The project involves creating a support programme for testing business activity in Indre, France, via the business incubator Ples 36 and the human services cooperative Coop Services 36.
Promoting the establishment of rural businesses in the Department of Indre, France
- 16 January 2020
From November 2018 to July 2019, the local centre for solidarity based economy enabled 10 entrepreneurs to test their business talent by creating a temporary educational crafts shop focused on responsible consumption: creation of bags made from recycled fabric, teddy bears, jewellery, furniture upholstery and organic beauty and cleaning products.
Through this programme, the local centre for solidarity based economy (Ples 36) helps entrepreneurs establish micro companies. Its goal is to make setting up companies in a rural department hard hit by unemployment a sustainable reality.
Since it was created in 2007, the incubator has helped 217 trial-run entrepreneurs and facilitated the setting up of 115 companies, with a sustainability rate of 60%.
Secure support
The incubator is like a “driving school for setting up companies”: it offers support to business creators in a secure environment for a period of 6 months to 3 years so that they can test their start-up project’s administrative, accounting and marketing strategies before “getting their license”. During this test period, the trial-run entrepreneurs use the Siret number of the local centre for solidarity based economy and continue receiving their social benefits (unemployment benefits, Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA, a French form of social welfare), or part-time employment).
The business incubator helps the project leaders increase their revenues, achieve autonomy, become proficient managers and create a professional network.
Coop Services 36 is a human services cooperative. It offers a legal, social and fiscal framework that facilitates testing and growing a personal services business project: gardening, handiwork, childcare for children over the age of 3, academic support, homebased administrative assistance, ironing and laundry collection, and grocery delivery.
Creating a temporary shop
Ples met the conditions necessary for promoting the creation of a crafts shop, relying on cooperation in order to organise the project, take turns running a help line and learn how to market products sold in the shop, each person acting as the other’s salesperson. This is how the “Ici et deux mains” shop in Châteauroux, set up entirely by the entrepreneurs in an eco-responsible manner, became a place to test marketing strategies for 9 months.
A way to overcome isolation
In 2018, for 74 entrepreneurs receiving support, 62% of whom were women, 17 companies were created. Among these entrepreneurs, 40% come from a rural area. The relevant sectors are, in descending order: personal and business services, crafts and the artistic professions, and commerce.
The support programme is popular, especially among job seekers and people receiving RSA, for the secure environment it offers. It makes all of the following possible: overcoming isolation, getting help navigating the complexities of creating a company and retaining social rights during the test period. It promotes job creation for those made vulnerable by rural depopulation. More than 50% of the trial-run entrepreneurs established their business successfully.
Total investment and European funding
The ‘Support programme for testing business activity in Indre: Business incubator Ples 36, Coop Services 36’ project received a total investment of EUR 196 684, with the European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 46 596 under the ERDF OP Centre-Val de Loire cooperation programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the ‘Employment, growth and investments’ priority area.