When Kay first joined the Libro Social Enterprise Workshop Series, she was already doing more than most people starting out. She was organizing markets, mentoring vendors, navigating community relationships, and running a small but real creative enterprise out of London's East end. She wasn't starting from zero. She was starting from instinct and instinct, it turned out, had taken her a long way.
What the series gave her was a framework to understand what she'd already built, and honest language for what was holding it back.
She didn't miss a session. Through all eight workshops and the Socialpreneur Chats, she showed up, even while managing a job loss in February, a roof leak that destroyed her print inventory, and the practical scramble of rebuilding income from scratch. The sessions on business planning and financial sustainability hit close to home. The human-centered design work asked her to look at her markets differently, not just as events to produce, but as experiences she was co-creating with a community. The governance and partnership conversations gave her a way to think about the collaborations she was already forming with venues, BIA organizations, and fellow artists.
What ran through all of it, and what the series kept returning to in different forms, was the question of value. Not value in the abstract, but the concrete, uncomfortable kind: What does your time cost? What are you actually charging? And why?
Kay is honest about what she found there. A pattern she's come to call, with some wryness, a "poverty mindset", a tendency to keep prices low, partly out of genuine concern for accessibility, partly out of a fear of asking too much, partly just habit. The series didn't fix that in a session. But it created the conditions for her to name it, and naming it was the beginning of changing it.
By the time the series wrapped, something had shifted. She'd raised her table fees, from $25 when she started organizing markets, to $50, to $80, and she was working through the reasoning, workshop by workshop, for why $100 for a two-day screen printing experience wasn't a barrier, it was fair. She'd started doing the math out loud: materials, prep time, marketing, labour, the hours nobody sees. She was beginning to price like someone who believed the work had worth.
The economic results are real. She replaced her employment income through her own enterprise. She's generating $1,200–$1,800 per event, is booked through the fall across multiple venues, and is building out a workshop stream as a second revenue line. She's thinking about volunteers, larger venues, and what it would take to bring on help so she can handle more without burning out.
But the numbers only tell part of it. Equally real is what's happening at the level of community infrastructure. Kay is running a small teaching market at 1100 Dundas where she coaches newer vendors on how to host their own events, quietly multiplying the skills she's been developing. She's collaborating with Mik at Resonance on a two-day screen printing series. She's in conversation with the Old East Village BIA about better event promotion for independent artists. She's not just building a business; she's building a small ecosystem.
This is what the Libro Workshop Series was designed to support, not the polished pitch, but the slow, grounded work of helping someone understand what they're already doing well enough to do it more intentionally. Kay's growth didn't come from a single session or a single insight. It came from showing up, repeatedly, to a learning community that took her work seriously and asked good questions.
"I don't think I'd be moving as quickly as I am without this," she said near the end of a recent conversation reflecting on the year.
What the series has offered Kay, and what it continues to offer people like her across London, is something that doesn't fit neatly into a metric: the sustained, relational support that turns a good instinct into a viable practice. Community-rooted entrepreneurship development, done well, looks less like a curriculum delivered and more like a community formed. Kay's trajectory is evidence of both.
You can find Kay at:
@O.heyitskay - Insta
KEY THEMES & OUTCOMES
Engagement & Attendance
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Attended all eight sessions of the Libro Social Enterprise Workshop Series, plus Socialpreneur Chats, consistent engagement even during a period of significant personal and economic disruption
Economic Impact
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Replaced employment income after job loss in February through her own enterprise
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Generating $1,200–$1,800 per event depending on venue size
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Raised her vendor table pricing incrementally from $25 to $50 to $80, with continued growth in confidence to charge fairly
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Actively developing new revenue streams: workshops, screen printing series, expanded market season through fall
Skill Development
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Business planning and pricing, moving from instinct-based to intentional, costed decision-making
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Human-centered design, reframing markets as community experiences, not just production events
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Partnership and collaboration, co-facilitation model with Michaela at Resonance, BIA relationships, multi-venue network
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Marketing strategy, understanding foot traffic, venue positioning, newsletter ecosystems, physical vs. digital promotion
Barriers Identified
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Poverty mindset around pricing, named, partially addressed, ongoing
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Loss of inventory (roof leak during period of no income), real material setback, now recovering
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Collaboration pricing misalignment, navigating different assumptions about value with partners
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Venue cost vs. foot traffic tradeoffs, learning that larger isn't necessarily more profitable
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City red tape limiting community activation possibilities (food truck regulations, etc.)
Relationships & Community Building
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Active collaboration with Michaela at Resonance, Tara at Honey Dip, Jessica Jones Educational Center, Old East Village BIA, Brown & Dickson
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Running a teaching market as its own form of community development and mentorship
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Navigating inclusion questions thoughtfully, demonstrated real equity awareness in programming decisions (indigenous artist integration at Weirdo Market)
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Building a peer network through the workshop series that extends beyond the program itself
Systems Observations
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Foot traffic in London's East end is hyperlocal and shaped by community memory, one side of a street can make a material economic difference for small vendors
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BIA infrastructure gaps create real inequity in arts promotion, independent artists in Old East Village lack the same visibility as those in the downtown calendar ecosystem
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Pricing norms in community arts often systematically undervalue artist labour, requires active unlearning, not just information
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Teaching-market model has multiplicative potential: one skilled organizer developing the next generation of hosts is an under-recognized form of community economic development
These stories are made possible through the Social Enterprise Workshop Series, powered by Libro Credit Union.