We’ll actually be running another survey very soon, given that things have changed quite a bit with the various packages that have come online and restrictions being eased now as well.

I guess it’s no mystery, but really there’s a need to safeguard their businesses, safeguard being the key word, and to make sure that the social capital that they’ve invested so heavily in over years, if not decades, is there to actually play its part in catching the fallout from COVID.

They’ve got some interesting hurdles to get there. So for example, at the peak of all of this, a lot of social enterprises who were creating employment for people with a disability had to actually send their people home because of greater health risks associated with COVID. In a lot of these scenarios work couldn’t be done at home. Even the concept of pivoting the business didn’t make sense. Some social enterprises provide training and support to people under a period of 12 months because they’re aiming to transition them into the mainstream employment market. So this “under 12 months” automatically doesn’t meet the JobKeeper criteria. Similarly, refugees and migrants also don’t qualify as well, so those working with those cohorts struggle in a different way. There’s others who are working with people in the justice system, for example. They can’t even connect with their cohort, and once they can, they’ll need to start the process of work with them again, and this has got costs associated with it. I won’t go into too much detail on arts organisations because I think that it’s fairly self-explanatory the challenges that they’ve had, which are probably some of the longest challenges through this period. But for some who are dealing with vulnerable populations, I guess complete hibernation is actually really hard to do because they need and want to keep their beneficiary cohorts engaged in some way.

Something else we’re actually seeing is social enterprises going back to community partnerships. For example, where they may have had a restaurant and catering business, they’re now partnering with charities to provide meals to marginalised communities. I think this is actually a sign of their resilience and their ability to leverage the social capital that they build and their networks.

But the trick, I guess, is the transition back to their commercial activity and what the circumstances will allow. There’s effort associated with this, but it’s a resilient sector and there’s so much impetus for them to keep innovating and moving forward.

Absolutely. I think that really leads us into looking at the movement as a whole, and where there’s been significant momentum gathering in Australia, I’d argue particularly in the last few years.

Where do you see strong opportunities, Nina, for the social enterprise sector in Australia? What do you believe is needed to build on this current momentum that we’re experiencing? I mean, even last week we heard of the official launch of the Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks of Australia, which is the formation of this Alliance between different state-based networks. So that itself was really exciting news…

Absolutely. Look, there are so many individuals now doing really amazing work in this space.

I think this is now the time to be loud about social enterprises, particularly in response to the fallout from COVID. It’s really an opportunity to feature in the hearts and minds of decision makers in this country.

But our focus specifically is on building market opportunities for social enterprises and there are definitely some opportunities that are going to come out of this situation. We specifically work with business and government who are looking at giving procurement contracts to social enterprises, and very simplistically this is what we call social procurement.

We’ve had various catalysing policy developments in Australia, for example, the Victorian Government strategy and targets around social procurement. The Queensland Social Enterprise Strategy has emphasised social procurement within it. States like New South Wales and South Australia are thinking along similar lines, and this isn’t going away. But, at the same time, it’s important to keep in mind that no one, including business and government is going untouched through this, and different industries have been impacted in different ways. Compare higher education to the banking sector for example, but what we’re still seeing is that a lot of our business and government members are genuinely concerned about social enterprises.

They’re very aware of the struggle of businesses in their supply chains. They’ve been eager to understand how they can help and our message to them is buy from social enterprises now.

A lot of them have still identified that there is a need to keep creating value for multiple stakeholders through purchasing. In particular, the procurement practice itself has actually recognised that with so many people now unemployed through COVID, driving employment policy and social value through social procurement is an opportunity.

This is obviously an area where social enterprises can play. When business and government actually purchase from businesses, their first responsibility is actually to secure supply rather than simply get the best price. We’ve all heard the conversations about local supply issues and the needs of the countries, including Australia to be more self-sufficient. Again, this is value that social enterprises can deliver. We actually just ran a couple of events, providing insights into the market demand for social procurement. One of those was in partnership with the Westpac Foundation and the Social Impact Hub. We’ll be looking to do more of this kind of thing as the opportunities do evolve. One last thing to mention is that over the coming years, we’re going to see huge investment into infrastructure to boost the economy. Most States have already released a schedule of projects and we’re really keen to continue seeing purchasing from social enterprises as a result of them.

It would feel like a lost opportunity not to be procuring socially in those big infrastructure projects that will undoubtedly unfold, right?

Absolutely.

So Nina, this is probably like asking a mother or a father who their favourite child is, considering you work with so many different social enterprises, but what inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently, which you believe are creating some really good, positive social impact?

This is always a hard one. The obvious one is the innovation social enterprises are undergoing. There’s so much impetus to safeguard their communities and keep pieced that social capital that I’ve mentioned that they’ve invested so heavily in.

But I did want to mention a COVID free example, and that’s of , which is a creative agency social enterprise in Queensland that provides work and training opportunities for people inside the justice system.

When they became certified, they attended one of our networking events where we connect social enterprises with our business and government members. From that, one of our members approached them to pitch for work, and they’ve now established this really strong business relationship. There was another member that also approached them and they’re now a preferred agency for digital and creative work. But on top of this at one of the networking events, they also connected with a Victorian social enterprise Goodwill Wine, who sells wine to donate to a range of charities and help their causes. Goodwill Wine actually flew up to Brisbane and visited the studio where a lot of the creative work is carried out. There’s actually a really interesting piece that Goodwill Wine has put together on the recount of this experience. Now, Goodwill Wine are a customer of Green Fox’s, and they’ve just recently launched a new animation created by Green Fox’s team. So I think this is just a really great example of the connections that can be made through the marketplace that we’re building.