Early-Stage Indigenous Women Entrepreneurship

The Early Stages of Indigenous Women Entrepreneurship

Report coming soon

While all businesses face challenges, the barriers to success for Indigenous women entrepreneurs are significantly increased. Despite this, Indigenous women are starting businesses and becoming entrepreneurs at twice the rate of non-Indigenous women. Indigenous businesses are essential to a thriving Canadian economy, yet there needs to be more research on the specific contributions of Indigenous women’s entrepreneurship.

The Early Stages of Women Entrepreneurship report was created in collaboration with the Diversity Institute  (DI) and the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH). This research aims to understand Indigenous women’s business formation in Ontario by listening to the experiences of Indigenous women entrepreneurs to explore issues such as their motivations, support services accessed, financing, initial stumbling blocks, and many more. The report amplifies the voices of Indigenous women entrepreneurs to raise awareness of the unique challenges, barriers, and opportunity areas to support entrepreneurs to achieve success as they define it.