Offering Minority Communities Equal Opportunities Through Entrepreneurship

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Offering Minority Communities Equal Opportunities
Through Entrepreneurship

• Dr Thomas M. Cooney
• Director Institute for Minority
  Entrepreneurship
• Dublin Institute of Technology
• Ireland

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Background to IME

• Established in 2006
• Offering all the peoples of minority groups in
  Ireland equal opportunity to maximise their
  economic and social potential through
  entrepreneurship education and training
• Helping people to help themselves
• Partnering with relevant organisations
• Motto is Build the person, build the business
  non-traditional approach based on research
• Primarily a voluntary organisation, supported
  particularly by people from the business
  community
• DIT staff
• PhD students
• Board of Advisors
• Community Leaders
• Mentors
• Moving from bums on seats model to business
  start-up model

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Key Minority Communities

• Prisoners
• People with Disabilities
• Travellers (Gypsies)
• 50
• Gay
• Ethnic
• These communities face additional and distinctive
  challenges in starting up their own business
• Benefits of training around what it means to be
  entrepreneurial can help them in their social
  as well as their working life

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Income Generation OptionsFor Each Individual

• Tax generating
• Employment
• Self-employment
• Farming
• Tax usurping
• State Support
• Crime
• Tax neutral (although may have positive /
  negative tax effect)
• Begging
• Inheritance
• Marriage
• Sponsorship
• Pensions
• Gambling

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Prisoner Community
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Economic Rationale

• Reimprisonmentrates
• 27.4 within 1 year
• 39.2 within 2 years
• 45.1 within 3 years
• 49.2 within 4 years
• Profile of reoffenders
• 52 unemployed prior to reoffence
• Male
• Younger (under 30)
• Property crimes (49 reimprisoned within 36
  months)
• Career options on leaving prison
• Back to crime (costs state over 90,000 per year
  per prisoner)
• State support (costs state in excess of 200 per
  week, higher than average wage in most EU
  accession states)
• Employment (contributes tax, hard to get a job)
• Self-employment (contributes to tax and economic
  activity)

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Distinctive E/Ship Challenges Faced By Prisoners
(Rieple, 1998)

• Lack of suitable contacts / role models
• Inability to drive due to lack of license
• Lack of financial support / credit history
• Credit payment schemes not available due to
  record
• Business insurance very expensive
• How to present yourself to the bank?
• Poor educational and literacy abilities
• Stigma attached to having a record
• Lack of follow-through, persistence, dedication
  (lack will to overcome setbacks)
• Problems related to the dulling effects prison
  exerts on some individuals
• Unable to test-market idea
• Lack of continuing support
• Lack of self-confidence (want to set up business
  while in prison, but rarely follow it up on
  release)

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Training Needs

• Holistic approach needed
• Seed funding required
• Business mentors required
• Must have pre-programme interviews
• Build one-to-one sessions into the programme
• Only those being released within 12 months should
  be on the programme
• Support of other organisations is critical

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People With Disabilities
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Employment Among Disabled

• Lower rates of employment
• US 30.4 disabled v. 82.3 non-disabled
• UK 54 v. 84
• Ire 37 v. 67
• Fewer in full-time employment
• 63.9 v. 81.5 (US)
• Lower levels of income
• 29,513 v. 37,961
• Poorer levels of education
• 31 v. 15 not finished high school (US)
• 26 v. 11 no educational qualification (UK)
• 50.8 have no second-level education (Ire)

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Motivations for Self-Employment

• Desire to overcome disability
• Inability to secure / retain job
• Wish to increase income
• Flexibility in working hours and workload
• Rebuilding self-esteem
• Suits / accommodates disability
• Fear of discrimination in the workplace
• Autonomy from obstacles such as
• Transportation
• Fatigue
• Inaccessible work environments
• Need for personal assistance
• BUT no tailored self-employment programmes
  available for people with disabilities in Ireland
  (few anywhere globally)

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Barriers to Self-Employment

• Difficulties in obtaining start-up capital
• Lack of own financial resources
• Poor credit rating
• Disinterest from the banks
• Fear of losing regular benefit income (benefit
  trap)
• Unhelpful attitudes of business advisers
• Lack of customers
• Lack of access to appropriate training and
  support
• Difficulties in qualifying for minority focused
  financial resources

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Characteristics of EWDs

• Older
• Lower educational qualifications
• Self-employed longer
• Less likely to be in professional occupations
• Lower hours worked
• Bring lower levels of start-up capital
• Have lower incomes

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Developing Appropriate Support

• Address low educational qualifications
• Provide tailored training programmes (online)
• Provide on-going business support
• Establish microloan funds
• Implement disability awareness training for
  business advisers
• Facilitate self-employment through vocational
  rehabilitation
• Actively market services to socially excluded
  groups
• Reduce work disincentives
• Address labour market disadvantages

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Traveller Community
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Background to IrishTravellers

• Approximately 24,000 Irish Travellers
• Have their own distinct culture
• Suffer from limited education, poor health,
  discrimination, etc
• General perceptions
• All Travellers want to live on the side of the
  road,
• Travellers do not want to be part of Irish
  society,
• Travellers are to blame for crime and anti-social
  behaviour,
• Travellers halting sites are badly maintained,
• Travellers are cheats who do not pay taxes and do
  not pay for the services that they receive on
  halting sites,
• Travellers are associated with violent behaviour
  (problems with alcohol),
• Travellers are work shy
• Significant amounts of money being given to this
  community through government schemes

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Employment

• Unemployment rates for female Travellers was 63
  and 8 for the female population overall
• Unemployment among male Travellers measured 73
  and 9.4 for males overall
• Travellers want to access waged employment but
  have
• to hide their Traveller identity
• a lack of recognised skills
• low levels of education
• to face discrimination in the marketplace
• Traditional industries and skill needs are being
  lost to a knowledge-based economy
• Laws on street trading had negative effect on
  Travellers

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Key Features of the Traveller Economy

• Nomadism - where mobility makes marginal activity
  viable
• A focus on income generation rather than job
  creation
• The extended family is the basic economic unit
• Home base and work base is one and the same
• Flexibility - often in response to market
  demands.

