Resource
Incubator for Economic Initiatives by Women:
Women Creating a Feminist Economy
Sister
– for Women in Israel
Comme Il Faut
Volunteer Leadership Forum Beersheva
January 2006
Rationale
and Definition of the Problem
In a
patriarchal society, whose values are grounded on hegemonic relationships and a
distinction between the private-female and public-male domains, women are
excluded from the dominant and decisive spheres of action. Aside from the fact
that the domestic arena is still identified with the female gender, the public
and professional arena also relegates women to activities that are essentially
linked to their roles in the home. It is known that a substantial share of
women in the labor market are service providers, most of them salaried, and
that a large percentage of them earn less than men do (in 2000, for example,
women’s average gross monthly income in Israel was 62% of that of men). The
restriction of women to certain occupations and the identification of female
jobs and male jobs excludes women from significant fields of influence in
society and guarantees their economic marginalization. (In the mid-1990s, about
60% of those earning up to the minimum wage to and about 65% of those receiving
income supplements were women [Israeli 1999, p. 167].)
It
is not only that women are involved chiefly in providing services in the home
and outside, and not only that most of them are positioned in the middle or the
lower half of the economic hierarchy. It is also that the knowledge they are
provided with is supposed to be associated with their “natural” position,
meaning teaching, welfare services, secretarial services, cooking, and the
like. In accordance with this division, men, who are responsible for supporting
the household, automatically control the body of knowledge that permits them to
be responsible breadwinners. It follows that the “natural” position of men, who
are ostensibly heads of the household, is in jobs identified with their
function in the family circle—concern for the support and security of the
members of the household.
The
customary division within the family, when extended to the public domain,
leaves women without the practical and theoretical tools that could help them
expand their activity and influence to “male” domains—in other words, into the
business and defense establishments.
Because
Israel is a state under siege (or in a state of war), it has always tended to
identify economic and security topics in a way that associates military success
and performance with an understanding of these other fields, thereby ensuring
that only men have access to rational authority concerning them. The exclusion
of women from these spheres is multiplied sevenfold by the general consensus
that, given their lack of military experience, they cannot put forward rational
arguments about topics of existential importance.
Liberal
feminism in the Western world and in Israel has created a discourse about
women’s penetration of the labor market and has begun to speak about the need
for a struggle that will permit their integration into senior economic
positions. This public discourse, despite its great importance, has been
limited to women of high economic status and/or with a broad higher education;
consequently it had limited impact on most women in Israel, who do not belong
to this elite. At the same time, the liberal feminist discourse in Israel has
successfully corresponded with the economic activity of many women: as Prof.
Deborah Bernstein has demonstrated in her research, Jewish women, in their role
within eternal immigrant families, have always been involved in diverse
economic activities, especially handicrafts and homemade goods. Many women who
were born into elite families demonstrated, through their involvement in the
family business, that their management and economic abilities were no whit
inferior to those of men.
In
recent years there has been an acceleration in the economic activity of women
from the geographic periphery. Women’s economic activity has been expanding on
the basis of business cooperatives created in order to enhance women’s ability
to support themselves by working. Along with this activity, which is backed by
associations whose focus is female empowerment, there has been a growth in the
economic activity of small and micro businesses run by women all over the
country. In Israel today women run some 50,000 micro and small businesses, in
many different fields.
Women
who are employees in various service sectors constitute a significant sector.
As a result of the increase in the number of women who have attained senior
economic positions, we are witnessing an increase in the number of women
employed by businesses that are managed and/or owned by women. The last two
sentences do not fit together.
Despite
the increase in women’s economic activity, the number of women who work only as
homemakers continues to increase. Some 60% of Israeli poor are women, most of
them of Mizrahi origin living on the geographic periphery.
Despite
the increase in the economic activity of Israeli women, there is still no
successful cooperation among women of different social classes and sectors
(nonworking women, poor working women from the periphery and central Israel,
women who run small businesses, women who are capitalists). The increase in
economic activity by women in Israel, the increase in the number of female-run
businesses in Israel, and the fact that there are women who have amassed
capital through their own efforts still do not indicate a social process with
the potential to transform the patriarchal social structure.
