Introductions and getting to know each other

Hi everyone, I am Mark Daniels, I have been working at Social Traders since we started 11 years ago. More broadly, I have been heavily involved in running, buying from, advocating for or building new social enterprise systems since 2001. My work is currently centred on Social Traders Marketplace with a particular focus on attracting and servicing buyer members. I am based in Melbourne but am involved in SE nationally. I'm here because its important that the sector is able to set out its own vision and activities to get more functional and to inform government policy. I'm also keen to ensure that social procurement is given attention as well as the other challenges and opportunities for SE. I also think that this process and the people leading it are pretty interesting - so I wanted to be part of this innovative approach.

Hi everyone, Tom here! I'm the co-founder and CEO of StartSomeGood. We're a social impact ecosystem-builder with a mission of connecting innovation to capital for social change. I'm personally very passionate about building a more participatory democracy, which for me is a society where every person has access to the tools, coaching, community and support to be part of creating change. At StartSomeGood we pursue this goal by providing technology tools for community-building and fundraising, through our capacity-building programs and through running impact accelerators on behalf of corporate, foundation and government partners. While our work is not exclusively for social enterprises, they represents a growing portion of all that we do, and we are a passionate social enterprise ourselves. I'm here because I love the sector and am keen to help however I can. Also I wanted to hang out with all you nice people.

Hi everyone, I am Helen and am late to the Social Enterprise space but loving it. After growing up in the community NFP space, I love that SE is a sustainable business model for enterprises to do great work in the world. I have a SE called Spare Harvest, we connect people to exchange what they have spare in their kitchens and gardens. We are on a mission to a social and environmental impact in local communities across Australia. As a resident of the Sunshine Coast and a team member of the first regional chapter of QSEC, I am excited about this project and how it can support the development of SE in regional Queensland and Australia.

Hi all. I'm Jo. I've been involved with social enterprise development for about 25 years and have been researching social enterprise for 23 of those. I am the director of the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne, which is the largest social enterprise research centre in the world. I'm also the Chair of CERES Environment Park in Melbourne, which turns over about $15 million, 95% through its social enterprises each year. As of last week, I'm also on the board of the Westpac Foundation, which has a long-standing commitment to social enterprise development. Happy to help if and where I can, and I'm here because - after 7 years at QUT - I know the Qld SE sector rocks :)

Hello there. I’m Helen and I’m passionate about impact, especially for incarcerated or formally incarcerated people. I’m with WorkRestart, a social enterprise that is operational in SE Qld. We are pushing the boundaries within the prison system and have reduced recidivism significantly. I’m very interested in expanding the social enterprise sector in Australia and was grateful to be a Westpac Social Change Fellow recipient in 2018. Looking forward to working together to achieve some great results.

Hello hello! I'm Sabrina Chakori and right now I'm just very excited to be part of this groups. So great to read all your presentations! Thanks for all what you've done so far in your life in trying to build a inclusive sustainable society!
Shortly, I manage the Brisbane Tool Library, which is an organisation that allows people to borrow stuff. We aim at reducing consumption (and waste). I'm also a PhD student at the University of Queensland, researching zero packaging food systems. As EK and few others in this page, I'm also involved in QSEC. I've been active in many organisations around the world and I simply think that we need a system change, starting from changing the current economic system. I think that we should redesign our society for economic degrowth... happy to chat more about this virtually or in front of a drink. Looking forward to learn from all of you, to share my experience and to achieve some practical changes!

Hey Guys. Taj Pabari here from Fiftysix Creations (www.fiftysix.edu.au). We teach kids about business and entrepreneurship - I'm looking forward to meeting you all. Cheers! Taj.

Hi everyone, I'm Jerome. I run a digital media consultancy called Kernel Projects, which has a bunch of vibrant social enterprises on its client list, and also pays back one of every three billable hours work to pro-bono services for high social impact organisations. I have been involved with the Queensland Social Enterprise Council for four years years, and now sit on the Board as Secretary. Thrilled to be among so many fantastic people and I'm looking forward to the outcomes of this collaborative process for the state sector and beyond.

Hi folks. I’m Rohan. I work with co-operatives and other member-owned businesses. As these organisations are value-maximising by nature, I’m really interested in exploring when they offer the best mechanism to deliver social outcomes. I’m working with Co-operative Bonds and the BCCM on a project to help the philanthropic and impact investor sectors understand opportunities in this area. Really interested to see how these conversations can help enrich the SESP learning process.

