ideas. To achieve this, we actively engage with over 1,000 young people in person, through social events, thematic meetups, training, 1:1 business coaching and / or mentoring. Our mission is to focus our outreach to support young people as they face barriers, thereby helping to create an inclusive world with plenty of opportunities to learn, develop and succeed. ‘Ignite – Creating Young Business Leaders’ provides insight into the pivotal role young people have in enabling BLP trustees and staff to achieve our vision of “transforming young lives through enterprise”. It is crucial that we all recognise, understand, support and celebrate the role young people have in shaping our work. As this report highlights we directly employ young people to lead programme delivery in key areas, we employ outreach associates to support each other and we run group sessions to co-de-

sign and test business models, empowering young people with the key skills needed to lead a team in the future. We are pleased to share examples of our work and case studies from the youth sector, to discuss why this is a vital part of our strategy, and to share learning on how we are putting young people at the heart of what we do. This story is, naturally, just one more stage of our journey as an organisation. Youth leadership is not and can never be a destination in itself. It is certainly not a ‘movement’ either – it is simply a reflection on ‘what works’ for BLP, and an open invitation to join us in collaboration in the near future, to share your learning, so that together we all support young people in taking the lead.

Introduction: This discussion paper explores some questions around what youth leadership is, why this concept underpins the current work of Business Launchpad (BLP), and how as an organisation we aim to create thousands more young business leaders in the future. It also suggests five things we would like to see improve at a policy level, in order that those most in need of enterprise support have the best chance of fulfilling their goals:

○ Investment in the creation of young business leaders -an increase in resources to develop young people and give them opportunities to lead ○ Shared learning and impact measurement ○ Promoting collaboration among young people and youth organisations ○ Increasing trust in young people and creating inclusive organisations ○ Co-creating; not dictating We have been inspired by the stories of young people over the years and have been reflecting and learning how we can promote leadership. We took inspiration from “GRIT” and “Taking the Lead” and use some of their thinking and develop their argument further from an enterprise perspective. Specifically, we explore activities through which young people develop leadership skills, and we explore the importance of these skills to creating a successful pipeline of entrepreneurial ideas, test trading projects and scalable business models.

About BLP. BLP was established in 1988, in an area of high unemployment, to give disadvantaged young people (16-30) across London the opportunity to set up and establish their own businesses. The original trustees all worked with young people to create positive social change through economic development, and were the driving force behind the charitable values of the organisation. This mission is as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. Our current work supports young business leaders to give each of them a sense of purpose in a complex world.

Our Core Values. Accountability Collaborate Motivate & Inspire Grow & Learn Young People at the Heart

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IGNITE Creating young business leaders

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The key challenges of our time: Between November 2017 and January 2018, the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds not in full-time education was 10.7% . As stated in the JET framework by NPC “transitions to adulthood have become increasingly difficult as a result of the economic outlook and the breakdown of traditional pathways into work. To be prepared for work, young people need to develop a range of personal assets and skills, and gain experience. They may also need to address issues relating to their personal and family circumstances.” Youth leadership, and specifically enterprise, have an active role to play in addressing the problem.

Our Approach A successful enterprise often comes at the end of a long journey of self-development, leadership and skills building. We know that enterprise can transform young lives. Of the young people we work with, 30% are outside education, training or employment when they start working with us. Fifty-one percent say they lack confidence, 63% fear failure and 60% report finance as one of the main barriers. With this in mind we wanted to explore in detail the relationship between enterprise and leadership specific to young people, as well as the broader personal and societal impacts of this. This clearly matters, as today’s young people are the leaders of tomorrow, and therefore investing in young people can bring about innovative and meaningful development for individuals, organisa-

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tions and wider society. Last year we designed five activities through which BLP could learn more about leadership skills and the role these have on business development. These activities, explored in more detail in this paper, are:

○ Leadership through entrepreneurship Who are the young business leaders and what drives them?

○ Business with purpose

Young business leaders driven by creating social change

○ The programme designers

Giving young people opportunities to lead

○ Youth-led outreach The BLP Southwark Model

○ Youth-led ventures

Directly incubating youth-led businesse

METHODOLOGY

This paper uses a combination of methods, including: focus groups with programme deliverers; focus groups with young people; and interviews with young people and youth organisations, and with experts in the field.

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Defining Youth Leadership

Perspectives from the youth sector “What is youth leadership?” is a question we need to ask to help us shape our thinking. What does it mean to take a lead? Does it mean to have voice? A management position? Ownership of a project? Youth leadership manifests itself in many ways, and we first need to explore what youth leadership looks like. BLP recognise that the question can never have a single, precise answer, and that it means different things to different people. In the sector and its literature, “leadership” has been interpreted in a range of ways. Recently, definitions have moved from, “top-down, hierarchical styles of leadership, towards participatory and inclusive leadership styles, which emphasise social and emotional competencies”. Previously, leadership was considered an inherent trait that people were born with. Leadership is now seen as more dynamic, and that there is no single leadership style but it is, instead, situational. The external environment is also changing our perceptions of leadership. New challenges require leadership skills corresponding to an era of globalisation and technological change. This shift has revealed interesting challenges regarding the dynamic nature of leadership and the skills that young people need.