Partnership
among women, mutual learning, direct acquaintance, and defiance of the male
divisions of center/periphery, rich/poor, educated/uneducated could launch the
creation in Israel of a civil alternative of women who not only maintain a
different economy but also exert influence on the existing economy.
The
project described here is a first step toward creating such partnerships among
women. It is based on projects and initiatives that have already begun and on
commitments that have already been made. From these perspectives its
feasibility is clear and certain. The project is intended to satisfy the
genuine needs of women who are attempting to conduct business activity in the
periphery based on existing skills. At the same time, the project also links
women from the center to learning, development, and moral growth based on and
nurturing the cooperation among the various organizations.
The
project described here rests on a unique model of mutual learning and mentoring
that involves women from different sectors of the population—women associated
with the business elite and later women from the academic world, working with
women from the social, economic, and geographic periphery—and is meant, among
other things, to shatter traditional strategies of “strong women” who
contribute to and teach “weak women.”
The
Sponsors
Sister
– for Women in Israel
Sister
– for Women in Israel was founded in 1999 by feminist social activists who
recognized the need to set topics of social justice at the center of the public
discourse and to enhance women’s solidarity with women from disempowered
socioeconomic classes. Sister – for Women in Israel is a feminist
organization based on the “feminism of color” (in the Israeli case, Mizrahi
feminism), which works on behalf of disempowered women and seeks to push to the
forefront of the public discourse the issues of women who work for low wages,
nonworking women, and the distress of women on the cultural and geographic
periphery.
Sister
– for Women in Israel was founded against the background of the fact that
feminist organizations in Israel were established and run by Ashkenazi women,
most of them university-educated and living in the geographical center, who
worked to promote the needs and interests typical of women from these classes.
The struggle by Israeli feminist organizations to promote women’s membership in
corporate boards, the Knesset, and institutions of higher education is well
known. Without detracting from the importance of these struggles and the need
to conduct them, they shunted to the margins of the public awareness the
existence of a large group of women who are struggling for economic survival
and daily existence and not to occupy senior positions in the economy.
The
organization has the following goals:
1.
Training
and supporting groups of nonworking women so that they can open their own
businesses and become economically independent
2.
Supporting
processes to change policies so that they benefit women from disempowered
groups
3.
Supporting
Ethiopian immigrant women and developing business cooperatives based on their
occupational skills
4.
Providing
a space where women can meet and study Mizrahi feminism
5.
Providing
legitimacy to Mizrahi culture and art
In
addition to the projects that Sister – for Women in Israel runs for the
empowerment of women on the periphery, its major achievement is associated with
spearheading an alternative feminist agenda in Israel, one that places the
emphasis on issues of social justice, making disempowered women in Israel
visible, and the economic empowerment of disadvantaged women.
·
Co-chairs:
Dr. Orly Benjamin and Dr. Esther Eilam
·
Executive
director: Shula Keshet
Comme
Il Faut
Comme
Il Faut is a fashion company set up by two women 17 years ago, with the
objective of achieving both business goals and political goals associated with
the empowerment of women. The company operates 19 retail outlets in Rehovot,
Tel Aviv, Givatayim, and Haifa and pursues the goal of satisfying the needs of
active women whose time is valuable, who have a heavy and dynamic daily
schedule, and want to develop and to break through limits. In each store
customers can find clothing, accessories, shoes, handbags, and more. The
company’s products are manufactured in Israel by seamstresses, cutters,
designers, and others who work together in the Comme Il Faut studio, located on
the border of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Some 90 women work together in the studio in
production, operations, design, marketing, and management.
