Startup has been awarded £288,238 by the Big Lottery Fund towards its new Startupnow for Women project.   This grant means Startup can continue to reduce re-offending by giving women who have been in prison the opportunity to become self-employed. Over a year, 240 women will have access to personal and business advice with at least 60 going on to set up their own business.

Since 2006 Startup has given over 500 male and female ex-offenders business advice and mentoring with 105 going on to successfully launch a business.  Businesses started include gardening, personal training, hairdressing, web design and even a Buddy Holly tribute act!  Startup works with a wide range of selected partners to deliver its results.

Startup’s simple but unique approach of offering individually tailored business advice, covering basic start up business costs and mentoring for up to two years has resulted in a reoffending rate of less than 5%, versus the 65% national average.

So far, Startup has been funded by foundations and private support. This grant enables Startup to expand its operations; we hope it will also persuade the new government to back a major expansion of the men’s programme, which saves £9 of taxpayer’s money for every £1 invested.

Juliet Hope, CEO of Start Up, added “It’s wonderful that the Big Lottery understands the value of the work that we are doing and is supporting the Startupnow for Women project so generously “

The Big Lottery Fund distributes half of the National Lottery good cause funding across the UK.  The Fund aims to enable others to make real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need.

For Further information please contact: Juliet Hope: 07918680011 or jhope@startupnow.org.uk

We are very honoured to have been nominated for a number of recent awards including The Lord Longford Prize and the Wessex Charity Awards.

Mari was thrilled to accept an award from Support Action Net on the 5th November 2008, when her work developing Startup’s mentoring network was particularly commended.

The SupportActionNet Awards – recognising outstanding support services for vulnerable people that enhance quality of life by generating optimism, achievement, hope, freedom and fun – attracted 117 entries from around the UK. Practitioners and a panel of expert judges voted for the best entries online. Winners were announced at the SupportActionNet Conference on 5 November in London.

Southdown Housing Association won the overall award and £5,000 for their punk band Heavy Load where two of the five musicians are service users with learning disabilities. The band started a ‘stay-up-late’ campaign to challenge the practice where a lot of service users have a 9pm curfew due to inflexible staff rotas, meaning people with learning disabilities were missing out on a full social life and not able to enjoy gigs, meet their friends, or go to the theatre.

Startuponline was a runner-up for the Awards winning £2,000.  Judges commented:

• “A very good service for those who want to take the step to achieving their own and having their own.”
• “An innovative and excellent approach to challenging and helping prisoners to have, and achieve, higher aspirations. I am particularly impressed by the mentoring angle.”
• “A great opportunity, would be so keen to see this extended to other Prisons so that more ex-offenders had the opportunity to realise true employment opportunities on release. WELL DONE”
• “Gives prisoners a reason to go straight and take their futures seriously.”

SupportActionNet Project Director Gerard Lemos says, “We were delighted by the scope and ambition of this year’s entries; it’s extremely heartening to hear about so many examples of such good work with a focus on fulfilling the social and emotional aspirations of vulnerable people.”

Since our modest beginnings in 2004, Startup has advised over 350 ex-offenders and are currently supporting 82 clients.

Today it is with great pleasure that we launch our new website (www.startupnow.org.uk) and accompanying branding which we hope will aid our efforts to allow more ex-offenders to become self-employed. This marks the start of an important phase at Startup as we aim to expand to more locations throughout the UK so that we can help even more ex-offenders.

We are keen to hear your opinions of our new website, so why not contact us on our new email address info@startupnow.org.uk and let us know what you think.

The Startup team

Below is an extract from ‘The Landing’, the news magazine from HMP Wandsworth.

Click the image to enlarge.