Between 2017-2023, Leapers was a vibrant and supportive community for the self-employed. It focused on encouraging positive mental health for freelancers, and often neglected topic.
Over our time, we supported over 300,000 individuals through our community, and content and partnerships with organisations who actively supported freelancers.
Whilst the project is no longer active, we've left these resources available for those who may find them useful.
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’re here to build awareness, prioritisation and adoption of positive behaviours to support your mental health at work when you’re self-employed.
We were a community of 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.
Established in 2017, we welcomed over 6000 members from across 22 timezones.
Discover our #askanything channel, #littlewins for celebrating, #worktogether for finding others to sit with, #brainfood for inspiration, #workwell for healthy habits and #theweeklyquestion to provoke debate.
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 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.