“We
believe in women” is the company’s marketing and ethical slogan. The company is
known as a prestige brand that markets and sells its products to well-to-do
women all over the country. Comme Il Faut maintains a corporate culture that
believes in promoting women to senior positions in politics and the business
world. For the past 11 years it has maintained the custom of sending a personal
gift and letter signed by the workers to women who received senior appointments
in business or the academic world. The company also invests in enhancing the
public exposure of female entrepreneurs in various domains. For example, in the
autumn of 2001 the first vintage of the oenologist Orna Chillag, one of the
very few women in this industry in Israel, was launched.
Comme
Il Faut believes that there is an intimate connection between art and the
company’s aesthetic language, and expressed this through exhibits of female
artists at the Comme Il Faut building on Dizengoff in Tel Aviv. The curators of
these exhibits have included Tammy Katz Freiman, Irit Segoli, and Ariella Azoulay.
Each
year the company publishes two catalogs that survey and document its political
positions. These catalogs have included Transparent Jobs (summer 2005), which featured housework by women, which is given no economic value and
is not continued to be work; Women Crossing Borders (summer 2004), which
brought its customers into contact with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Her
Story (winter 2004), which presented history from a female perspective;
etc.
·
Managing
Director: Sybil Goldfeiner
·
Vice
president for marketing and sales: Michal Cohen
The
Volunteer Leadership Forum, Beersheva
The
Volunteer Leadership Forum has been active since 2000. In 2002 it registered as
a nonprofit organization with the goal of integrating the Ethiopian immigrant
community with long-settled Israelis. Initially the organization focused on
studying Ethiopian culture and learning the needs of the community. The
Volunteer Leadership association runs five projects: (1) adding a new,
Amharic-language hotline to ERAN, which today provides service all over the
country; (2) a Living for Everyone—employment assistance; (3) Women
Embroidering Together; (4) running an afternoon club for the children of
working women; (5) the Time Bank—community service and networking for the
community.
·
Executive
director: Margalit Moshe
·
Share:
Avi Linda
Project:
Working Together to Create a Feminist Economy
Goals
·
Creating
a link between the workers at Comme Il Faut and women on the geographic and
economic periphery of Israel, with the goal of creating a community of women
who live in different places in the country and belong to different economic
classes. This link will make it possible to create a socioeconomic network of
women that can expand and develop into joint enterprises.
·
Generating
mutual learning and common action by women from different economic sectors with
the goal of creating a model for feminist economic activity in Israel
·
Enhancing
the feminist knowledge and practice of women from the business sector and later
among students of management
·
Empowering
women in Kiryat Gat and Beersheva who are involved in economic projects by
providing them with theoretical and practical knowledge about business
development, marketing, and sales
·
Providing
business consulting services to these women while they are setting up their
cooperatives
·
Expanding
participants’ knowledge and raising their consciousness of issues of gender,
ethnic communities, and class
·
Promoting
direct acquaintance between the women at Comme Il Faut, the social activists of
Sister – for Women in Israel, and women who are part of the economic
projects.
Objectives
for the First Year
General
During
the first year, the project will promote meetings among the women, their
getting to know one another, familiarity with the economic activity of the women
on the periphery and of women from the business sector, raising the feminist
consciousness of project participants, and increasing the possibilities for
these women to exert influence on their occupational and personal surroundings.
The
project will provide participants with broad knowledge of the problems and
worries of women at various economic levels. As a result of their encounter
with this distress and mutual mentoring, they will be able to create options
for joint action and of women helping women. Creating an ongoing process of
mutual mentoring will permit the establishment of a cadre of women who have
mastered business management tools and can act on the basis of feminist values
and outlook.
Our
aspiration for the second year is to involve the School of Business
Administration at Ben-Gurion University, through its male and female students,
who will serve as mentors for participants in the economic initiatives of Sister
– for Women in Israel and of economic projects in Beersheva and in Mitzpe
Ramon.
