These are the core delivery methods found to be most effective in creating lasting impacts, and providing the most value within communities.

Coaching has been shown to be an effective means of supporting local entrepreneurs and organisations to build their resilience and capacity for good decision making when starting or growing their business idea. It reduces dependency on support and increases the chances of success beyond the support received through short-term funded programmes.

Local organisations often have a good understanding of how to help people address wider barriers for beneficiaries and business support practitioners working with them. Local networks provide access to services beyond the scope of enterprise support. Examples might be addressing language barriers, access to benefits and housing advice or understanding local cultural barriers eg. access to faith compliant financial services. Peer-support and action learning sets can also contribute to support becoming truly transformational.

Place-based practitioners and networks can provide simple and effective practical support to new businesses, such as helping to identify premises, referral to other local financial and non-financial support and providing opportunities for training and development.

Whilst many smaller organisations provide this for free, this is not a sustainable way of working and should be considered when designing support. Additionality can be achieved through a mix of Corporate Social Responsibility programmes, pro-bono specialist support, and brokerage of goodwill use of space/equipment/materials however this is not a substitute for funded relational approaches.

Ensuring that there is a good balance between these types of support creates options that meet a diverse range of needs, expectations and abilities of local entrepreneurs.

Whilst it may not be possible to resource all of them in a given area, finding ways to tailor support to meet local needs can overcome additional barriers (e.g, faith based financial barriers, cultural expectations, language barriers and access to small scale finance).