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Considering these issues, we have incorporated young people’s testimonials and experiences to better contextualise how “leadership” is viewed. It is vital to explore channels of communication with young people in order that when we speak of leadership, and when we design leadership programmes, these are not tokenistic but are instead created by them and for them, and that they reflect their everyday challenges and needs.

“It is valuable to explore what matters to young people to help our thinking of external metrics of leadership. And what does this mean for design and evaluation of youth projects?” – Bethia McNeil Director of The Centre for Youth Impact

What does leadership mean to you and why does it matter? “Young leadership to me is young people being empowered to lead and have opportunities to develop their leadership skills – pre, during and post; raising awareness about their skillset and transferable skills and feel empowered to lead on their personal aspects in their life, for example leading their finances.” – Pareece Rose (Founder of New Ground Creations and Youth Leadership Development Lead at BLP). “Youth leadership to me is as simple as creating opportunities for young people to thrive. What does it mean to lead in a team? Or lead on something? Creating these spaces for young people is important to experience things they wouldn’t experience otherwise and meet other people” – Hasmita Chavda (Special Projects Lead, Southwark BLP). “[Youth leadership is] young people taking positions of power in order to effect change. When there are young leaders we acknowledge not only the relevance of their contribution but its necessity. There is no shortage of skill, talent, and passion among young people. Creating a dialogue around youth leadership holds us to account. How are we engaging young people and facilitating their chosen path of contribution to society as a whole. I think we all want to live in a world where more young people have a say”. (Caesar Gordon, Purpose Programme Manager at BLP).

BLP believe it is important to consider the uniqueness of each individual, to understand that leadership can be exercised in many forms, and that some of these forms may be more important for young people than others. Our approach is based on the principle that:

the most effective way to empower young people to gain leadership skills is through learning-by-doing and by giving them ownership of projects. Through combining this with skills-building workshops we have seen great changes in key skillsets and confidence – leading to businesses which are much more likely to survive.

EXPLORING YOUTH LEADERSHIP VOICE

REVOLYOUTION

CONSULTATION & INSIGHT Y CONNECT

SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE Business Basics Workshops

OPPORTUNITIES TO LEAD

Youth Associates and Youth Collective

OWNERSHIP OF PROGRAMMES Digilab

YOUTH LEADERSHIP TO ME IS

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05 “Things are changing rapidly. The things that stay fixed are not a degree but what’s inside to navigate and manoeuvre when things are changing so fast. Whether that’s through enterprise or through creativity or though writing or whatever vehicle young people respond to. How do you learn about yourself in a world that is changing so fast?” - Hasmita Chavda Special Projects Lead, BLP

There are many reasons why youth leadership matters to us. These include, but are not limited to: Benefits for the individual: There is ample research to suggest that social and emotional skills contribute to emotional resilience, improved employability, earnings, career success and social mobility. We have found that our enterprise support through 1:1 business coaching, workshops and programme/business ownership plays an important role in building these skills and allowing young people to lead their lives. Benefits for organisations: For youth charities it can raise awareness and engagement, ensure their work is relevant to their beneficiaries and therefore increase their impact. Between 2016 and 2017 we had a 500% increase in the number of young people we reach through peer-to-peer outreach. Benefits for the wider society: Young people have been seen as agents of community building and cohesion. Having young people in leadership roles supports innovative solutions for sustainable growth in businesses, communities and projects. Through our social enterprise support we have seen projects such as Digilab who have designed a programme that has many positive outcomes in the wider community including reducing unemployment rates by providing employment opportunities to young people.

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“Rarely young people have the opportunity to lead in small scale before throwing themselves into starting their own business” - Pareece Rose Founder of New Ground Creations

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LEADERSHIP THROUGH ENTERPRISE Who are the young business leaders and what drives them Creating successful young business leaders ‘The BLP journey’

Through BLP’s 30 years of work we have seen many young people taking the lead and creating their own employment opportunities. We have now been exploring how our support and their journey have helped them develop these skills. Even though developing leadership skills wasn’t an explicit goal, they were an important by-product of their business journey, and in many cases became more important to the client than their enterprise idea. BLP have learned that leadership skills are a particularly crucial element in moving young people from the planning stage to setting up and running their own business. At BLP, young people have free access to two hours of 1:1 business coaching