Products
At the end of the first
year of the Resource Incubator for Economic
Initiatives by Women, following a year of training and mutual mentoring of the
project participants (employees of Comme Il Faut and members of the Rikmah
project), the following products will have been achieved:
·
A one-of-a-kind model for cooperation between a business and a community
social-action organization, unique in that it is based on viewing all of the
project participants as the target group for learning and feminist consciousness
raising—both Comme Il Faut employees and the company itself, and also the women
from the Rikmah project. The model is based on feminist consciousness
raising by means of group study and work and a joint mutual mentoring program
involving the members of the two communities, aimed at getting each of the
groups to share the strengths of the other. The model also aspires to offer a
solution to the challenge of the continued existence of the women’s network
after the project is over.
·
Media event and booklet. At the end of the first year of the project the
work process and products will be presented at a media event intended to give
it broad exposure and in a booklet that documents the project, featuring the
information accumulated and making it possible for other organizations to carry
out similar projects.
·
Business plan. At the end of the first year of the project business plan
will be drawn up for the Rikmah project. It will include all the essential
elements of a standard business plan and will also relate to the unique
features relevant to running the business as a function of the participants’
starting point. (On the unique features of the business plan and training for
business entrepreneurship see below, “Project Emphases.”)
·
Feminine consciousness-raising. The thread linking the entire project is
feminist consciousness-raising for all the participants. The idea is that,
during the course of the project, these women will acquire tools for
introspection and interpretation that will give them a new individual,
political, economic, and social perspective on their lives and their close and
distant environments.
·
Group projects. During the course of the project, the women will form
working groups, each of which will develop a project based on needs that they
themselves identify within the group. These teams will try to propose concrete
solutions for the problems they have identified and present the entire work
process to the other groups. This product achieves two key objectives: concrete
solutions to problems along with active learning, and an opportunity to create
durable personal bonds among the participants.
Target
Population
First
Year
·
25 women
from Comme Il Faut—managers in the studio, store managers, saleswomen,
designers, spokeswoman
·
25
members of Sister – for Women in Israel—activists, staff members, and
workers in the economic projects
·
25 women
from the Volunteer Leadership Forum Beersheva—activists, staff, and workers in
the economic projects
The
goal of the encounter is to develop mechanisms for integrating and promoting
women in the labor market in ways that suited the participants’ needs and
desires. The link between women from the business sector and students of
business administration, on the one hand, and feminist activists, on the other,
will promote mutual learning that will later produce alternative feminist
economic models that target at the women’s welfare and their economic and
occupational advancement.
Method
The
project will catalyze opportunities for mutual learning in various ways: frontal
lectures to present theoretical knowledge, practical workshops, educational
field trips that encourage dialogue, and feminist consciousness-raising by
professional facilitators.
The
project will combine feminist pedagogy with business entrepreneurship,
following the “social economy” and “grassroots economy” paradigms.
The
Nature of the Cooperation among the Organizations
In
the first year we will run a pilot with Comme Il Faut and Sister – for Women
in Israel’s Rikmah project in Kiryat Gat (starting with 25 women)
and the Women Embroidering Together project in Beersheva (25 women). Later, Sister
– for Women in Israel will add the sewing cooperative in Mitzpe Ramon to
the partnership.
This
economic initiative of the Rikmah project is based on the skills and
specialization of Ethiopian immigrant women who engage in handicrafts, chiefly
embroidery, in both Kiryat Gat and Beersheva. Sister – for Women in Israel
initiated the Rikmah project and brought into it unemployed Ethiopian
immigrant women from Qiryat Gat, a development town in southern Israel. Sister
– for Women in Israel provides this group with tools for raising their
feminist political consciousness and with training in business, marketing, and
PR skills.
The
program’s short-term vision is to permit the group of women to earn a decent
living. Its long-term goal is for them to achieve economic independence.
The
project is part of general public trend to encourage social economy and social
justice. Sister – for Women in Israel’s Rikmah project adds to this
model a feminist perspective and emphasis on social justice and provides tools
for coping based on activist feminism.
Rikmah uses the strategy of
small-business cooperatives in order to deal with the problems of poverty,
unemployment, and social marginalization of women living on the Israeli
periphery, by way of an answer to the government policies that are undermining
their economic security and the cuts in income maintenance for the poor strata.
