Happy Autumn!
As the leaves start to change colour and float down from their homes, we are keen to share all the great things happening within the Greatest Good ecosystem, as well as the for-purpose sector more broadly.
Greatest Good has been welcomed with open arms into the B Corp™ community, as I attended some real life and online events during B Corp month. It is so energising to meet a whole new range of organisations doing their greatest good!
I attended the Impact Investment Summit again, where it was exciting to see that many foundations and family offices are now including an allocation to operating costs/overheads in their grants/funding. For those of you who have seen the movie Uncharitable, this will make a lot of sense. For those who haven’t, I highly recommend attending a screening in your state. Social Impact Hub, who recently celebrated their 10th birthday, are helping organisations to arrange private and fund-raising screenings. You can learn more here.
Closer to home, we have appointed seven new advisory board members across our two advisory boards. This enabled us to increase the cognitive, geographic, stakeholder, racial, and age diversity across the advisory board. I am extremely grateful and incredibly humble to have two teams of volunteers willing to not only help us create greater impacts, but also helping us to support our members, and the consumers and service providers who use our ecosystem. We’ve also hired a Communications and Engagement Manager (see below). We are seeking an Ecommerce Coordinator.
We have arranged a free email marketing event (see events section below) to help purpose-driven businesses to take advantage of this underrated marketing strategy which has the highest return on investment.
If you haven’t got your Mother’s Day presents yet, there still time to Shop Good, Gift Good, Do Good and Feel Good! Check out our Mother’s Day Gift Guide for helpful suggestions, or shop the entire Greatest Good range. Get your order in by Tuesday 6th May to ensure delivery before Mother’s Day. Every purchase you make supports Australian social enterprises, charities or B Corps.
We are currently undertaking interviews/feedback session with all the for-purpose organisation members and other registered key stakeholders, seeking feedback on our current service offering and those planned for the future. If you would like to be involved in sharing your feedback (positive and negative), please reach out to us so we can continue to learn and improve.
Jenni - Founder/Managing Director
Inspiration from our members
- Enabled.vip CEO and Co-Founder, Dr Gary Allen, has been nominated for the Westfield Local Heroes Award 2024
- The Reconnect Project has been nominated as a Finalist in the National Banksia Sustainability Awards for the Circular Economy category (they took out the NSW Sustainability Award late last year). They also secured $330,000 in funding from the Ian Potter Foundation to help deliver their training and employment programs for neurodivergent people
- Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation has partnered with TOM Organic who will help AGCF to continue their funding of grants for researchers across all eight gynaecological cancers
- Dolphin Research Institute celebrated its 33rd birthday and also released it’s 2023 Impact Report
- Be Hers was featured on Channel 9 news on International Women’s Day
- Creative Plus Business have left their Surry Hills location and moved into the Sydney CBD
- CuriousWorks held their Open Days in late March, helping those in, or entering, the arts sector
News and Updates
For-purpose sector news
Perpetual has released its philanthropy snapshot for 2024: Rising to the challenge: Perpetual’s Philanthropy Snapshot for 2024
Volunteering Australia has refreshed the National Standards for Volunteer Involvement, ahead of National Volunteer Week at the end of May.
The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) 15th Not-for-Profit Governance and Performance Study reveals that increasing demands and higher expectations have NFP directors at a tipping point.
AICD has also released it Third Edition of its Not-for-profit Governance Principles, following earlier releases in 2013 and 2019.
There is so much happening in the social enterprise space at the moment, here’s just a quick snapshot of some of the news:
- Following the 2023-24 federal budget announcement of $11.6 million in funding to boost and support social enterprises, the Department of Social Services has appointed two organisations from the social sector to deliver the Social Enterprise Development Initiative (SEDI) funding and other initiatives
- The Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks Australia, Social Traders and the various state/territory based social enterprise networks met with key ministers, politicians and policymakers at Parliament House to educate and discuss the significant role and untapped potential of social enterprise as a tool for social and environmental innovation, with additional recommendations made
- Prime Minster Albanese attended the opening of Beacon Laundry, a jobs focused social enterprise, along with the Assistant Minister for Social Services
- The Government's House Standing Committee on Economics' 'Better Competition, Better Prices' report was full of the term "social enterprise", including various recommendations
- Western Australian Social Enterprise Council (WASEC) has also received core funding from Lotterywest for the next two years
- Social Enterprise Network Victoria (SENVIC) has appointed Ishani Chattopadhyay as Executive Director. SENVIC made Danielle Pullin - Communications and Engagement Manager, Anna Morgan - Regional Manager and Sakshi Thakur - Metropolitan Manager redundant due to cutbacks with the Victorian Government funding. Their loss was our gain, as we have employed Danielle in the same role at Greatest Good
- Impact Seed announced their funds launch and made various other announcements supporting impact investing and social enterprises in Western Australia
Other news
The Australian Taxation Office has developed a new online learning platform for small business, designed to help people get their tax and super basics right and improve their business knowledge.
Regulatory Updates
(the sometimes boring, but always important stuff)
Legislative changes
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The Closing Loopholes workplace laws legislation has been passed, after a last-minute deal was struck with the Greens and independent Senators. This will affect most employers and expanded the rights of all employees
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Paid parental leave will increase by two weeks per annum commencing July 2024, with the Government also making superannuation contributions and parental leave from July 2025
Guidance
- ASIC’s Climate reporting and greenwashing: What small businesses need to know, provides guidance on current developments and outlines what small businesses need to know regarding greenwashing and mandatory climate related disclosures.
You can more on these items and other regulatory updates in our monthly regulatory updates and other updates posted on the Blog Pages (use the Regulatory Updates filter). We can't provide legal advice but you can find proposed and upcoming legislative changes to discuss with your legal advisers.
Grants
We are adding grants almost daily to our grants database! Community Engagement and Marketplace members can log in to access the grants directory and use the 60+ filters to find relevant grants in seconds. We are updating these regularly so that you always have the latest active grants at hand.
Opportunities to support for-purpose organisations
Paid and volunteer roles
- Enabled.vip are seeking a treasurer
- SisterWorks has a range of paid and volunteer jobs available (and lots of hampers, presents and gifts for Mother’s Day)
- Find other jobs
Events/Courses
We have a few Greatest Good events scheduled, as well as a range of for-purpose events from members and the broader purpose-driven community:
- Connecting with your audience using email marketing
- Guided tour of the Greatest Good ecosystem (recurring monthly event)
- Outcomes measurement and reporting
- Find other events
If there are any topics you'd like to learn more about in 2024, please contact us and let us know.
Collaborations - asking for help and offering assistance
Support and free resources
We continue to add free resources on our Collaborate pages. Whether you are an individual looking for information or an purpose-driven organisations seeking free support and resources - we've got you!
So check out the Collaborate section of the ecosystem for support and resources to help you or your organisation.
