The International Women’s Day Summit has announced two $75,000 grants for organisations investing in female entrepreneurs.

We Are Emersyn, a mentorship program founded by Megan Del Borrello, and the Edith Cowan University School of Business and Law will both receive the grants from the Department of Communities to fund female-focussed projects.

The program will run in metro and regional areas including Albany, Karratha and Northam, and will be available online.

ECU professor Dr Jalleh Sharafizad says the grant will be used to make business mentorship more accessible for West Australian women.

“We wanted to offer the program to all women entrepreneurs, regardless of where they live in WA,” she says.

Dr Sharafizad says the increase of women’s participation in WA’s economy will have a spill-over effect on local communities and families, particularly in regional areas. 

A 2023 study revealed that 750 out of 1000 Australian women surveyed would rather run their own business than work for someone else. The same study claimed that 43 per cent of women also recognised they would need significant help to set up their own business.

We Are Emersyn’s Emerge program is the second project to receive funding from the State Government in yesterday’s announcement. WAE’s founder Megan Del Borrello says its mentorship program supports female business founders through their journey and steers them towards success.

She says the funding will add to WAE’s established foundation program.

“We also have our foundation (WAE Foundation), and the purpose of that is to bridge the funding gap for female entrepreneurs, because there is a financial barrier. And the Department of Communities’ grant works so we can make our programs accessible to all female entrepreneurs,” she says.

Ms Del Borrello says building community is an important aspect of the programs for many participants.

“We always say that within our programs there’s a really big component of peer-to-peer mentoring. Because what better person to understand what you’re going through than other female entrepreneurs,” she says.

2023 participant Fiona Perrella agrees, saying the community is invaluable to female founders.

“I felt like I was guided through the process by my mentor, and having a team behind you, who can push you and tell you that you are capable of doing things. It makes it feel like you’re not working alone.”

Ms Del Borrello says that despite new government focus on female entrepreneurship in WA, there is still a long way to go.

“I think a lot of the grants that are around focus on commercialisation and tech, whereas not a lot of female founded businesses are in the tech industry. Funding in general, that is the number one challenge that female-founded businesses face.”