Staff
·
Laika
Yardeni: ceramicist and embroiderer, teacher of ceramics, resident of the
Kiryat Gat, a veteran leader of the local community with experience in guiding
empowerment groups
·
Devora
Dasta: a resident of Kiryat Gat, a feminist and political consciousness-raising
facilitator, responsible for group empowerment
·
Tessi
Ishato: fashion designer, graduate of the Shenkar College of Design. Combines
temporary fashion with traditional Ethiopian embroidery
·
Shula
Keshet: executive director of Sister – for Women in Israel
·
Dr.
Esther Eilam: provides professional guidance and supervision to Devora Dasta in
leading the group from a Mizrahi feminist political perspective and the
perspective of Ethiopian immigrant women
·
Yakov
(Yankele) Steinberg, attorney-at-law: Center for Educational and Social
Entrepreneurship—economic and social consultant to the project
Project:
Women Embroidering Together, Beersheva
As
part of the attempt to find employment for Ethiopian immigrants in Beersheva,
where there is not an abundant supply of jobs, it was decided to move in the
direction of home-based business enterprises. A group of 23 women skilled at
embroidery was organized. They began working in their homes, supported by
volunteer mentors who helped them with overall direction, professional working
skills, mastering Hebrew, and overseeing the production process until the
finished product reaches the retail shelf.
Project
Staff
·
Margalit
Moshe, executive director, Volunteer Leadership Forum Beersheva
·
Ruthie
Kirschner, mentor
·
Juliet
Leutinger, mentor
·
Hedva
Kesselman, mentor
The
Nature of the Cooperation among the Organizations
The
organizations will cooperate in five ways:
1.
Joint theoretical sessions on topics related to feminism, economics, and
gender, run by Sister – for Women in Israel;
2.
Theoretical sessions on marketing and sales, run by Comme Il Faut;
3.
Get-acquainted and study field trips for women from Comme Il Faut to the
business projects of Sister – for Women in Israel and of the Volunteer
Leadership Forum, along with a get-acquainted and study trip by the women from
Kiryat Gat and Beersheva to the Comme Il Faut shops and studio;
4.
Practical instruction of the women from Comme Il Faut in sales;
5.
A joint project for the women from the business projects with the women
from Comme Il Faut, to include a media and
marketing event.
The
partners in the project will run the training and consulting programs, which
will include the following:
Sister
– for Women in Israel will cover payments to lecturers, mentors, Mizrahi
feminism consultants, supervision of the production of the media and marketing
event.
Comme
Il Faut will cover payments to lecturers, mentors, business consultants and
guides, public relations, advice about producing a fashion catalog for the
embroidery project, oversight and advice on producing the media and marketing
event.
Management
of the Program
A
steering committee composed of representatives of the three sponsoring
organizations, including representatives of the projects and outside
consultants, will oversee the project, draw up the training and mentoring
programs, and locate opportunities for networking and for linking up with
additional partners.
Content
(theory and practice)
·
Lecturers
and mentors from Comme Il Faut
·
Sybil
Goldfeiner, CEO, Comme Il Faut
·
Michal
Cohen, vice-president for marketing, Comme Il Faut
·
Yael
Taragan, one of the Comme Il Faut designers
The
training and mentoring program for women in the business projects in the
periphery will include the following:
·
From
concept to action: how I set up the company
·
How do
you market fashion?
·
Practical
management and sales
·
The art
of design
·
Theoretical
information about business development, marketing, and sales
·
Daily
tools for marketing and sales strategies
·
Hosting
women from the Sister – for Women in Israel projects in the Comme Il
Faut shops and studio so that they can observe the company’s daily business
activities up close
·
Connecting
the business projects of Sister – for Women in Israel with others in
Israel, such as designer shops that might be interested in purchasing their
products
·
Assistance
to the project by the Comme Il Faut public relations department
·
Advice
about publishing a catalog for the Rikmah project
During
the course of the year, the Comme Il Faut shops will adopt the Rikmah project
in Kiryat Gat and Beersheva.
