Lloyds Banking Group has partnered with Get Mentoring to help support thousands of new and growing enterprises across the UK. Through the partnership, Britain’s largest enterprise charity, Young Enterprise, will receive a £5 donation for every aspiring business mentor that completes fully funded mentor training with the Get Mentoring initiative in November.
Lloyds Banking Group and SFEDI, launched the ‘High Five’ campaign at the 16th Annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference last Friday with the aim of recruiting and training thousands of mentors from small, medium and micro businesses throughout November and raising £10,000 for Young Enterprise.
The importance of business mentors to secure the future of the UK economy cannot be underestimated, with research finding that 70% of small businesses who received mentoring survived for five years or more – double the rate compared with non-mentored entrepreneurs . In addition, 20% of mentored businesses are more likely to grow and expand when compared to non-mentored companies.
Once trained, mentors will offer objective support and guidance to aspiring entrepreneurs and growing businesses across the UK. By donating £5 to Young Enterprise for every person who completes the Get Mentoring online training, Lloyds Banking Group is actively helping to boost the number of volunteer mentors available for new and growing businesses in the UK and supporting the excellent work of Young Enterprise to nurture new entrepreneurial talent.
The donation from Lloyds Banking Group, timed to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week, is the latest example of the bank’s support of the Business Finance Taskforce (BFT) mentoring initiative.
Jackie Jenks, mentoring manager at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “The UK is home to a real wealth of potential business mentors who may not be aware that the skills they have developed throughout their own careers can easily be translated into valuable guidance for other aspiring businesspeople.
“Our partnership with SFEDI and Get Mentoring aims to unearth this talent by encouraging as many volunteers as possible to train as mentors, equipping them with the skills needed to turn their own knowledge and insight into constructive guidance that can really benefit UK entrepreneurship.
“We chose Young Enterprise as the benefactor of our donation as it is an organisation we have worked with on numerous occasions as part of our wider mentoring support. This means we have seen first-hand the difference they are able to make to young people interested in learning through enterprise.”
Michael Mercieca, Chief Executive of Young Enterprise, said: “We are thrilled with the support from Lloyds Banking Group and SFEDI and are confident that their efforts will really make a difference not just to our organisation, but to UK enterprise as a whole. “Since Young Enterprise was created in 1962 the charity has given a taste of the world of work, business and enterprise to 3.8 million young people. Last year around 26,000 15-19 year olds ran real companies under the guidance of precisely the kind of business mentors that this initiative will provide.
“This is the next generation of businesspeople that we need to help our economy return to sustainable growth.”