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support per month for two years, and access to business basic workshops, masterclasses, networking events, event and hot - des ki ng s p ace , and s pec i fi c programmes, such as our incubator, crowdfunding training and funding ‘pitch’ events. Our approach is very much based around learning-by-doing, allowing young people to learn, test and develop their ideas in an inclusive, safe and supportive environment. The outcomes of this approach are clear. Young people we have worked with now feel they have overcome the barriers to starting a business and have built up the resilience and confidence to take the lead in their lives. Our young business leaders can now define success on their own terms, as entrepreneurs, as valued employees or having found the right training opportunity for them. This year BLP have seen demand for our service rise by over 500%. This year we

have engaged with over 1,000 young people aged 16-30, of which 200 have formally started their business journey. Of this number, 125 are in the research and planning stage, 50 are actively test-trading and 25 have entered our ‘high-growth’ stage (Turnover >£20,000). To support young leaders, BLP first had to recognise the barriers young people faced – our research has highlighted the lack of opportunities, the living cost in London, mental health and the expectation employers may have for candidates to have work experience. New research from Prince’s Trust supports our client survey data, in revealing that young people fear for their emotional health and worry about the future in terms of money and not being good enough. Our Young Entrepreneur’s Research Review from 2017 also revealed the main barriers that the young people we work with consider important (Chart 1).

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SURVEY, APRIL 2017 Through our enterprise support we actively tried to remove all of the above barriers. Our 2018 Annual Client Survey demonstrated that most young people experienced an increase in confidence and self-esteem through learning-by-doing, as well as an improvement in communication skills as a result of the support they received with their business ideas. Additionally, increased self-belief and recognition of their strengths were important parts of their journey, and these enabled them to feel empowered. This was achieved through taking action and ‘stepping up’, for example workshop facilitation, outreach or pitching. One of the most significant changes reported following our support is that young people gain the confidence to pursue their ideas, run their business and transfer their ideas into practice. Finally, we offer test trading grants or prototyping opportunities to remove finance as an obstacle.

Chart 1: MAIN BARRIERS WHEN STARTING A BUSINESS

Other leadership skills that young people developed and thought valuable include creative thinking, problem solving, evaluating risks, teamwork, presentation and planning. Consequently, they felt more motivated, more purposeful and increasingly confident and empowered to take ownership of their personal development. Chart 2, below, indicates the extent to which young people developed these skills and outcomes in their first year of BLP support. (Note: In certain cases the reason for no improvements in some outcomes was that young people already felt confident in some of the skills when they arrived )

Client responses - skills / progression outcomes

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Lack of skills

Time commidment

Lack of confidence

Lack of networks

Lack of finance

Fear of failure

Skill and progression outcomes

4 3 2 1

Number of clients

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Young people especially valued our unique 1:1 support through business coaching. Our entrepreneurs felt that BLP offered good support via the creation of (and adherence to) action plans, and more generally by helping each of them in a supportive manner to define their own goals. There are practical moments of growth in this journey, moments when BLP may encourage young people to ‘step up’, encouraging them to engage with stakeholders, test trade or pitch / present their idea to help them form tangible milestones on their journey. Clients stated that this process allows them to progress and test their idea, moving them through business start-up stages of pre-planning, planning / testing, prototyping and trading. Understandably, some of them moved faster through these steps than others, depending on their skills and networks prior to engagement.

Reflections ○ The qualitative data revealed shortcomings in the tools we use to assess the development of skills, due to the subjectivity of terms and the differing priorities and skills young people have when coming to BLP. This highlights the importance of using young people’s views and experiences to shape the tools used to measure their development. ○ The incubator learnings showed more progress in a cohort environment where peer-to-peer learning is at the centre. Peer support improves resilience and brings about more positive long-term outcomes. ○ More test-trading grants and pitching events should be available to young people, as a way of presenting their idea to an audience and removing barriers to their testing, prototyping and improving products or services. BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP | PURPOSE

○ Following the positive reports of interaction between BLP-supported young people, and specifically them helping each other with their businesses, we recommend that more networking events should be put in place to ensure young people have the chance to interact with each other. This fosters positive relationships and increases peer-to-peer learning, as well as reducing the isolation that often comes with their journey into enterprise.