Staff
of the Sister – for Women in
Israel training program
·
Shula
Keshet, executive director, Sister – for Women in Israel
·
Adv.
Clarice Harbon, law clinic, Tel Aviv University
·
Dr. Orly
Benjamin, member of the board
·
Dr.
Esther Eilam, member of the board
·
Orna
Zaken, member of the board
·
Adv.
Yakov (Yankele) Steinberg
Staff
of the Volunteer Leadership Forum training program
·
Margalit
Moshe, executive director, Volunteer Leadership Forum Beersheva
·
Ruthie
Kirschner, mentor
·
Juliet
Leutinger, mentor
·
Hedva
Kesselman, mentor
The
program for the Comme Il Faut women will include the following:
·
Mizrahi
feminism: economics, culture, and identity
·
Poverty
and the feminization of poverty
·
Abusive
employment
·
Racism
and covert racism
·
The dark
body: from experience to resistance
·
Feminist
economics: gender perspectives on society and economics
·
Center
and periphery in a gender perspectives: top-down economics and grassroots
economics
·
Women in
the age of globalization: a critique of neoliberal economics
·
Women in
society—gender and class
·
Back
feminism, white feminism
·
Issues
in feminist management
·
Field
trips to the Rikmah project in the south: women from Comme Il Faut will visit
the projects in the field, meet the participants, coordinators, mentors,
fashion designers, and community representatives.
Criteria
for Admission to the Program
Members
of the Sister – for Women in Israel Rikmah project in Kiryat Gat, women
from the Rikmah project in Beersheva, and women from Comme Il Faut who are
interested in enhancing their feminist commitment with women from the social,
economic, and geographic periphery will take part in the program.
Duration
of the Program and its Various Stages
The
program for the first year—a pilot—is attached to this application. In about
six months we will be able to submit the program for the second year and links
with other sponsors (including the School of Business Administration at
Ben-Gurion University and other companies interested in marketing the fashions
produced by the Rikmah project in southern Israel).
An
Preliminary Timetable
·
Three
months: setting up a steering committee and building the program in the field
·
Nine
months: at the same time, implementing the program in Kiryat Gat and Beersheva
and at Comme Il Faut
·
During
the eleventh month, production of a fashion catalog of project products
·
During
the twelfth month, a joint media and marketing event
Program
Evaluation
The
project steering committee will document and observe the various stages of the
program. Criteria for project evaluation will include:
1.
The number of meetings among the different groups of
participating women
2.
The number of training and mentoring sessions
involving them
3.
The extent to which the women assimilate the
material presented
4.
The extent of the commitment and involvement in
business projects in the field
5.
The contacts between the projects and other
commercial elements (shops, designers, etc.)
6.
The extent to which the business tools and
marketing information are applied to promote the projects in the field
Emphases
of Working Together to Create a Feminist Economy (“The Project”)
In
recent years we have seen projects launched by social organizations intended to
help various groups improve their economic situation by opening small or micro
businesses. The phenomenon is so conspicuous that activity aimed at promoting
business entrepreneurship has been recognized as a strategy for social change
and has been adopted by organizations like Shatil, as part of the core of the
activity for social change promoted by these organizations. These initiatives
emerged in part against the background of the problems and poor results of
attempts to help disempowered groups enter the labor market. The poor results
stem in part from a shortage of jobs with decent working conditions and also
because of the great disparity between the skills, education, and willingness
of disempowered groups, especially nonworking and uneducated women from
marginalized and excluded sectors, and the threshold requirements for entering
the labor market. The gap is particularly evident for jobs that provide a
decent income and are not a setting for exploitation and repression, such as
various forms of employment through labor contractors. At the same time,
government economic policy has worsened the situation of these groups, by
cutting back benefits, raising the threshold of eligibility for various
entitlements, and so on.
Given
the increasingly severe distress of these groups, Sister – for Women in
Israel has inscribed among its major goals the training and support of
groups of nonworking women to help them become economically independent by
opening their own businesses, and especially support for Ethiopian immigrant
women in developing business cooperatives based on their occupational skills.
