To Secret Projects Global Community,

As some know already, I began a small pilot programme in 2013, named Secret Pillow Project. I wanted to empower women in India to earn an income to support themselves and their families, but beyond that I had no firm plan!

I had spent years working as a charity manager and fundraiser travelling through India many times. I had the privilege of meeting many inspirational Indian women, both individuals and as groups, often living in very challenging circumstances with little opportunity to earn a living. Among these groups of women 2 common themes emerged. Firstly, all wanted to earn a living wage to support themselves and their families and were not afraid to work hard for it. Secondly, they all had sewing skills, ranging from basic to more advanced, many with access to sewing machines.  

This second theme gave me much food for thought. Further research and discussions with the women highlighted 3 strong reasons why they were not able take up the opportunity to earn an income through making clothing or homewares: 

1. Women play a number of different and vital roles in their lives. Many are mothers and carers and couple this with needing to work on the land to feed their families, it gives them no time to leave the family home to seek employment in one of the many factories throughout India.   
   
   
2. Although the women had good sewing skills, they hadn’t been trained to sell their products or think of themselves as business women and entrepreneurs.  
   
   
3. Women, for many reasons, don’t have access to local, domestic or international markets to sell their products and therefore were under confident to take micro loans designed to help them run their own micro- enterprises.
   

I have always been a keen sewer myself and a thought struck me that I could help train the women to make Secret Pillows, a charming pillow that unfolds into a cosy blanket that I had been making myself as gifts for friends for a number of years. 

I worked with some of these inspiring women and together we produced a small first order, selling 12 of the Secret Pillows. At this stage, I still didn’t really have much more of a plan than when I first began Secret Pillow Project, however, something quite wonderful happened. The women who had made the Secret Pillows told me they wanted to make more to sell and our customers made it clear that they wanted to buy more and were actively telling their friends and families about Secret Pillow Project. 

It was at this point that my vision became crystal clear. I would help women to make and sell clothing and homeware giving them the confidence and resources to make their own choices for themselves and their families. Alongside this, my mission took shape to empower and drive micro-enterprise.

8 years down the line, we have achieved and learned so much. By far the biggest challenge has been to actually sell our products in a very difficult retail climate. Despite this, our customer base has grown significantly and this growth has given me confidence to work in this ever changing market place and plan strategies to address and overcome the issues that face us.

Whilst I think of myself now as a social entrepreneur rather than a fundraiser, my background in fundraising has equipped me with some excellent skills that are invaluable to Secret Pillow Project. For example, I ran many successful rewards based Crowdfunding campaigns to sell Secret Pillows and more valuably, tell the Secret Projects story over and over again to an ever wider circle of customers. 

In the early stages of Secret Pillow Project, the going often got very tough. What helped to get me through though was to reflect on our customer base and their support and desire to see Secret Pillow Project grow, coupled with our Makers in India who held the same strong desire. 

As I moved forward with Secret Pillow Project, we have been able to take advantage of many incredible life-lines. I discovered the books of Professor Yunus, an expert on Social Business and I also had the great fortune to recruit two very patient and supportive Volunteer Advisors, whose business expertise has helped Secret Pillow Project enormously. We knew that we had a loyal customer base and a number of our customers became social investors and I met Nirmala Rani who has since become my trusted and expert Indian business partner.  We never tire of hearing the sound track to our project, which comes from the women we meet. It is their call “we can work, we want work.” This call forms our backbone and is what drives Secret Projects, as we now call ourselves. 

When I first founded Secret Projects, I set up a UK registered limited company that was owned entirely by myself and ran as a not for profit because there was no other business model suitable for a start up of this kind. I purposefully did not want to run a charity because I knew our Makers wanted to feel like business women not beneficaries. (Note: I still believe in the charity model.) For me though, this was always going to be a temporary business structure until I was able to have the time and resources to formulate a more appropriate business model. Once again, another life-line was given to Secret Projects in the form of Banke Ajayi, a highly experienced management accountant who Nirmala and I were introduced to in 2017 and who has since become a much valued member of the Secret Projects team. Working with two of the UK’s leading law firms Banke and I explored options for a new, international business model. Banke and I have, I am delighted to say, found an excellent alternative way forward for our mission to empower.

Excitingly, our new way forward involves everyone who has ever been involved with us! 

Makers – customers - investors – volunteers – staff members -big business supporters

I am proud to invite you to own Secret Projects with me and become a member of our 

COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETY 

This model runs like a cooperative, in a similar way to John Lewis in the UK. In November/December 2019 I will run a community shares sale on the crowdfunding platform www.crowdfunder.co.uk   Click here to watch a short clip that explains more about Community Benefit Societies, CBS. Click here to read in depth about the CBS business model.

The funds we raise from selling shares in Secret Projects CBS will allow us to invest in much needed resources to grow our Maker Network and develop our production operations in India. We will also be in a position to recruit skilled staff to sell our products and services globally to support our new commercial strategy that amongst other areas will give our global community of customers further opportunities to play a greater role in our mission to empower. 

It is with great excitement that I am also able to tell you that we have now become a provisional member of the World Fair Trade Organisation and we are on a strict timetable to become a full member by the spring of 2020. This is a great honour for us and our Maker Groups and will underpin all our future plans and activities. 

If you would like to know more about becoming a member of Secret Projects CBS or about buying membership for a child or young person you know, please click here or request more information from us at invest@secretprojects.org and Banke or I will respond.  I have my crowdfunding white board ready to take names of people who would like to invest.

I look forward to owning Secret Projects with you all. 

So very excited and so very determined 

Fritha 

With special thanks

To all Makers of Secret Projects – you have inspired me in so many ways, what I have found most inspiring is your collective determination to ensure your children know a life of less hardship than the ones you have experienced. This is the reason I give my life-long service to helping find solutions to overcome the challenges that prevent trained women in India from running thriving micro businesses. Giving them the resources and the confidence to make their own choices for themselves and their children