Hi All, Ashleigh Campbell here, Director of KickArts Contemporary Arts based in Cairns. We are a 26 year old not-for-profit organisation that started as an arts collective and has grown into a respected arts institution based on social enterprise models. We support artists from Queensland particularly in the Far North Region - Cairns, Cape York and Torres Strait Islands and Gulf of Carpentaria areas to take their artistic practice and small businesses to the next level. We develop and deliver a range of projects with artistic, social and environmental outcomes. I'm glad to be part of this Navigator's group and look forward to hearing from many of you and more about the great work you undertake.
Thanks to Crystal Williams at Queensland Social Enterprise Council for the suggestion and invitation. I look forward to working with you all. Best Ashleigh

Hello. I'm Steve. I love SocEnt in all it's forms...I see it as leading a pragmatic revolution to change the way we do business to be kinder, fairer, and more inclusive. I've been involved in, running, owning, and supporting SocEnts for 15 years, and am a co-founder of the QLD Social Enterprise Council. I currently work as Program Manager Social Innovation at CQUniversity at the Brisbane Campus, and in this role have started working with QSEC to help develop and broaden social enterprise networks in Regional QLD.

Hello everyone :) My name is Davinia and I live and work on the Sunshine Coast. I'm extremely excited to see this initiative come together as well as connecting with what is shaping up to be a gathering of QLD SocEnt legends. I have a Masters in International Business and am founder and CEO of a social enterprise called #MakingItHappen. We work everyday with NFPs, start ups, industry and community, to initiate and facilitate SocEnt strategy. I like describing our work as helping NFPs be more business minded, and businesses be more socially focused. In my spare time I volunteer with social enterprises and mentor purpose led start -ups .That's how passionate and convinced I am that SocEnt is the future ! I am also co- founder of the Sunshine Coast Social Enterprise Network , sit on the CQU Social Innovation Committee and an avid community worker in the multicultural, creative and female empowerment space. Community means a lot to me, and I am honoured to be able to have a career in the building of a better future for all. Its been 13 years since I escaped the corporate world, and in my 7th year of SocEnt obsession. Life is awesome !

Hey guys, my name is Trent Ker and I have been in the SE space for 6-7 years. I currently manage 5 different SE for Access Community Services in Logan, from Building services to cafes to driving schools. I also own my own private residential building business. I am so inspired by everyones experience and involvement in this group. Look forward to working with you all

Hi everyone. I'm Gayle - I am an Associate Director with SVA, based in Queensland (Brisbane). I worked in management consulting on capacity building projects in developing countries, until finding my tribe in the social sector. SVA is an intermediary organisation which has a long history with social enterprise development in Australia. There are familiar names in the group who are likely to know more about that history that I do! It’s a privilege to be in group with so many people with a wealth of experience, leadership and support of social entrepreneurship. I’m in SVA’s ventures team, working in partnership with philanthropists and early stage social organisations to help position and build organisational capacity, sustainability and sometimes scale/replication for their organisations or programs. There are many people interstate at SVA interested in the Qld SESP initiative, enabling me to act as a conduit to that broader experience and network for this group. Our impact investing team has a specific interest in social procurement, particularly around ways to enable more social impact organisations to win larger social procurement contracts. I'm looking forward to connecting and working with you all.

Hi everyone! My name's Tom and I'm passionate about helping social entrepreneurs and their communities to thrive. I'm really excited by the power of social enterprise to tackle some of our deep social and environmental problems. I'm the Founder/CEO of Impact Boom (www.impactboom.org) where many of the great people in this Loomio group have been interviewed on the blog and podcast. I'm really focussed on developing the SE ecosystem, providing capacity-building (which involves running the Elevate+ Social Enterprise Accelerator, currently with 15 SEs), growing awareness, and taking a whole of system approach to sector development. I'm also a Yunus Centre Fellow (Griffith University) and am on the Boards of QSEC and the Social Enterprise Network Logan, as well as the Advisory Panel of QUT Bluebox ImpaQt. For the past 18 months, a core project has been leading the bid to bring the Social Enterprise World Forum to Australia in 2021. I believe it presents an enormous opportunity for us to develop the sector and moving forward, will no doubt also use this forum as a way for us to co-design that together. Whilst we haven't secured the bid yet, we're working hard at it, and your involvement and contribution is certainly very much appreciated. Looking forward to meeting you in person and collaborating on SESP.