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Future Developments

• Enormous challenges involved
• Societal perception
• Traveller issues
• No role models (nothing changed after the
  programme)
• Health and education need to be addressed as a
  priority
• Future programmes require 1-2-1 mentoring
• Role models needed to break through at local
  level
• Solutions need to be highly innovative and
  long-term in vision not more programmes that
  continue dependency
• Many previous programme providers have decided to
  no longer work with the Traveller community.
• BUT what does the Traveller Community want for
  itself?
• Lessons from / for Maori and Aboriginal
  communities?

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50 Community
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Bad News !

• Rapidly increasing rates of unemployment caused
  by global recession
• Particularly difficult job prospects for people
  Over 50
• If a person Over 50 loses their job, they have
  just a 1-in-10 chance of finding a new position
  (UK Research)
• Other income options include pensions, state
  support, or self-employment
• Challenges to self-employment include
• Not having sufficient funds, or investing
  retirement funds in start-up
• Not preparing a succession plan or exit strategy
• Physical limitations
• Lack of experience in the market
• "9 to 5" mentality
• Lack of small business knowledge

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Good News !

• In the US, the rate of self-employment for the
  workforce as a whole was 10.2, but the rate for
  workers aged 50-plus was 16.4.
• Although those aged 50 and above made up 25 of
  the workforce in 2002, they comprised 40 of the
  self-employed.
• In the UK, businesses started by people Over 50
• Contribute 24.4bn to economy
• Average turnover of 67,500 a year
• Now account for 1 in 6 UK start-ups
• Two-thirds regret not setting up earlier
• Majority want to run their businesses as long as
  possible
• Although older women start fewer businesses than
  men, women are twice as likely as their male
  counterparts to set up businesses following big
  life changes such as ill-health, divorce or
  moving house.
• Makes economic sense to support this community

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Gay Community
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Different Needs

• Internationally, 18 of gay community are
  entrepreneurs
• Lavender ceiling
• No family commitments
• Higher capital availability
• Current research by IME suggests that
• 11 are entrepreneurs (417 responses)
• 78.1 view themselves as an entrepreneur who is
  gay
• Target gay community as one of many markets
• Their desire to contribute to the gay community
  through employment, etc is of minor significance
• Have suffered abuse in personal circumstances but
  positive about business practice
• Homophobia not an issue in starting a business
• Helped establish IGBA having a network is
  important
• Major one day conference planned to determine
  future work

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Ethnic Community
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Ethnic Entrepreneurship in Ireland

• Non-Irish nationals comprise 11.2 of population
• Approximately 12.6 of non-Irish nationals have
  partial or full ownership of a business
• Ethnic businesses are
• primarily small in scale,
• young in age,
• concentrated in the locally traded services
  sectors,
• operating at the margins of the mainstream
  economic environment,
• 61 identified a business opportunity,
• 75 of ethnic businesses are in operation for two
  years or less,
• 94 employ 5 or less full-time staff,
• 65 generated 50,000 euro or less in sales
  revenue in the last 12 months.
• Ethnic businesses
• Primarily target their own communities
• These markets are too small to be sustainable
  (getting smaller)
• Not potential HPSUs

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Access to Finance
of respondents who attempted to secure financial backing Success Rate in securing financial backing (of those who made an attempt to secure financial backing)
Bank/Building Society 60 78
Credit Union 37 70
State Agency 30 28
Family/Friends 30 89
Business Acquaintances 16 70
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Key Considerations

• Ethnic businesses must include general Irish
  population (good for business, good for social
  integration)
• Strong potential for international trade
• Targeted intervention followed by mainstreaming
  of enterprise support services should be the
  ambition
• Proactive role needs to be taken by enterprise
  support agencies (use ethnic media e.g.
  syndicated column)
• Raise awareness among the ethnic communities of
  the availability to them of enterprise support
• Develop a one-stop-shop website aimed at
  aspiring ethnic entrepreneurs
• Foster enhanced linkages between national
  business representative bodies and ethnic
  business communities

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Conclusion

• Call for Papers in the International Journal of
  Entrepreneurship and Innovation on the silent
  minorities
• Any possibilities for collaboration?
• We treat everyone the same is not working
• Must take a tailored approach to each community
• Working with organisations within the community
  must occur
• Pre-start-up and early start-up requires our
  help, afterwards they should be mainstreamed
• It makes sense economically and socially to take
  a proactive approach that is based on results and
  tangible outcomes
• The challenges are enormous but doing nothing is
  not an option

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"Some see things the way they are and ask, Why?
I dream things that never were, and ask Why
not? George Bernard Shaw