Hélène Malandain On The Key Steps Required To Grow The Impact-Led Business Movement Globally — Impact Boom | Social Impact Blog & Podcast | Global Changemaker Community | Social Innovation, Enterprise, Design

We’re certainly fans of that place-based approach, it’s the best way to go about it. How have you seen the social enterprise sector then transform and change over the last five years or so in Aotearoa, and where do you see it heading?

The sector has reached a whole different level of maturity in the last five years, and it’s enjoying a lot more visibility. I think security and visibility obviously go hand in hand feeding into each other. I think it’s fair to say that most of the reasons for this change are positive reasons. Of course, there’s the harsh reality of the fact that we need to live and work differently in order to revert or slow down the damage we’ve done to our planet, and solve some of our most pressing social issues and the harsh reality has benefitted the rise of social enterprise. But this is not specific to New Zealand.

If we focus on the more positive reasons and changes in the New Zealand context, I would probably highlight three key changes over the last five years.

The first one is that central government has significantly and openly committed to supporting social enterprise from the first position statement on social enterprise in 2014, to the three year partnership which we are currently delivering.

That’s a 5.5 million New Zealand dollars partnership with the Department of Internal Affairs that we are delivering with a range of partners to grow the conditions for social enterprise to flourish, a massive lever.

A second highlight and lever for change as you mentioned already has been hosting the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch in 2017. This was a significant milestone for our social enterprise community and looking back we can now see how much impact it’s actually had because by gathering our movement at such a scale for the first time, it’s really given visibility to social enterprise as a concept. It has created a very powerful sense of solidarity amongst entrepreneurs who I think felt quite isolated and disconnected until that moment.

And by hosting the international community, it created energy as we learned from them, but also a sense of confidence because what I noticed is that most Kiwi social enterprises would have arrived with a lot of humility and a sense of lagging behind the rest of the world, and feedback from the international friends and counterparts was really positive and really beefed up their confidence.

The third reason I’d like to talk about is the shift towards social procurement and obviously the growing understanding and acknowledgement of the opportunity for government and businesses to create social value by procuring smarter. This shift is opening up lots of new market opportunities for social enterprise and Ākina launched the first NZ social procurement marketplace at the end of 2018, called “Fwd”.

We have 60 certified services from 48 different social enterprises listed on this marketplace and a combined potential of 27 billion New Zealand Dollars amongst all of our buyers. That is another massive lever for change. That’s been going and making a massive difference in the last year or so.

In terms of where it’s heading, the one thing I’d like to highlight is that last year the New Zealand government launched “Indicators Aotearoa”, which sits within a living standards framework. In a nutshell, this is New Zealand’s acknowledgement that there is more to well-being than just a healthy economy. It’s our commitment and our government’s commitment to look beyond GDP to develop a more holistic view of our wellbeing. This is very powerful of course, for the entire economy and giving us a framework and a springboard to communicate what we value as a society and in our daily lives.

The indicators are a really good tool to assess the collective impact of polices and inform decision making. Overall we have a model for all businesses to articulate how they’re contributing to our nation and people’s wellbeing. It’s not mandatory, but very fertile ground for social enterprises to continue to grow in New Zealand and to grow much faster. There’s a lot of work to be done to transform the way we do business, but I can at least help enterprises to articulate how they contribute to these wellbeing indicators and for the economy to speak in the same language as government. This is a sense of looking forward and the context in which we are growing social enterprise.

Well, the plans are very exciting. There’s a very rich program developing at the moment. There’s going to be a very timely focus on social procurement. There will be great learning opportunities in relation to Indigenous knowledge and traditions, reflecting the development of the social sector in Canada with similarities in Australia and New Zealand. Delegates can expect a very vibrant welcome from what’s an incredible team of hosts and partners. There will be some great side events and great evening activities as well. The team on the ground talks about taking over the city of Halifax. I expect a very vibrant week with really welcoming Canadian values showing through.