NORTHERN ONTARIO—Just in time for International Women’s Day, the successful Northern Ontario Women (NOW) Program, which provides funding aimed at helping women-owned and women-led businesses, is launching a website to better service women entrepreneurs in Northern Ontario. NOW is also happy to announce a new round of funding, too.
NOW Program coordinator Susan Whynott told The Expositor the new site, www.nowprogram.ca, launches this Friday, March 8. “What better day than International Women’s Day?” she added.
NOW was launched in the fall of 2019, the brainchild of Carolyn Campbell, who is now executive director of the LaCloche-Manitoulin Business Assistance Corporation (LAMBAC).
Ms. Whynott cannot extol Ms. Campbell’s dogged determination enough in seeing NOW launched. She said Ms. Campbell, who worked for LAMBAC as an employee at the time, knew the statistics that proved that women entrepreneurs have a harder time accessing funds to make their dreams a reality. She applied to the federal government, presenting her case, and was successful. Ms. Whynott was then hired on to oversee the 800,000 square-kilometre catchment area.
“LAMBAC is the host, but we work with all Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDCs) in the North, from Nipigon through to Parry Sound,” Ms. Whynott shared.
Soon after NOW launched, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and so the program was forced to pivot, focussing on funding assistance for education.
“For many, the closing of their brick and mortar business necessitated moving to an online platform so there was a whole lot of learning that needed to happen for a whole lot of business owners,” the NOW website notes. The education component of the NOW Program was able to reimburse 117 clients to the tune of $189,000.
This new round of funding is aimed at assisting with the cost of one-time professional services (Ms. Whynott gives the example of hiring a lawyer to incorporate a business), the cost of setting up mentoring/coaching relationships and the cost of education courses. NOW also offers an HRdownloads subscription initiative that women entrepreneurs can apply for. Women from every corner of Northern Ontario are welcome to apply.
“We are making a move away from website and digital projects,” Ms. Whynott shared, noting that there are numerous other grant applications for those aspects of business. If a businesswoman can prove that she has first exhausted those options, she can apply for digital project purposes.
Ms. Whynott explained that the terms of funding have changed, too. Intake dates are gone. Now women can apply at any time of the year until the pot of money runs out.
Successful clients will be asked to pay for the services up-front and the NOW Program will reimburse them at 90 percent.
“I received education course reimbursement from NOW Program to take an advanced and diabetic foot course,” Marilyn Proulx of Proulx Foot Care shares in a testimonial. “I took this course so that I could start my own foot care business in the community after I had retired. As I was just starting out and needed to purchase sterilizing equipment and many other supplies … this assistance was very beneficial in offsetting the start-up costs. The reimbursement completely covered the cost of the education piece and therefore I was able to get the business rolling faster by acquiring the other necessary supplies and equipment quicker rather than budgeting it out over a few months.”
Since NOW launched in 2019, over $1,700,000 has been awarded to over 400 women in Northern Ontario.
For more information, visit the NOW website at nowprogram.ca or email Ms. Whynott at now@lambac.org.