CREATING A BLP EVIDENCE BASE In partnership with the Centre for Youth Impact (www.youthimpact.uk) we are currently running a national thematic network around impact measurements and enterprise. We are co-designing an impact ‘app’ with eight other organisations and young people to better record the leadership skills young people are acquiring in their enterprise journey. This tool is designed to share impact data across third-sector organisations who have similar outcomes within their evaluation framework. The tool is being co-designed by Enabling Enterprise, Acorn Aspirations, Reload Greece, UK Youth, Hatch, Superhighways, Petite Miracles and Digilab. The tool will be available as a free downloadable application in September 2018. Please email here if your organisation wishes to be kept informed [email protected]

Case study 1: Crowdfund 360 I am the founder of Crowdfund 360. Crowdfund 360 helps start-ups, social enterprises and charities crowdfund more successfully. We work with clients from the planning phases of the campaign all the way to running the campaign, and also then following up to make sure their backers are happy. We help clients with both strategy and content. I have had my business since January 2017, therefore for a year and four months, and have so far helped 30 campaigns launch. One of the challenges I face as a young person is being taken seriously. I am young, short and a female – sometimes it is hard to be taken seriously. I also struggle with the non-crowdfunding elements of running a business! Finally, now I struggle with hiring, being sure I have chosen the right person and that they won’t go off and steal my strategies. Business Launchpad helped me develop the skills and confidence I needed to build up my business on all elements not related to crowdf u nd i ng . B L P al so he l p e d me se t u p a business-leader mind set. They were also one of my early clients as we ran a crowdfunding accelerator programme for eight young social entrepreneurs. “The best ways that young people can be supported in their journeys is constant accountability, support and network of friends in the same situations”.

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BUSINESS WITH PURPOSE YOUNG BUSINESS LEADERS DRIVEN BY CREATING SOCIAL CHANGE Twenty-five percent of the young entrepreneurs we support run an organisation with a social purpose. In the past two years we have been trialling a number of approaches, including community business development and a five-day social sprint programme, both supported by social enterprise basics, ideas generation workshops, and social events. Our community business work funded by Power to Change has allowed us to start exploring how we can start engaging young people in community businesses. There are plenty of young people wanting to tackle social issues – but how do we turn the focus from an ‘I’ to a ‘We’? We need to further explore how we speak about ownership and communicate the benefits of community businesses without taking away the individual’s ownership. The dominant language around community business does not immediately seem to address the ambitions and aspirations of young people. For this we need to test more approaches and at the same time acknowledge young people’s ambitions and desires. For the next sprint we aim to structure the programme around teams instead of individuals, co-creating solutions to social problems. We want to see how this will alter the dynamic of creating innovative solutions to social problems.

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SOCIAL SPRINT

The purpose of this programme is to give young people the opportunity to test their idea and get feedback from their beneficiaries and market. There was a strong peer element that came up in the first cohort. When we were promoting the programme we met many young people that wanted to get involved, but they didn’t know what they wanted to do. We are therefore now testing how we can engage all young people and avoid missing people because they feel they are not ready. We are considering how we can use the sprint to facilitate an ideas generation and skills building programme. The different approaches have yielded several learnings. Feedback from our themed networking events (SocialLabs) suggests that social entrepreneurs coming together helps with momentum, and that having the opportunity to speak in public gives young people the confidence to ‘step up’. Furthermore, the focus group revealed the positive impact relationships between clients can have, which highlights the importance of networking events and creating opportunities for interaction. Pitching and presenting the ideas of young entrepreneurs were also key milestones in developing youth leadership skills. Some of the young people we support are further along in their business journeys. Their challenges instead centre on sustainability, paying yourself and finding the balance of work/setting up a business. As organisations, it is important for us to offer differing levels of support to young people throughout their journeys – whatever progression route they decide to take.

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Reflections: ○ We need to remove the recognised barriers (e.g. childcare, access to laptops, money for transport and lunch costs) to ensure enterprise is accessible to young people. ○ It is important to recognise the ambitions and desires of young people, and create programmes in light of these. This could take the form of thematic programmes, for example around the digital world, the environment etc., to spark the interest of creating social businesses in different ways. ○ There is more need of peer support for the programme, as the positive effects that these peer relationships can have has been demonstrated through qualitative focus group findings as well as through feedback from young people. We need to explore how this can be facilitated. ○ Youth-led marketing and outreach helps us develop approaches that reach the hardest-to-reach young people and younger demographics. The peer model amplifies voices of young people and enables us to raise awareness in a way that young people can relate to. ○ In terms of supporting young people to start their social business it is important to invest in soft skills development, opportunities to test ideas and supporting young people to gain the confidence and resilience they need to succeed. ○ As part of the team working approach, we are also aiming to explore how through the recognition of their strengths we can encourage young people to think of how they could build a community business based on complementary skillsets

“Going forward we are really interested to start putting the collaboratve approach at the centre of our work” – Caesar Gordon - Purpose Programme Manager

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THE PROGRAMME DESIGNERS Giving young people Opportunities to lead

