Community Owned Social Impact Enterprise Incubator

About the programme

This community-owned incubator programme supports women, queer and disadvantaged entrepreneurs to design, develop and test their social impact business ideas within a community supported environment. The Int. Permaculture CoLab has 10 years’ experience incubating social impact micro-enterprises and has consolidated this learning into a programme in 2023. The programme provides business development, mentorship, support and practical experience. Participants test ideas, launch prototypes and develop skills for working with clients,businesses and institutions. No equity is taken, instead a profit-sharing pay-back mechanism is offered.

Problem Solving

Women, members of the queer community and other disadvantaged members of the community struggle to access the support needed to achieve their goals. Even when government support is sometimes provided it is often not enough to bring these entrepreneurs to success.This programme bridges the gap between government supported programmes and a successful business. We recognise that these groups are also best placed to create and design social impact solutions for themselves and the communities they are a part of. The programme is tailormade and available online, and is uniquely designed to meet accessibility needs for these underserved communities

Reasonable Effort

The effort for participation required to make the most of the programme is clearly stated, including the amount of hours, that includes group work between calls. Whilst support is provided and the support infrastructure is in place, the success of the business is dependent on the commitment and hours put into it by the participants. The participants make a commitment to participate for the duration of the programme, including monthly group sessions, an implementation and evaluation plan. The group sessions are not only efficient use of resources they also provide grounds to exchange experiences, mutual support and learning from each other.

Moral-ethical standards

The International Permaculture CoLab embraces permaculture ethics: People care, Earth care and Fair shares. This is embedded into our process and all our projects. This includes: transparent financing, how to make decisions by consent, calculate and apply equitable wage rates, conflict transformation and give-back mechanisms. We also work with ethical digital open source and green hosted tools. Ethical standards within this programme are high through a community accountability policy, reporting and provides an example to the participants that they can apply within their own business development and shape the programme through giving feedback.

Beneficial experiences

This programme puts the participants at its center; It empowers them to evaluate their progress, to bring forward their learnings and share them with others. To take on the programme like a creative and experimental place to test and prototype their offering, and most importantly to improve it and test it in their market with real clients. It makes available to them a sounding board: Both within their peer group and through mentors who have been in their shoes before. Individuals bring their own voices, lived experiences and are supported to shape their own business development. We aim for participants to enjoy this formative experience.

Design relevance

This programme: The group support sessions, the choice of ethical tools, and the one-to-one support, together with the evaluation process are all designed using David Holmgren’s 12 permaculture design principles and following a permaculture design process. The participants are guided through a design informed evaluation process that identifies the participants weakest areas, which become the focus areas for their participation in the programme. The design approach is iterative, reviewing participants’ progress and deciding based on their results how to best use their time, resources and support as they evolve and grow throughout the programme

Project Region/Country – Europe

What we have done do far

From the start in 2023 we have welcomed 7 Social Impact micro-enterprises totaling 31 entrepreneurs. All are in different stages of business development. This year we aim to expand our target group to include more women, queer, LGBTQI+ community.

Click here to watch the presentation video: https://youtu.be/lj9fhHV2nh4

We are looking for funding for the next cohort!

If you’re interested in support us or applying for a space in the programme please email us on funding@perma.earth