This
project derives from the aforementioned general goal and its objectives,
creating a link between the employees of Comme Il Faut and women on the
geographic and economic periphery in Israel, in the hope of fashioning a
community of women and creating a social and economic network of women that
will support, among other things, mutual learning and joint social and economic
action by the women, while increasing the ability of women from Kiryat Gat and
Beersheva to set up and run independent businesses.
The
idea that social action groups that have found it difficult to help women find
their place in the labor market will succeed in the no-less difficult niche of
entrepreneurship, merely because in this area the formal obstacles of education
and prior business experience seem to be less relevant, might be dismissed as
wishful thinking. We must not forget that the success of such a project
requires relating to the immense difficulty faced by the women to whom the
project is directed when it comes to integrating into the entrepreneurship
market and provide a solution to this problem. We must also consider a number
of difficulties that derives from the inherent tension between a nonprofit
social-action organization like Sister – for Women in Israel and the
business initiatives that it attempts to launch, in order to improve the
prospects for success of the project.
The
Tension between Social-Action Organizations and Businesses
The
tension between social-action organizations and businesses stems from the vast
difference in the fundamental values of the two types of activity. The
difference spans many dimensions associated with the different motivations of
those engaged in these two domains, different modes of financial management,
different scales of priorities, different styles, and more. A manifestation of
the profound and almost paradigmatic difference between the two finds
expression in the attitude toward the risks associated with running a business
on the one hand and the expectations of profit from successful operation of the
business, on the other. Many social-action organizations attempt to create a
risk-free environment of the sort that permits the creation
and development of businesses, on the ostensible grounds that, in view of the
difficult starting conditions, every additional difficulty and risk will call
into question such projects’ already fragile prospects for success. However,
there are many indications that this aversion to risk and to exposure to
real-world conditions stems from much deeper motives and that in practice it is
associated with the fact that commercial risks, like other parameters of
business activity (competition, the desire for profit, etc.) are alien to the
spirit of the organizations and their members. On the other hand, in many cases
the members of social-action organizations feel uncomfortable with commercial
initiatives that provide their founders with significant profits, which
sometimes exceed the salaries of the organizations’ senior officials. This
discomfort with prospects and risks stand in contradiction to the fact that
risk and potential are the life’s breath of a business. There is no business
without risk and no business without prospects. There is no point in setting up
a business that has no hope for profits and it is unreasonable to expect a
business to be profitable without exposing its owners to some risk. It is
certainly true that there is no logic in the too-rapid exposure of
entrepreneurs, especially those from disempowered groups, to all of the risks
of the marketplace and that there are grounds for gradual exposure to risk; but
the hostility of social-action organizations to both of these—risk and
prospects—runs much deeper than this. It is important to relate to this when
dealing with questions such as exposing entrepreneurs to risk, encouraging a
positive attitude about profits, etc.
A
worthwhile social project that is carried out with awareness of the inevitable
tension between the two different and contradictory fundamental values
mentioned above will attempt to solve the problems that stem from it. One
possible way of dealing with these tensions is to lay them on the table and
deal with them directly. On the one hand we may view the activists of the
organizations themselves as the target group for empowerment on this point; on
the other hand, there is a need for gradual and controlled but real exposure of
the businesses to risk, with the aspiration of making the new businesses more
viable and developing their ability to operate in real-world conditions.
Viability
The
fact that one of the project’s goals is to enhance the ability of the women
involved in the project to set up and run independent businesses requires
developing and setting up a training environment that can provide project
graduates with tools of three types:
1.
Knowledge: theoretical and
practical knowledge about running a business (marketing, finance, etc.)
2.
Skills, such as time
management and business planning
3.
Interpersonal
skills, such as the ability to deal with tension and changes
In
all of these the project graduates must be helped to acquire a genuine ability
to set up a viable business that will provide them with a living.