History of the Youth Panel development within the organisation The Youth Leadership Panel has been developing in the organisation for the past two years. The Youth Panel primarily ran as monthly meetings for young people, to inform some of the work of the organisation. However, after evaluation, we have moved to a two-tier approach to meet the differing needs of young people and offer them progression routes. Hence we now have the Youth Collective and the Youth Associates. The Youth Collective stemmed from the Youth Leadership Panel. In collaboration with the Job Centre they co-created a leadership programme to support young people in reaching their full potential. It started as a way to prepare young people for business set-up, even though they were not yet ready to carry this out. When the Youth Collective came about it aimed to offer a safe space for younger people, with whom we were engaging to develop skills, work on soft skills and give back through project involvement. This resulted in us working with UK Youth to allow young people to achieve the leadership award. BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP | PURPOSE

The Youth Collective aims to help young people aged 16-21 explore and develop life skills. It aims to support them in the practical applications of those skills. The aspiration is that the young people will eventually engage with the organisation as Youth Associates, and progress to start their own enterprise. The Youth Associates are young people who are offered paid opportunities to engage, inform and deliver to young people. They work a freelance, casual basis on opportunities offered by the organisation, such as running or supporting a workshop. Most of the them are in the process of starting their own business.

The Youth Associates are young people who care about enterprise, or who want to set up their own business, spread the word and make some money to support their entrepreneurial endeavours. This is a natural progression from the Youth Collective, which gives young people the opportunity to gain skills and put them into practice. Importantly, the two-tier model offers different opportunities according to young people’s needs and challenges and offers progression opportunities. Finance was a barrier for many young people when starting their business – these paid opportunities not only gave them a chance to lead and learn, but also the income needed to support the initial stages of starting their businesses.

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Reflections The Youth Collective targeted young people between the ages of 16-20 who lived in or near the Southwark area. Through this project we aimed to engage with the hardest-to-reach young people. However, despite our successful engagement during the outreach stage, it was challenging to get the group to attend our monthly meet-ups. For this reason, we need to find ways to undertake outreach more successfully, through increased repeat engagement or a change in our conversation. So far, peer-to-peer engagement has been particularly effective. We are open to the possibility of this programme evolving into something different. It is still in the pilot phase, so more resources are essential for someone to oversee its development. There is an appetite for where it has worked well, and it is obviously important to keep learning and developing our approaches. Youth Associates: One of the challenges we faced was that, despite the availability of opportunities, there was a need for more upskilling to get young people ready for these opportunities. We had a few facilitation workshops and we are in the process of creating a structured programme. This is one of the aspirations for the next year. The facilitation training that took place was very successful and enabled young people to benefit from new opportunities and even move to full time employment. One recommendation is that subsets of training should be created, where young people are trained for different thematic areas (e.g. outreach, facilitation etc.) according to their interests. We have learned that opportunities and skills-development go hand in hand, and the both are important to enable young people to take the lead. In the coming year, one of the award winners (Business of the Year) from last year’s BLP Awards, New Ground BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP | PURPOSE

Creations, is taking on the task of creating and overseeing meaningful, structured approaches to develop the Youth Associates and Youth Collective. It is important to recognise that these approaches take time, testing and input. There needs to be space for reflection and input from young people. This should be taken into consideration by funders when designing projects and testing youth-led approaches.

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Case study 2: Eniola Akinlabi Case Study Mental health, in particular, is something that will considerably impact your ability to get employed and stay employed. It was the biggest obstacle I faced for years, but by being a Youth Associate for Business Launchpad, I was able to be employed and work within a team that have been very understanding of my difficulties and have supported me to overcome some of my personal challenges. When I joined the team, I did have a hard time settling in, because there didn’t seem to be a rigid structure or just one way of doing things and, as someone who is incredibly comfortable with always being told what to do and how to do it, it was anxiety provoking to be asked how I thought things should be done. Fortunately, the team I work with are very understanding, non-judgemental and patient. Through their constant support and reassurance I’ve been able to share my thoughts and opinions in meetings, have input in some of the decisions made, take charge of planning projects and be a support for my peers. All of this has pushed me out of my comfort zone, expanded my skillset greatly and made me realise that I can do a lot of the things I didn’t think I could, and that I am a valued addition to the team.

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Working at Business Launchpad has really helped with my social anxiety, depression and fear of failure. They have really championed my strengths. I now know that I am good at planning, organising, problem solving and I have good written communication skills. The thought of me starting a business this time last year would have been laughable. But here I am doing just that. Although I quite liked the idea of being a businesswoman, it was just that – an idea. I didn’t think I had the skills to do it and I definitely didn’t have the confidence before, but being present at the workshops and working within the team has made me believe that I can do it and to be open to the challenges I’ll undoubtedly face along the way.

To me, youth leadership is allowing young people to have an important say in shaping and directing the services that ultimately affect them. It means young people can be heard instead of being dictated to about what is best for them and it’s an opportunity for them to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for their personal development and growth so that they can go on to be fully functioning members of society.

