Between 2017-2023, Leapers hosted a vibrant and supportive community for the self-employed. It focused on encouraging positive mental health for freelancers, and often neglected topic.
Born from the community project, we started developing research to better understand and quantify the challenge we were hearing within the community, and developing content to close the gaps in support.
That work, and our ongoing work with partners, through which we develop further resources, speak to communities and the rest of the support ecosystem, has led to our work supporting somewhere over 300,000 freelancers (from what we can track - much of our influence it is not quantifiable).
Whilst the community space is no longer active, our research work continues, and informs project such as freelancing.support, and our ongoing work with partners.
Working for yourself is empowering and exciting, but when you’re self-employed there's a great deal you're responsible for: doing the work, finding new work, chasing payments, admin, marketing, sales - and everything else going on in your life.
It can be a lot - and if you're working by yourself, it can be easy to feel like you don't have any support structures around you - which can lead to further stress, anxiety and impact on your mental health.
Even if you're aware of the importance of wellbeing at work, taking time for it can get de-prioritised - and the most important asset to your business gets forgotten: you.
We exist to build understanding, awareness, prioritisation and adoption of positive behaviours to support your mental health at work when you’re self-employed, and to work with the rest of the support ecosystem to improve the experience of the self-employed.
For many years, Leapers hosted a community of peer-support for the self-employed.
Free to join, non-judgemental, open and supportive - just what you need when you're either starting out as a freelancer, or established but fed up of working on your own.
Our space included the #askanything channel, #littlewins for celebrating, #worktogether for finding others to sit with, #brainfood for inspiration, #workwell for healthy habits and #theweeklyquestion to provoke debate.
Established in 2017, we welcomed over 6000 members from across 22 timezones. The community space closed in 2023.
We distilled conversations from our community plus insight from our friends, into useful guides, content and tools which help you navigate the experience of working for yourself.
From regular articles on common topics and themes facing the self-employed, to in-depth guides on specific challenges such as late payments or dealing with imposter syndrome, and comprehensive toolkits to getting started and maintaining your wellbeing as a freelancer.
We worked tirelessly with partners and employers to create a better working culture for freelancers, alongside organisations such as Mind UK, YunoJuno, FreeAgent and many many businesses who hired freelancers.
Our influence has helped to drive change and raise the importance of mental health for the self-employed.
It's hard to put a number to our impact - we reached at least 300,000 via our own channels alone, and countless others via partners, press and our wider influence.
Most importantly, when we started the project - mental health for the self-employed wasn't something discussed or considered by most freelancers. Today - it is one of the pillars of starting your own business.
