The first thing we learned was that a lot of the value created by the Forum actually happens well before the Forum takes place.

A lot of that value as a result happens very much at the local and national level. The process of designing what the event was going to have really encouraged us and invited us as a sector to really name what we wanted and what we would have to do in order to achieve those goals. Through that process, it also created a bunch of connections. A lot of people who had been doing similar work but didn’t necessarily have a reason to connect suddenly had one, so that was incredibly valuable in really building that coordination and network for social enterprise across the country. Also, in the lead up to the event, it was a big enough draw card to encourage other key stakeholders, whether that was local government, central government, philanthropy, mainstream business or corporates to get more engaged with social enterprise and also invite them to develop their own stories. These are things that they would like to work with social enterprise on at the Forum, so they had a while to think about what the relationship they wanted to have for social enterprise was, and then to make the necessary preparations which could lead into an announcement or the launch of something new at the event.

Clearly at the event, there was so much value created. The ability to have a number of different conversations which were interconnected, be that around investment, procurement, the role of intermediaries and networks, or different organisations who are working on similar thematic issues. All those conversations were able to take place and be woven into something bigger, which reflected social enterprise as a movement, a sector for the benefit of the whole country and an emerging part of the economy.

Of course, you can’t overlook the importance of relationships that an event like this facilitates at an individual level, organisational level and between groups of organisations and that was really important. But I’d say looking back, the biggest thing we learned was the role of the event in creating a longer-term legacy. Whether that was around the profile of Aotearoa New Zealand being a leader in the field of social enterprise, I think a lot of people experienced that event as a really positive thing. As a result, the country still sticks in their minds, and that’s alive now because I think for people doing social enterprise in Aotearoa New Zealand, they have a different level of access to colleagues overseas and maybe a different level of credibility.

But ultimately that legacy was about what happened afterwards in terms of the national governments being prepared to think about a longer term sector development program and how social enterprise could be woven into any number of different policy priorities and strategies. That work’s been going on over the last three and a half years, and the Ãkina Foundation have just reported back to the government on where too progress next. I think while a lot of different actors and activities fed into that, the World Forum certainly played quite a catalytic role in enabling that change to happen.

There lies the big lesson for Australia; how does Australia use the hosting of this event to really create a legacy for the future? While there is so much great work going on at an organisational level and really interesting work happening at the state level, there’s still a void in the vacuum around coordination and cohesion at a national level.

This is a national event speaking to an international audience, so what is the opportunity for the forum to be the place which launches that strategy for the long-term, and that legacy around sector development for social enterprise in Australia?