PARO Releases Report On Women Entrepreneurs
by Scott A. Sumner
Thunder Bay Business
For the second time in the last five years PARO has completed the report called Northern Opportunities for Women. “ We surveyed hundreds of women for the report including doing 6 focus groups and talking to women individually as well as surveys using Survey Monkey online and with hard copies. There was also discussion with 250 people at our recent conference,” said Rosalind Lockyer, Executive Director of PARO. “ This report is the second in a series. We did a report in 2004 and compared results to our report now. This is quite helpful in moving
forward and planning our programs for the next decade. We hope it will be important to other agencies that work with women as well.”
“ Women said loudly and clearly that financial support for not only starting their business as well as growing and expanding their business is a priority. They talked about not meeting the criteria often because of aging. They were interested in technology, the environment and
economic climate,” said Lockyer. “ What was really encouraging about the report was that women were still very optimistic that self employment was a solution. The statistics went from 56 to 83 % as a solution. They also saw the technology as important in learning new
software and gaining help with their web sites and other media such as Facebook and Twitter. We asked hard questions abut our services in focus groups and the women were very happy with the services. Well over 80% gave us a very good or excellent rating. Kudos to our staff. PARO provided the services they needed in a friendly and supportive way.”
PARO has started over 1400 businesses since 1995 and 86% were still existing after 1 year. “ We still are hearing encouraging things about their small businesses. In small business you build it one customer at a time. You get to know the people you serve. This is why the optimism. People are using small businesses. People are realizing we need to shop
local. It is also harder to drive somewhere else because it costs more to drive and the state of the dollar so all of those things put together along with community mindedness means good support for local business. It should hold well for us in the future, said Lockyer. “
PARO Presents, our retail store has had sales increase steadily since we opened in 2002. All of the products are made by women in Northern Ontario and they run the store and are there every day. We also have the reclaimed store where we take donations and sell and that helps to sustain the store as well.”
“ The main reason of the report is we asked the women what they need. That is how we have grown PARO and it has worked.This is part of our philosophy of asking the women what they need and trying to provide it the best way we can,”noted Lockyer. “ The biggest challenge is we are project funded and have to constantly be submitting reports for funding. Our large demographics area is a challenge as well but PARO on Wheels has helped. The women can’t also leave their homes due to child care, elder care,etc. Privacy is important so the fact we come to them and it is very confidential is appreciated.”
