Recommendations for #SheDIDIT
Six recommendations follow directly from the evidence, each with concrete actions.
Six recommendations follow directly from the evidence. Each addresses a specific and identifiable gap in the program as it currently operates. They are presented with both the rationale drawn from the research and concrete actions that #SheDIDIT can take to implement them.
Recommendation 1: Name Community as a Core Program Output
Community is the program's most powerful differentiator and its most consistently valued feature across every participant group in this study. It is currently implicit in #SheDIDIT's offer and largely invisible in its impact reporting. It should be named, budgeted, and measured as a primary output rather than as an incidental benefit. The impact of this investment is not anecdotal. Community is the single most cited element across all seventeen conversations in this study.
Concrete actions:
- Schedule regular community events as a fixed program feature rather than as add ons dependent on available capacity.
- Create peer cohorts within coaching rounds so participants who go through #SheMeansBusiness together maintain connection after “graduation”.
- Develop alumni touchpoints that keep funded and not funded graduates connected to the #SheDIDIT community over time.
- Reinforce community spaces, both digital and physical, as part of the #SheHub offer.
- Include a community engagement metric in #SheDIDIT's impact reporting framework.
Recommendation 2: Standardise and strengthen #SheFUND Feedback for all applicants
Feedback to not funded applicants must be aligned with the published evaluation criteria, structured, and sufficient for an applicant to understand specifically what would need to change for a successful future application.
Concrete actions:
- Brief jury members with a review of all written applications before the pitch event so they arrive familiar with each candidate.
- Provide jury members with a structured feedback template aligned to the published evaluation dimensions.
- Offer a 30 minute follow up session by video call to all not funded applicants within two weeks of the decision.
- Ask not funded applicants to rate the quality and usefulness of their feedback as part of a post decision survey.
- Review feedback quality annually and use findings to improve jury briefing and the feedback process.
Recommendation 3: Address the Coaching Capacity Gap structurally
The coaching waiting list is a fundraising asset, in that unmet demand quantified and reported makes a compelling case for investment. Both aspects should be managed deliberately and proactively.
Concrete actions:
- Introduce group coaching formats for early stage participants as an interim measure while one to one capacity is built.
- Pilot peer to peer coaching circles facilitated by #SheDIDIT coaches, with structured frameworks and accountability mechanisms.
- Develop a digital self paced onboarding resource that participants can use during the waiting period.
- Systematically collect, track, and report waiting list data as evidence of demand to current and potential funders.
- Model the fundraising case using waiting list numbers and the estimated value of delayed support.
Recommendation 4: Develop a Pre Entrepreneurial Pathway for young entrepreneurs
#YouthPreneurs serves the function of exploratory, identity oriented support for participants aged 15 to 28. There is no equivalent for adults who are not yet ready for #SheMeansBusiness but who would benefit from a lighter touch empowerment entry point. The evidence shows women on multi year journeys carrying ideas they cannot yet act on. This gap is both a missed opportunity and a pipeline constraint for #SheMeansBusiness.
Concrete actions:
- Design session pre entrepreneurial program for adults focused on values clarification, skills mapping, and idea generation.
- Position this program explicitly as a pathway into #SheMeansBusiness with clear progression criteria.
- Use peer facilitation and group formats to keep delivery costs low and community value high.
- Pilot with a small cohort and evaluate using the same impact framework as #SheMeansBusiness.
- Consider partnerships with community organisations already working with the target population to extend reach.
Recommendation 5: Create a Scale-up Support offer for established entrepreneurs
The program currently ends when an entrepreneur is no longer a pre starter or early stage founder. For the strongest profiles, those who have grown through #SheDIDIT and are now navigating hiring, investor relations, and market expansion, this creates a significant opportunity for #SheDIDIT to continue supporting its alumni.
Concrete actions:
- Design an alumni coaching or mentoring tier for graduates of #SheMeansBusiness who are in a growth phase. Needs may change, but space for different types of support services exist.
- Map specialist advisors in the #SheDIDIT network able to support scaling entrepreneurs and formalise a referral pathway.
- Explore partnerships with Belgian and European accelerator programs that serve the scaling entrepreneur profile.
- Host an annual alumni event that keeps graduates connected to the #SheDIDIT community and to each other.
- Collect data on post graduation trajectories of #SheMeansBusiness alumni to build the evidence base for this offer.
Recommendation 6: Make Psychological and Mindset Support an explicit feature of Coaching
The psychological dimension of coaching, the validation, the identity work, the moment when a coach says this is real and you can do it, is consistently identified as the most transformative element of the program. It currently operates as an implicit and unmarked feature. Making it explicit is a low cost and high impact change that benefits participants, coaches, and funders alike.
Concrete actions:
- Include psychological support explicitly in #SheDIDIT's description of the #SheMeansBusiness coaching offer.
- Train coaches to articulate the psychological dimension of what they do so they can name it for participants.
- Include a wellbeing and confidence measure in the pre and post coaching evaluation that participants complete.
- Use participant accounts of psychological impact in #SheDIDIT's external communications and funding applications.
- Consider whether a partnership with a wellbeing provider would strengthen capacity to serve participants who need deeper support.
