All across the world female founders are working on impact. When you align your purpose with impact – it s good for you, good for the planet and good for your community.
The Hen House Co-op supports and amplifies the work of our members and here are two of our members making an incredible impact in the world and growing their businesses at the same time.
GOGO Foundation
GOGO Foundation is led by serial entrepreneur and multi-award winning Sarah Gun. Sarah started the Foundation to support even more women at risk than she had previously in her events business GOGO events. Sarah is measuring all kinds of impact and proudly promotes those achievements on the website. At the time of writing GOGO events had created over 1700 days of work for women at risk.
When COVID struck she says it became “no go” events and was an opportunity to find new ways to support women into employment who found themselves outside of the traditional entry points. Having for more than a decade lurch to each new event contract, since creating the Foundation, Sarah has generated over half a million dollars in government contracts to bring women at risk into sustainable employment.
The Inclusive Work Program is a gamechanger for the participants and you can hear their voices on the website on the impact it has made in their lives. Here is Lisa’s story and Deborah’s story in their own voices. Sarah is measuring all kinds of impact and proudly promotes those achievements on the website. At the time of writing GOGO events had supported 105 women with employment.
Everyone involved at GOGO is committed to SDG 5 – to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Sarah says this is our work and the Hen House helps us with bringing a gender lens to our practice and decision-making.
Sarah hearing the news and is very excited to be in the top five SheEO Ventures to receive financial support and coaching in 2019.
Add Life Technologies
Leesa Chesser is on the Board of the Hen House Coop and making an impact through her expertise in governance, coaching and directorships. Leesa brings a gender lens to all her discernment and decision-making to ensure closing the gender investment is on the agenda. Recent coaching support and advice has been delivered for Leesa’s clients, new markets, awards and funding through a range of funding pipelines. Leesa also provides advice to the GOGO Foundation, showing the interconnections of Hen House members!
Leesa Chesser has a special interest in health and wellbeing in all its forms and her directorships and advisory roles include a VR med tech business, community care services, mental health, trauma and machine learning applications. Leesa is always looking for how impact can be measured. She says so many businesses seem to focus on outputs and this is not impacting.
Leesa is impact and ESG focused, data-driven and enjoys contributing to smart commercial decision making focused on value generation, consumers, problem-solving and innovation aligned to the United Nations sustainable development goals. She says giving advice and helping make strategic decisions that will be impactful means paying attention to the relationship between capital, the results being called for to solve the problem and creativity. “Sometimes it is a lack of imagination that is getting in the way of impact.
Businesses have masses of data but are often risk-averse. Boards may be scared of becoming a “Meta” bad agent, rather than considering driving business and consumer centred value creation using data as an enabler. It may well be their biggest intangible asset.” Leesa says. One of the health products Leesa is helping to build at Add Life Technologies is increasing independence through focusing on rehabilitation of fine motor skills that have been lost using virtual reality.
Leesa brings a data lens, gender lens and commitment to inclusivity to ensure the design is fit for the market. If you’ve had a stroke or brain injury and you can re-learn and be able to lead your best life, this is the kind of impact Leesa wants to keep bringing to the world.
Hen House Coop is thrilled to have both Sarah and Leesa as members. Leesa is also a board member of the Coop.