YOUTH-LED OUTREACH The BLP Southwark Model Youth-led outreach has been trialled in the borough of Wandsworth in the past two years, and we have seen a 500% rise in the number of people engaging with us. Following this, we decided to adopt and develop this approach in the borough of Southwark, as part of an enterprise programme and community business development funded by Southwark Council, London Community Foundation and Power to Change. The pillar of this programme is that outreach was undertaken by young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)or/and who have been through the enterprise journey themselves. In addition, 70% of young people we engage with in Southwark are hard to reach, compared to only 30% in the rest of our work. We have met with partners who work with hard to reach young people. We attended festivals and fairs, youth clubs and libraries and got involved in online campaigning. To date, the most effective outreach efforts were two instances in which young people took the initiative and reached out to other young people. The response that we have had through this more informal engagement, coming directly from young people, has been positive. Partnership events have also played a key role in reaching young people in Southwark. This grassroots partnership engagement was powerful, as we had the opportunity to share learning between us and the partners, and work more collaboratively to give opportunities to young people. What we have learned is that there is not really a one size fits all approach. From a recent interview with one of the young people leading the programme we also found out that storytelling and relating to young people was key to successful engagement:

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In effect, this approach has enabled us to engage more young people with enterprise, as well as give young people that are passionate about enterprise paid opportunities to develop and raise awareness to bring about a difference in their communities. “Sharing my story was a great way to engage with young people. They were asking a lot of questions and this raised awareness and got us a lot of attention” - Pareece Rose Founder of New Ground Creations & Youth Leadership Development Lead BLP

Reflections ○ Sometimes this approach has been challenging due to the fact that when it became fixed as a role, and therefore more structured, it became much more difficult to do naturally. We have now simplified the programme. More resources can be beneficial in creating a structured model that allows both young people and organisations to create lived-experience approaches. ○ Recognising lived experience as mentioned by Baljeet Sandhu is integral to putting young people, with their knowledge, insights and lived expertise, in positions to lead and to drive social change. This ensures that organisations

stay true to their vision and enables them to reach the hardest-to-reach young people through a peer-to-peer element. Further involvement of young people with lived experience in project design would be desirable, hence the resources for both organisations and young people are needed to enable this. ○ Testing and getting these approaches right takes time and resources. It is important to recognise the value in this and to demonstrate this value to funders and policy makers, to enable input from more organisations. There needs to be a greater emphasis and unrestricted income for youth leadership funding in the sector.

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YOUTH-LED VENTURES

Financial: Young people are paid minimum wage in the initial stages to support their personal expenses.

Directly incubating youth-led businesses

Support: They have ongoing support and exposure to BLP’s and Trident Business Centre’s clientele.

In the past 16 months we have also piloted the youth-led ventures approach as a way of supporting leadership through entrepreneurship. How can we encourage young people to be drivers of innovation? This entails paying young people a salary to develop an initial idea and, as the business progresses and becomes profitable, ownership is transferred to young people. The initial idea is then transformed to the young person or people’s vision. This allows initial risks and barriers that could otherwise have prevented young people starting this venture to be removed. Such barriers were identified during interviews and a survey conducted in 2016 with young people 16-30. These barriers include:

Risk: Risk is minimised through BLP taking up most of the risk at the initial stages. Credibility: Having an organisation that has been running for the past 30 years increases our credibility, helping young people access funding as well as secure clients. Space: They are provided with a space in Trident Business Centre, allowing them to operate from there but also create an ecosystem of support and partnerships.

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According to the RBS Enterprise Tracker, in association with Unltd similar barriers were identified among young people aged 18-30: What do you think are/would be the biggest barriers to starting your own bussines or enterprise?

I don’t think I could get enough money to start up

37% 39% 38% 44%

It’s too risky

36% 38%

It’s to work for someone else

36% 38%

I don’t think that I would be able to get a loan

22% 23%

Need more skills

21% 22%

I am happy with my current working status

16% 23%

Need better networks

12% 21%

No oppurtunities

12% 16%

Need to test my idea

12% 15%

This current economic climate is too difficult

All 18-30’s

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Case study 3: Digilab Obed Yeboyah, 25 years old

I came to BLP during my placement year through an event in Google campus- that was my first interaction. I then registered and got a counsellor. I didn’t have a lot of confidence at the time, especially talking to older people and developers. My counsellor helped me grow some confidence in a unique way. My main challenges with my first business -CV Snipstemmed from being young and how to articulate myself and be confident to pitch an idea and get an investor to believe in it. I then started running a service for young entrepreneurs aged 16-30 building their websites and offering them business coaching. I came to BLP for a meeting with Stuart the CEO at Digilab and they were looking for someone to grow it. I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to make my vision a reality. I always had the vision to grow my own business to what Digilab is now – a place for young people to come and learn different skills. This gave me a bigger space, the resources and the backend from BLP to make this happen. What we decided we wanted was to target young people who are hard to reach, e.g. homeless, referral units. We realised through