Hello everyone, I'm Melina Morrison. Thank you for the invitation to be part of this initiative. I'm excited by its diversity and inclusive approach - thank you organisers! I'm the CEO of the peak body for member owned businesses in Australia - Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. It's a long winded name for a singular objective of raising awareness of the co-operative model. There are around 2000 co-ops in Australia, which are social enterprises with co-ownership, democracy and economic participation at their core. There's lots of these operating in Queensland and we're delighted to bring their voice to the table as well.

Hi all. I'm Sandy and I've been involved in social enterprise from the get go. I remember spending years explaining to people what a social enterprise was when I was working with the Westpac Foundation. These days I run a for purpose enterprise called Social Outcomes and we specialise in impact - researching it, designing for it, managing it ,measuring it and financing it. So I have a long history in impact investing as well. We work right across Australia and into the region. We've been having a lot of fun working on social enterprise development in the Pacific for the last two or three years as well.

Hi Everyone, My name is Celeste. I am the Yunus Social Business Centre Program Manager/Regional Coordinator for the Redlands/Logan region. I am passionate about improving employability pathways and enabling innovative approaches within academia, industry and the community that create social impact. I have a profound interest in developing social enterprise/entrepreneurship in rural/regional areas. A strong believer of collective impact to make a difference and wonderful to be working alongside you.

HI All - Ricky Bryan here form Supply Nation. our vision is for a vibrant and prosperous Indigenous business sector. Although some of the suppliers we represent see themselves as social enterprises many are for profit businesses, however their is a lot of cross over in the social enterprise space and Indigenous procurement. Its a space we need to play in and be aware of.

HI all - Michelle Baulderstone here form KPMG. I was recently lucky enough to meet a lot of you as part of the Social Enterprise report we did for the Queensland Government. It looked at the size, scale and types of SEs in Queensland, and included meeting with social entrepreneurs and enablers from across Queensland. As part of this we looked at how to strengthen and grow the sector and that is what I would most like to see in the future, especially given the passion, vision and heart of all the people we met, making a difference across Queensland.

Hello! Matthew Benetti from the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). I am the Social Innovation Director here and a manage a community of youth led social enterprises from around Australia. We have been delivering the Young Social Pioneers incubator program for the last 10 years and offer a suite of ecosystem supports to young social innovators alongside that. Looking forward to connecting with you all.

Hi everyone - great to be here. I've been working in changing how business is done for the last 10 years - in sustainable development and social enterprise. The last 5 years I've been working with Social Traders, and since October 2017, I've been in Queensland, helping to set up our social procurement marketplace here - it's been amazing to see all the social entrepreneurs supporting each other, and I've really enjoyed feeling the shift in support for social enterprise as a model to address a range of disadvantages Australian communities experience. I'm pumped to be working on the Unconference for the state - these events are so energising in all the issues and motivation they bring to the surface. Looking forward to hearing from you all over the next few months.

Hi All, my name is Richard. I am the Co-ordinator of Nundah Community Enterprises Co-operative. The Co-op creates employment for people with disabilities and mental health issues. The co-op pioneered social procurement in Australia with BCC and won an award for Best Social Enterprise In Australia in 2015. I've also been involved with QSEC as Secretary from foundation, till last year when I stepped down. I'm particularly passionate about Social Enterprises owned and operated by disadvantaged individuals and communities as it can be a powerful tool for addressing entrenched social issues. Whilst I recognise SE is a broad church, I think community owned social enterprises need to be valued for the unique challenges they face and unique potential contribution.

Keith Rovers, Partner MinterEllison
Hi all

Thx for the opportunity to be part of this exciting initiative. As a partner with a background in finance and projects, and as the firm’s pro bono and community investments partner - I work across the 3 sectors and am excited by the opportunities that the 4th sector can bring to tackle important social and environmental issues - combining the energy of social entrepreneurs and a wide variety of business models and disciplines.

In my combined role, I’ve worked with many social entrepreneurs and their social enterprises, as well as the incubators, accelerators and funds providing important support to the sector - including the likes of Westpac Foundation, AMP Foundation, First Australians Capital, Optus’ Future Makers program, YGAP, Social Traders and SVA.

