Recent items from PRIME's client support club
The PRIME Initiative provides free information, events and training to help older people get back into work by starting their own business - also known as “becoming self-employed”.
The charity’s activities are needed because the over-50s face huge problems of unemployment and age discrimination in the conventional job market. HRH The Prince of Wales recognised this huge labour-market failure - which is common to all developed countries, when he founded PRIME (the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise).
In the UK almost one person in three aged between 50 and state pension age is workless. Of these less than 10 per cent are retired on adequate incomes. The remaining 90 per cent are on incapacity benefit, registered unemployed, caring, made redundant or retired with an inadequate pension.
PRIME was set up to assist older entrepreneurs across the whole of the UK. It is currently active on the ground in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Wales it works through PRIME Cymru, PRIME’s sister organisation, with whom PRIME works closely under our joint President, Prince Charles.
PRIME’s work with olderpreneurs complements the Prince’s other enterprise charities, which are more associated with youth.
PRIME seeks to help anyone aged over 50 in the UK who wants to start their own business or set up a social enterprise with other people. It can only provide the vital work of giving people back their financial independence, self-reliance and dignity with your support, help and donations. For details of how you can help, see Support us.
You can get a feel for the work of PRIME by reading the articles and blogs on this web site. To find specific items use the search box at top right, or to see the most recent items go to News. There’s more about the charity itself under About.
PRIME has another web site at www.primebusinessclub.com designed to provide practical assistance to older business people.
Print this item
Listen to this item
Prince Charles describes the work of his charity PRIME and welcomes new sponsorship deal
Click on the right arrow button above to start video
I am delighted to speak to you today as the President of PRIME - the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise.
I founded PRIME over eight years ago after receiving large numbers of [...]
Listen to this item
Joint PRIME / Bank of America News Release: 27 November 2007
Embargoed until: 00.01am 1 December 2008
Bank of America and PRIME - Working Together to Support the Over 50s to Find Opportunity in Enterprise
LONDON - Research published today, commissioned by Bank of America on behalf of The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME), provides new insights into the [...]
Listen to this item
We are currently actively seeking more volunteer business mentors for the Black Country in the Midlands and Doncaster and Sheffield in Yorkshire. And we expect to be recruiting more mentors elsewhere at the beginning of 2009.
PRIME mentors assist people in the early stages of starting a new business. The emphasis is on being a sounding [...]
Listen to this item
If you are over 50 then you are closer to retirement than most of the population. Even if you have a good 15 or 20 years of work left in you, it is likely that eventually you will want to stop. So what then will happen to the business you have built up - and [...]
Listen to this item
This video on the BBC web site is about people over 50 in the South West setting up their own businesses. It was shown on Spotlight, the BBC’s regional news programme for the South West of England, on the 23rd of October 2008.
The clip shows interviews with Jean Singleton and Carol Glover who set up [...]
Listen to this item
Garry Stephenson, 55, has set up an innovative photography company just months after being made redundant.
Garry, from Cannock in the West Midlands, was made redundant at Christmas from his job inspecting motor homes for a large local vehicle importer. His company SkyHiFotos.co.uk offers photography from an unusual angle – taken from the top of a [...]
Listen to this item
UPDATE: Extra
Interviews with Sir Alan Sugar, Professor Colin Gray and Laurie South of PRIME.
On Friday the 8th of February 2008 at 7pm BBC 2 is showing “Too Young to Retire” - a special edition of The Money Programme about people who are building successful businesses in their 60s and 70s.
One of the older entrepreneurs featured [...]
Listen to this item
Some 800,000 people between 50 and state pension age are currently inactive but want to work, according to a new report commissioned by PRIME and written by leading economist Christopher Smallwood.
The majority of new businesses are created by people in their forties and fifties - indeed business owners aged over 50 account for 15 per [...]
Listen to this item
The printed paper version of “Working for YOURSELF - a practical guide to sales, marketing and preparing a business plan for people aged over 50″ is now available. You can still download the guide as a PDF, but if you would prefer a paper copy just email us your details and we’ll post you a [...]