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How can we support young people in their leadership journey? Give young people a sense of ownership, guidelines and freedom to correct things. We all have different perspectives. It’s all subjective. You learn a lot when you are not put in a box. In these days young people are able to access information easily. I can’t stress the importance of ownership of projects enough. working with these hard-to-engage young people that it is very different from the mainstream forms of engagement. It is more about building a foundation of trust. Instead of us becoming a tech hub we want to create a therapeutic space for young people to be able to express themselves and help them identify ways to solve their problems. A lot of them deal with low self-esteem and low confidence. Obstacles removed: Space – we wouldn’t be able to get this easily. Resources and knowledge from staff to bring this all together. Understanding young people as a whole has been a learning curve for me, especially to go out and pitch. A few staff members were pillars for us to lean on. I feel confident now that Digilab is about to become independent. We believe in our content, we worked with a referral unit and went very well and they even gave us the opportunity to work with another branch. “CV Snip was more about me, I wasn’t working with anyone. Now I need to make sure that everyone is happy, everyone is learning”

“I think encouraging leadership is freedom to think outside of the box”

REFLECTIONS • It is important to give the support and tools to young people leading the ventures to succeed, while simultaneously giving them freedom of choice of how to lead the project. Giving a timeframe to the project is necessary to manage expectations. • It’s also very important to find a balance between removing barriers and ensuring that it is risk free for young people to prototype, but at the same time ensuring some realities are left in the process as a way of learning. • Having a co-developed timeline of ownership transfer, so there is a target deadline for young people and a clear understanding of responsibilities.

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THE BLP STORY Leading by example This part of the report presents the story and progression of BLP as an organisation to working with youth. Young people at the heart is one of our main core values. We have always been involving young people with our work, but in the past two years we have been trailing new approaches, listening to what young people need and providing progression opportunities. The extent of young people’s participation has moved to our actively seeking their input and their participation at every level of design and delivery. We have had the opportunity to do this thanks to the unrestricted income from our trading arm, Trident Business Centre. Our journey started by creating a Youth Leadership Panel and getting their voices in organisational aspects, as well as involving them in designing a leadership programme. This model has proven effective, but also challenging, as the ownership wasn’t solely on young people and there were many organisational capacity and skills gaps that posed a challenge to further participation. As a result, we have been testing and refining this approach to ensure young people have paid employment opportunities within the organisation, allowing them to take the lead.

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From an organisational level, 64% of the employees are young people aged 30 or under, 63% of whom are currently in managerial positions or/and have ownership of programmes. This allows us to stay true to our vision and mission and tackle the current challenges of our time. Our vision is for the organisation to be replicated or taken over by young people. There was a strong appetite for this shift. The leadership figures had the necessary skills to drive the organisation through a learning journey, emphasising the need to value and incorporate the lived experience of young people in our work. For this reason, it is important to consider the leadership skills that young people gain in their journeys, as these young people will one day be leaders in their fields and will be able to bring about social impact in their organisations and communities.

64%

OF EMPLOYEES

ARE YOUNG PEOPLE 30 YEARS OLD ORUNDER FROM WHICH

63%

are currently in managerial possitions or have ownership of programmes

“The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow.” - Nelson Madela -

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OTHER LEADERS IN THE SECTOR WHO HAVE INSPIRED US: What is youth leadership to you? “Youth leadership to MyBnk is empowering young people to take charge of their own learning, life and their future. Through our programmes, we give them the knowledge and skills to feel confident and make their own decisions when it comes to their career and financial opportunities. We try to take a back seat and empower them to lead more.” – Sharan JaswalEducation Director at My Bnk “Youth Leadership is about young people having the opportunity and the space to start to know more about themselves and also understand others. London Youth cover different leadership styles with young people and I think it’s important for them to know where they sit within that and their preferred way of doing things. Alongside that, having the skill and knowledge to know that different styles will be needed and useful for different people and situations. Key for us is young people having the space and opportunity to try things for themselves - whether that’s leading on a project, a campaign, being involved in a decision, or giving a speech in the House of Lords. I think you learn by doing and by being given an opportunity to try something, perhaps something that’s outside of your comfort zone, is really vital.” – Sophie Hewitt Youth Action Delivery Manager at London Youth

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CONCLUSION This paper explores what youth leadership is and why it matters, focusing on developing youth leadership through the work of BLP. Reflections from our programmes and work over the past 30 years are an important place to start to better understand how enterprise, skills development and leadership are linked. We believe that successful creation of young business leaders lies at the intersection between skills development and taking ownership of projects – something that can be modelled well through enterprise support. Finally, by bringing theory and practice together, as well as learnings from the sector, we have constructed the world we want to live in – a world that encourages youth leadership and gives opportunities to young people to own and lead their own projects, businesses and futures.