Our aim is to help build a thriving and sustainable 4th sector by getting greater clarity around the value chain and the value SE’s bring to corporates and governments in social procurement supply chains - enabling SE’s to demonstrate and seek to capture a bigger slice of that value (which will go some way to sustainability!). This requires a reframing or reimagining of more traditional procurement models and contract structures - as well as building the supporting evidence base.

Without wanting to generalise (but doing so anyway!) SE’s are often low margin/low barrier to entry businesses at the bottom of a contract/risk chain and so are risk and price takers, whilst also tackling ‘wicked’ issues - A very tough ask! As such the ecosystem needs to support and nurture these businesses, which are often capital constrained. This may require a mind-shift and leadership at the corporate and government levels in terms of capital supply models (providing or supporting/incentivising them) and contracting approaches.

MinterEllison understands the power of social business and collaboration and hopes to assist with the important capacity building through its legal tools and business acumen and its deep cross sector networks. Looking forward to working with all of you.

Hi, my name is Narayan Gopalkrishnan, and I am the Chair of the Social Enterprise Network for the Tropics. We are based in Cairns and our current focus is on supporting social enterprises in Far North Queensland. I am an academic at James Cook University, coordinating the Bachelor of Social Work degree at the university. I have a long standing interest in social enterprises, having been involved in various roles with SEs in South Asia and in Southeast Asia. I look forward to working with all of you in this project.

Hello. My name is Tania Cobham and I work with the Cape York Institute based in Cairns.
We are an Indigenous owned not-for-profit organisation with a primary focus on empowering First Nations people to be the architects of their own futures. We know that independence from government funding and agendas is a vital element in empowerment, hence we strongly support social enterprise development. We have established a civil contracting company, Bama Services and a hardwood saw milling business, Cape York Timber in order to increase Indigenous employment and opportunity.

I am a policy officer working across a wide range of issues. I am also a passionate supporter of co-operatives and innovation methodologies. I'm delighted to join the group and meet you all.

Hi there - apologies for coming to the conversation late; I have been teaching an intensive unit on social entrepreneurship as part of our Master of Social Impact program.
I'm Libby Ward-Christie. I have been working in the social enterprise ecosystem since about 2008. I am now Principal Industry Fellow at CSI Swinburne and prior to that was with Mark D and others at Social Traders for nearly 8 years. My key interest areas are SE strategy and social finance. Whilst at Social Traders, I developed The Crunch program, the Social Investment Fund/Portfolio and lead their advisory services.

At Swinburne, I am involved in SE and social finance research, teaching and industry engagement. I am also about to launch the Swinburne Social Startup Studio (the Studio). The Studio is a new initiative of the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne with Equity Trustees, to provide support to early-stage social enterprises. Our decision to develop the Studio has been prompted by shifts in the social enterprise ecosystem in Victorian that have seen less support available for early-stage organisations Importantly as a research centre, we want to take an approach to this type of work that sees our methods informed by evidence - both the experiential knowledge of the social enterprise sector and existing research. We also plan to document our learnings and share them freely for others to use, to strengthen the social enterprise support ecosystem more broadly. We will be launching our website in mid-July and calling for our first participants in soon after.

Welcome to the Navigators Group Libby. Let us know if you have any questions about the stand-up project or processes.

As they say better late than never! Hi everyone, I'm Yolonde - my business, Empowering Women Empowering Women focusses on building capacity in remote Aboriginal communities and isolated villages in PNG. We do this through teaching and nurturing skillsets to strengthen economic enterprise opportunities for women. I'm all about partnerships and supporting one another to achieve common goals. It only dawned on me recently that I was actually a social enterprise. Currently in Vancouver for the 2019 Women Deliver conference. I love the work I do and look forward to being a part of this project and sharing ideas.

Welcome Yolonde - we are happy to have you join the conversation and contribute your insights to the project. We've launched a few tasks and hope that you have time to participate. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask
Cheers
Rena

Thanks Rena. Just finished watching Task 1.

Will catch up as quickly as possible and contribute accordingly.

Congrats to all involved. Great initiative. And a special thank you to Crystal for thinking of me.

Yolonde, your work sounds amazing :) Check out a project I m currently running called Sista4Sista - Sunshine Coast (Facebook Group). Its around empowering multicultural women on the Sunshine Coast through financial skills and networking with other women. Its been a lot of fun, would be great to connect :)

Hi Yolonde - I would love to meet you one day. I saw a couple of My Pathway books that featured your projects. Very inspiring.