Another
element that can help increase the viability of the project graduates’
enterprises the appropriate exit from the project to independent activity. Many
women are deterred from opening their own independent businesses because of
their fear of exposure to risks and of dealing with real problems and to some
extent with mental ones, too, associated with the need to apply for credit at
the bank, to risk one’s savings, to deal with the tax authorities, and
sometimes to forfeit eligibility for National Insurance benefits before the
business is firmly established and providing real profits. In the search for
the right way to exit the project it is important to attempt to find a way that
suits the needs of the project graduates and their personal and cultural
background. In a number of cases attempts have been made to set up
cooperatives, considered to be an intermediate solution between continuing the
sheltered period as part of the organization or social project, on the one
hand, and genuine independent activity, on the other. Such a solution, although
it is attractive and plucks on nostalgic strings, may not be suitable to the
emotional dimensions and cultural background of the project graduates nor to
what we have called the life’s breath of a business—the desire for profits and
success and sometimes profit that is personal rather than group. Forcing women
graduates of the project into cooperative business ventures may not be
compatible with their individual aspirations. There is room to permit and train
them for activity in other formats, such as an independent business, in order
to create an exit process that suits the graduates’ needs and aspirations. For
example, one might think of a period during which project graduates enjoy
individual mentoring that continues throughout the period of setting up the
business, along with some access to consulting services and professional
assistance or other solutions.
Another
element that might help make the course graduates’ enterprises viable is
placing emphasis on finding or creating a market for the products and services
they offer. It is true that the initial stages of the individual empowerment of
project participants require that they employ the skills and knowledge they
already have as the starting point for the essential process of empowerment and
of developing an individual capacity for entrepreneurship. But it would be
wrong to stay at this point. In order to make the future business viable one
must relate to the gap between the participants’ abilities and skills and what
the market demands and try to adapt their skills and abilities to the market
and find out precisely what type of products and services there is demand for
and, in the event of a discrepancy, to make adjustments. At the same time one
might try to create a unique market that accords priority to the enterprises of
course graduates by creating a social brand or a social marketing channel that
would make it possible for the graduates’ businesses to become viable and have
a market presence.
Summary
Carrying
out a successful economic-empowerment project requires open and focused
attention to the conflicts that stem from the difference between social-action
organizations and business activity. It is also important that project
graduates be provided with knowledge about running a business, skills such as
time management, and a reinforcement of their individual abilities in areas
such as dealing with pressure and changes.
Another
way to create conditions that make it possible for the businesses founded by
course graduates to be viable might involve creative thinking about the exit
process from the project and identifying and developing real markets for the
goods and services created by the project graduates.
Resource
Incubator for Economic Initiatives by Women:
Women Creating a Feminist Economy
Submitted
to the Daphne Israeli Fund
|
Expenditures |
|
|
|
|
Income |
|
|
|
US$ |
|
|
US$ |
|
Pedagogical
coordinator, half-time |
|
10,000 |
|
Sister – for Women in
Israel |
5,000 |
|
PR coordinator,
half-time |
|
10,000 |
|
Comme Il Faut |
10,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
Daphne Israeli
fund |
32,200 |
|
Consultants |
|
5,000 |
|
Yakov Steinberg
|
5,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Training program |
|
|
|
Total |
52,200 |
|
By Sister – for Women in Israel |
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 lectures @ $200 |
|
1,000 |
|
|
|
|
5 supervision
& consulting sessions @ $100 |
in kind |
500 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Comme Il Faut |
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 lectures @ $200 |
in kind |
1,000 |
|
|
|
|
5 supervision
& consulting sessions @ $100 |
|
500 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Field
trips |
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 field trips a year, |
|
1,200 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marketing
and PR |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Catalogue –
production |
|
8,000 |
|
|
|
|
Consulting by Comme Il Faut |
in kind |
500 |
|
|
|
|
PR |
in kind |
2,000 |
|
|
|
|
Annual media
event |
1,000 in kind |
3,000 |
|
|
|
|
Documentation |
|
1,000 |
|
|
|
|
Refreshments |
|
2,500 |
|
|
|
|
Administration |
2,500 in kind |
6,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
52,200 |
|
|
|