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THE WORLD WE WANT TO LIVE IN A world that has plenty of resources to invest in youth leadership. Unrestricted funding is available to test these approaches, learn and refine. Failure is recognised as part of this journey. • A world with plenty of resources for young people to access self-employment without barriers. A world where resources for travel, laptops, childcare, space and lunch is the norm. Finance to support young people set up businesses by ensuring funding for an initial period is available, allowing young people to accelerate their enterprise journey in a safe environment.

A world where collaboration is the way forward. • Young people are working in teams, co-creating and have the chance to network, collaborate and learn with and from each other. A world where skills swap and peer-to-peer learning is used in ecosystems such as communities or work spaces, to promote innovative and collaborative environments. • A sector that is built on collaboration and shared learning. Shared values and complementary skills allow organisations to move forward together and create an even bigger impact for young people.

• A world where we have enough resources to pay young people to lead projects and further invest in lived experience, to create a bigger impact. Progression roots and opportunities are plenty and organisations value the contribution of young people in their work.

A world where young people are embedded in all aspects of organisations, especially in senior management positions and on trustee boards, with their voices reflected in all decision making.

A world where plenty of support is available to young people to develop their skills and enable them to recognise their strengths. Impact measurement tools will reflect those things that matter to young people. A youth-created impact measurement tool will be available, where young people will be able to define the outcomes that matter to them.

A world where the voice of young people is at the centre of our work. Communication with young people is present to ensure that when we speak of leadership, and when we design leadership programmes, these are not tokenistic but rather created by young people.

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Our Inspiration: - Kenrick, T. and Racadio, D. (2013.) RBS Enterprise Tracker, in association with UnLtd. RBS Group. Available at https://unltd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/RBS-Youth-Enterprise-Tracker-Summary_2nd-Quarter-2013-FINAL.pdf [Accessed: 16/04/2018] - Kahn, L., Hewes, S. and Rushanara, A. (2009.) Taking the lead: Youth leadership in theory and practice. The Young Foundation. Available at https://youngfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Taking-the-Lead-October-2009.pdf [Accessed: 16/04/2018] - Copps, J. and Plimmer, D. (2013.) (Updated by E. Harries, A. Kail and E. Ní Ógáin, 2014.) Inspiring Impact. The Journey to Employment (JET) Framework. NPC. Available at https://inspiringimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/JET-framework-FINAL-Jan-2015.pdf [Accessed: 16/04/2018] - Roberts, Y. (2009.) The skills for success and how they are grown. The young Foundation. Available at https://youngfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/GRIT-The-skills-for-success-and-how-they-are-grown-2009.pdf [Accessed: 16/04/2018] - Sandhu, B. (2017.) The value of lived expertise in Social Change. The need for Leadership and Organisational Development in the Social Sector. Available at: https://thelivedexperience.org/report/ - Brown J (2018), Briefing Paper Number 5871, Youth Unemployment Statistics - The Prince’s Trust Macquarie (2018). Youth Index 2018

Acknowledgements: Teamwork makes dream work: Firstly we would like to thank all Business Launchpad and Trident Business Centre staff and trustees for their insights and expertise as well as the youth associates for the inspiration and the way they positively changed how BLP does its work. A special thank you goes to the Impact team- Naveen Tariq and Bea Angier for all their hard work on this report and Stuart Thomason for his on-going support, insights and inspiration. Without our involvement in the Clore Emerging Leaders Social Programme we wouldn’t have been able to meet and connect with other youth organisations such as My Bnk, London Youth, SLYNCS, which helped our thinking on youth leadership

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We would also like to thank our funders– London Community Foundation, Power to Change, Southwark Council (SEEDS2) and Wandsworth Council as without their funding, testing and learning through these programmes wouldn’t have been achieved. A huge thank you to our valued partnership with the Centre for Youth Impact and in particular Bethia McNeil and Pippa Knott for their support and contribution to this paper and our evaluation work. Also a thank you to the eight organisations that have been involved in the process of shaping our thinking around impact measurement in the youth sector (Enabling Enterprise, Acorn Aspirations, Reload Greece, UK Youth, Hatch, Superhighways, Petite Miracles and Digilab)

The launch and dissemination of this report would not have been able without Nick Howe and Natwest who are sponsoring this event We would also like to thank 32D Productions for the design of this report, Dr.Robert Dinnis (NMA) for proofreading this paper as well as the LCC students for their contribution to the branding work of BLP Finally a huge thanks to Emmanuel for his ongoing support during this period.

www.businesslaunchpad.org.uk [email protected]