Just in time to celebrate its fifth anniversary, The Honey Bun Foundation signed a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Scotiabank Women Initiative (SWI).

The partnership will see SWI, which gives support to women-led businesses, providing qualified SWI enrollees with access to The Honey Bun Foundation’s Advisory Committee for 2025.

In the Advisory Committee programme, qualified Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are assigned three advisors each to work with them for 12 months to achieve the SME’s stated business objective.

According to vice-president, Credit Solutions and Scotiabank Women Initiative Programme Lead Nadine Heywood: “Scotiabank Women Initiative is designed to help women succeed on their terms. Through SWI’s commitment to providing advisory and mentorship support, we are establishing partnerships which allow us to reach businesswomen at various stages of development. We are pleased that this arrangement will give SWI enrollees access to the Honey Bun Foundation’s Advisory programme.”

Vice President Client Experience and Advocacy; and Scotiabank Women Initiative Council member Yvette Anderson, lauded the value of the collaboration to the ecosystem. “It is said that unity is strength, and collaboration is power and so it is with delight that I represent the ScotiaGroup, alongside the Honey Bun Foundation to recognise and cement a collaboration that is driven by a mutual goal. That mutual goal is to make impactful contributions to national development by providing value-added support to businesses to empower them to achieve exponential growth.”

She continued, “As we built our advisory and mentorship pillar, it was inevitable that we partner with the Honey Bun Foundation.”

At the MoU signing event held at the financial institution’s downtown, Kingston head office recently, Founder of the Honey Bun Foundation Michelle Chong noted: “Scotiabank, like the Honey Bun Foundation, has demonstrated a clear understanding that through a purposeful investment of time, energy, money and other resources into SMEs, we can realise the better Jamaica that we all hope for.”

The Advisory Committee model is in its fourth year and has so far reaped tremendous success for the SMEs involved. General Manager of the Foundation Nashauna Lalah outlined some of the successes of the programme so far with one company moving from a small to medium business category. Other successes included SMEs reporting revenue increases ranging from 12-93 per cent.

Also present at the event was a member of the 2024 Cohort Shelly-Ann Dunkley, of Live Simple. She revealed that she has already surpassed last year’s sales. “The support that I have received from being a part of this programme has been invaluable in growing my business. The advisors are there to guide you and it shows that they care about your success.”

Applications are now open for the 2025 cohort and can be accessed at www.thehoneybunfoundation.com