Ulster Bank celebrates 5 years of Enterprise Funding

News Letter

Local business leaders gathered at Ulster Bank last week (7th November) for a dinner event, celebrating 5 years of enterprise funding.     Since 2019, 18 different organisations have received a share of £330,000, enabling them to run programmes aimed at boosting enterprise and entrepreneurship throughout Northern Ireland.     Representatives from some of the recipient organisations, as well as local business leaders, were invited to a celebration event, held at Ulster Bank’s Belfast headquarters, to learn more about the funding programmes and the positive impact these grants have made to local communities since they were first introduced 5 years ago.     Each of the programmes funded through the grant awards have contributed to a combined total of more than 10,000 interventions with entrepreneurs through one-to-one coaching sessions, holding meetings, or attending events. In total, 129 participants of an Ulster Bank supported programme, have gone on to create a new business venture.

Transcript

00:00We are having an event to celebrate the launch of Connect2 Success,

00:03which is a mentorship program for women in business looking to scale up their businesses.

00:10The program is very unique in that it's focused on companies in the scale-up stage,

00:18as opposed to a start-up stage.

00:20And these companies that are selected are mentored by a team,

00:25and the mentors work with the woman-owned business over the course of the year

00:30to help her work on instead of in her business.

00:33So many business owners and entrepreneurs are focused on the day-to-day,

00:38but they never step back and look at the strategy

00:41and try to develop the strategy necessary to move forward.

00:44The Ulster Bank Enterprise Fund is really focused on driving early-stage female founders.

00:49So we've partnered with companies like Awaken Hub,

00:51Ulster University, Queen's University,

00:53Young Enterprise to really drive those early-stage thought processes around starting a business.

00:58From a Connect2 Success point of view, we're really excited to do this

01:01because this is the first program we funded,

01:03which is really that next level about supporting female founders

01:06who are scaling up rather than starting.

01:08As we're trying to shape this to be the right fit for Northern Ireland,

01:12Ulster Bank came forward right away and said,

01:14we love it, we're here for it.

01:16We believe in the idea, we believe in our people in Northern Ireland.

01:19They've supported those people and those organizations for a long time.

01:21They want to do it again.

01:22And I was so thrilled and excited when they came on board.

01:26In the past five years, we've put in £300,000 to the local economy

01:31for social enterprises and universities to support female founders getting off the ground.

01:36In that time, we've had hundreds of women go through those programs

01:38and we're delighted to support Connect2 Success as well.

01:42An essential part of my job has been asking members of the community here,

01:46how can I help? What can we do?

01:47And time and again, one of the responses has been,

01:51there's not enough opportunities for women to be able to fully participate

01:55in the economy in Northern Ireland.

01:56It's not a question of female entrepreneurship.

01:59It's a question of, do you want to maximize the potential of your community?

02:03Do you want to make sure that good ideas have the chance to breathe and grow and expand

02:08and kind of change design into their full potential?

02:12Do we want to make sure that everybody has access to that potential?

02:14That's what this is about.

02:15That talent is here. We know that. It's been proven.

02:18Let's try to find the opportunities to be able to highlight that next generation,

02:22encourage them, expand and see what they can do when they fly.

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