The City of Canning has been Small Business Friendly since 2016 and offers local businesses the opportunity to participate in a range of programs to build capability and capacity.
These include the Canning Business Mentoring Program, City of Canning Grants Centre and a range of business events.
The Canning Business Mentoring Program is in its seventh year, and is accepting registrations from local businesses for its 2023 intake until 11 April 2023.
The program offers fully funded scholarships to assist local businesses at different stages of their journey and so far, has sponsored 40 local businesses through the program. Whether a business owner is in the idea phase, developing their business or looking to upscale, the program can assist business owners in the following support stages.
Seed
Aimed at people with business ideas and who are curious about running their own business, this program helps potential business owners explore what it takes to build a business from the ground up.
Start
People with existing business ideas can benefit from this stage if they are looking to establish their business or have a newly established business that needs some support. There are two programs during this stage – the Curtin University Ignition Program and the EMERSYN Female Founders program.
The City partners with Curtin University to deliver the Curtin Ignition Program, a five-and-a-half-day intensive program for business owners to put their business idea into action and trial it in a commercial environment. The City also partners with EMERSYN, targeting female founders, for six months of hybrid learning with a focus on:
- foundational business skills,
- practical strategies
- implementation and,
- mentoring.
Both programs aim to help business owners develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to start and grow a successful business.
Sprint
Partnering with Spacecubed, the City’s Plus Eight Sprint involves six weeks of skill building and business growth. It is aimed at business owners who are look at accelerating and growing their business. Each week focuses on a new business skill and businesses owners are encouraged to look at ways they can apply these skills to their business.
Scale
To join ScaleUpWA, in partnership with Triangle Equity Partners, a business owner must have operated their business for at least three years, so that they can benefit from learning how to enter new markets or expand their existing product range.
This program has so far assisted over 30 small and medium businesses to build their own transformation strategies to target new markets. Business are selected based on their potential to build successful, sustainable and scalable businesses through exporting. The program runs over six weeks with interactive live stream panel sessions and a mix of online and in-person masterclasses.
Sustain
The final program also requires businesses to have been operational for at least three years and focuses on growing networks to become more dynamic, sustainable and resilient. This stage is delivered in partnership with WA Leaders to help build expertise and experience within a certain industry. Through two streams – Executive Leaders and Future Leaders, business owners can leverage expertise, industry knowledge and build connections with other successful business owners in their industry.
More information
- Find out more about the SBDC's Small Business Friendly initiative.
- Read about the City of Canning’s support for local small businesses.
- Learn about the City's partnership with the City of Gosnells and the Town of Victoria Park to simplify trading permits for food businesses.
