The people closest to social challenges often have the best ideas to solve them — but lack the economic security and institutional backing to act. We call them hidden entrepeneurs and believe they are our country's biggest untapped resource.
Citizen First addresses this by providing Real Living Wage salaries, seed funding, and specialist support, while mobilising local institutions around hidden entrepreneurs.
The UK has built infrastructure for business and infrastructure for the public sector. What's missing is infrastructure for communities — a systematic way to back people with lived experience to turn their insights into businesses. Citizen First is that missing layer.
How the Citizen First model works
1. Inclusive opportunity
A CV-less, open-call recruitment process that reaches hidden entrepreneurs traditional programmes miss. On our current programme 90% of applicants had experienced economic disadvantage.
2. Financial stability
A year's Real Living Wage salary plus seed funding, removing the financial barriers that prevent people from pursuing their business ideas.
3. Meaningful support
Small, tight-knit cohorts with a dedicated full-time business advisor providing hands-on guidance throughout the journey.
4.Specialist expertise
Applied learning through a business experimentation curriculum, with one-to-one coaching from experts in business model innovation, plus tech support from experts in the field.
5. A powerful local network
Direct, ongoing access to civic bodies, local businesses, and academic institutions, embedding each new enterprise in the wider system from day one.
The model delivers exceptional returns. An independent University of Essex evaluation found it delivered £6.26 of social value for every £1 invested — in the first year alone.
They found the model creates substantial economic and social value by backing people with lived experience to build real businesses and mobilising people and organisations around them.
"The principles should be taken as transformational trends for the future of community development."
University of Essex Evaluation
Proven across multiple programmes the model has been tested and refined, supporting hidden entrepeneurs to build businesses that have gone on to secure national recognition, commercial partnerships, and investment.
Laura Wood from the North East built Invisible Creations through this approach — award-winning stylish home/garden products that double as discreet support rails now stocked in B&Q, with 12,000+ units sold and 25,000+ people benefiting.
Karen Badenoch from Essex created Trusted Money Confidence - the UK's first peer-to-peer money confidence programme, helping local people in her Essex communities save close to £200,000 with 75% wellbeing improvement.
These aren't outliers — they demonstrate what becomes possible when people with lived experience receive the economic security and institutional backing to build businesses rooted in the challenges they've navigated.
See it in action: Citizen First LCR is currently transforming lives in the Liverpool City Region. Local hidden entrepreneurs are building businesses in health and care, backed by the Mayor of Liverpool, University of Liverpool, and local businesses. The programme achieved 20x oversubscription and has already seen one third of entrepreneurs secure investment or commercial partnerships within six months.
