Comprehensive support to entrepreneurs with disabilities

FSC Inserta, has established entrepreneurship as an option for people with disabilities. Support includes counselling, training, guidance, and financial assistance. Some 1,500 entrepreneurial projects have been supported since the programme’s founding in 1988 and approximately 5,000 persons have received support.

Fundacion ONCE is a leading Spanish foundation whose branch operation for the training and employment of people with disabilities, FSC Inserta, has established entrepreneurship as an option for people with disabilities. Support includes counselling, training, guidance, and financial assistance. .

Problems Targeted

The lack of support systems and counselling services for people with disabilities in entrepreneurship has made it difficult for them to create start-up companies on their own.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

In order to receive a grant by the FSC Inserta project, the following requirements must be fulfilled: 
 -  Be a legally recognized person with a disability. 
 -  Be unemployed or being employed but in need of a job improvement. 
 -  Have the specific qualifications/skills needed to develop a business that is compatible with the disability. 
 - Have a business plan, funding sources/liquidity, knowledge about the market, clear strategy, innovation, relevance, sustainability, social impact, and growth potential. 
 FSC Inserta provides further support once the start-up phase is over. It then monitors progress and provides counselling in the first stages of the new businesses; and it organizes training sessions in specific areas of business skills, such as marketing and finance, which helps to strengthen and consolidate businesses. It also awards grants for individual training in technological and digital skills, which contributes greatly to increasing the survival rate of small businesses and start-ups. A high percentage of businesses are in the field of retail, but due to improved trainings, the projects have become increasingly diverse, including livestock farms and organic gardens, packing stations, recycling businesses, and textile design and production.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

The annual cost of operations is approximately EUR 300,000 and an additional EUR 750,000–800,000 allocated for start-up grants. The programme started at the regional level and has been extended nationwide. There has been good progress in the evolution of the entrepreneurship initiatives among people with disabilities (more diverse projects, higher level of specialization) due to the higher level of qualification and better training of the entrepreneurs.

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THE STORY OF LIDIA PARRA, OWNER OF A THERAPY CENTRE

“Starting my own business has been extremely positive, both personal and professional.”

For me, starting my own business (Interactúa, a paediatric therapy centre) has been extremely positive, both on a personal and a professional level. On a professional level, this experience has allowed me to grow without being monitored by a boss who doesn’t believe in flexibility; to work with more diverse pathologies that enrich me; to enhance my knowledge and thus enable to provide training courses; and to manage my business. I am sincerely grateful to the ONCE Foundation and Inserta – not only for the grant I received but also for the support they gave me throughout the whole process, helping me at the very beginning to identify clear goals and to better focus my project. They assisted me in the development of my business plan and, once started, provided me with specific training on digital marketing and finance, which really improved my management skills.