Bizmentors® is a mentoring programme for business owners and start-up / emerging businesses, social enterprises and community groups. It aims to provide free access to business expertise and wisdom to people in businesses, social enterprises and community groups who may otherwise have difficulty accessing such expertise.

Bizmentors® is open to new and existing businesses to help nurture and further develop new businesses. At times it can be a lonely and isolated road for owners of SMEs and this is a chance for SME owners to access expertise, guidance and business advice. Small businesses are important contributors to each other providing knowledge and experience.

Their survival and growth not only brings investment returns for individual businesses, it also underpins the wider community and the image as a provider of high quality, innovative and sustainable business excellence. Since bizmentors® was established in May of 2012, over 1000 businesses, social enterprises and community groups have participated in the programme. Each Mentor provides 3 hours mentoring support to each applicant. This will be carried out over a 3 month period aimed at maximising the time the participants have with their Mentors.

Mentoring support is available in the following areas: Finance | Sales | Marketing & PR | IT | Human Resources | Training and Development | Business Planning | R&D | Quality | General Business Management

Bizmentors is part of a recently launched European-wide project which see’s five EU regions come together to create a transnational business mentoring solution. The initiative is a three-year project co-funded by the EU Interreg Northern Periphery and Artic Programme (NPA), with a total budget in the region of €1.3m.  Participating partners are from Finland, Iceland, and Northern Ireland.

Poor access to business expertise and networks is a challenge for SMEs and entrepreneurs across the NPA. This is especially true for SMEs in low business density and population density areas and for under-represented groups including women, the disabled and ethnic minorities. The Bizmentors model, relies on the local support of established businesspeople (mentors) to provide free guidance to those seeking it (mentees) in a structured and low cost way. This project aims to innovate the model using an online interactive platform and shared learning to scale and expand Bizmentors in the NPA Region, making expertise accessible to all enterprises and entrepreneurs.