It is wonderful to have you here @yolondeentsch . I am a big fan of your work and I look forward to your insights. Very exciting time for SE's :)

Thank you Crystal and the feeling is mutual. And thank you for inviting me to part of this project.

Hey team, wow! So many inspiring humans in here. I can't wait to meet all of you #IRL. I care about activating communities around decisions. That has manifested itself in starting a crowdfunding platform called PledgeMe in NZ, and now here in Australia to help people fund the things they care about. Our focus here is equity crowdfunding, so allowing your crowd to own a piece of companies they care about (often, social enterprises or regional companies). I've always self identified as a social enterprise, and have written things about social enterprise, like this sweary seminal piece: What the F*ck is Social Enterprise. https://annapledgeme.tumblr.com/post/110308064673/what-the-fuck-is-social-enterprise

Welcome Anna! so great to have you on board. Let's do some Sh*t! <3

I just read your blog and then wrote on my whiteboard above my computer "Social Enterprise is a commercial approach to a social problem" as you had articulated in your blog. Being in a non-profit, social services organisation that aims to innovate - I think this is the key! Welcome - see you in Loomio as we journey through this network!

Hi Tania its a small world! How are things going up there at BAMA? Say hello to Stu for us. Cheers, Richard.

Hi Richard. All is well up here , as usual this work is quite difficult. Lots of focus on the politics of the day and trying to get a clear line of sight on what might be the most effective piece of work to do at the moment (there is so much promising work). Hope the lovely people of Nundah are going well - we've been deeply inspired by the landscaping crew. T

Thanks Tanya that’s promising. Was very humbling to travel up there a while back and see the leadership in the room the collaboration between communities and the growth of Bama Enterprises which is miles ahead of us. Catch up soon.

Richard.

Or a 'social approach to a commcercial opportunity...'

Hi all - this is a very exciting space to be in. I represent JUTE Theatre Company and part of what we do is deliver professional development and outreach programs in our region (Leichardt) and the Cape and now expanding throughout QLD. We are committed to the development and employment of regional artists and the production of new work.

Welcome Milly - looking forward to learning more about your work and hearing how we can strengthen connections across QLD.

Hi All,
I'm a board member of QSEC and the founder of Aid Worthy, a Brisbane based social enterprise that visually shows how programs are making a difference. I started out in the social sector as a volunteer, doing youth work in Costa Rica and Vanuatu. I then joined the aid & development community as a paid worker and have been working in that space as well as the social enterprise space ever since. I was part of Melbourne's cohort three for the School for Social Entrepreneurs (shows my age), and my technical background is research, evaluation, learning and knowledge management. I am particularly interested in surveying the Queensland social enterprise sector, to find out how sector is doing. I've profiled a number of organisations already such as Substation 33, Bee One Third, etc, and I'm always looking to give back to the community. I'm also starting a new social enterprise focusing on measurement and evaluation, along with some partners at the UQ Centre for Policy Futures as a service to programs - which is also exciting.

Hi Mark - welcome to the Navigators Group. I really hope you can contribute your experiences and insights into creating the survey.

Hi everyone, Sarah Stockhausen here and Board Member of QSEC since December 2018. I am looking forward to seeing ways I can contribute to the sector potentially through my background in Finance and Economics. I have worked at Westpac for the last 16 years in various capacities but coming from a relatively economically challenging background really love the way Social Enterprise is growing in the community to help solve problems and improve people's lives. Having travelled to developing nations and seeing Social Enterprise help communities and in particular advance women I am looking forward to seeing it become ad bigger part of the community here and overseas.

Hi @sarahstockhausen
Thanks for all your help and support - look forward to learning more about your international experiences with SocEnt

Hi everyone. I apologise for very late response! It been hectic with my organisation and personal business life. It so full on. So let me introduce briefly.

I am a founder and CEO for Nature Freedom, and also on board with QSEC since December last year. I am an passionate and dedicated speaker, presenter, facilitator and consultant for young people, government polices on inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities.

I am so proud to be part of SE and disability networks because it is about getting together and support each others. We need this foundation for many generations in the future to come.

Hi Mathew Welcome to the Navigators Group - We are so pleased to have you on board and looking forward to your insights and hearing about your SE experiences