The year 2023 has yielded unprecedented recognition, engagement and investment from the Australian Government on the role of social enterprise in the Australian economy through job creation and employment services, impact investing and addressing entrenched disadvantage in communities. The House of Representatives Select Committee on Workforce Australia Employment Services released their final report in November 2023, a 650-page document which mentioned social enterprise 192 times and provided recommendations to the Australian Government as follows:

4.179 The Committee recommends that the Australian Government develop and implement a Commonwealth Social Procurement Framework to leverage Commonwealth spending on major projects and large service contracts to create more employment and training opportunities for long-term unemployed and disadvantaged jobseekers (p.141); and

13.157 The Committee recommends that the Australian Government work with State and Territory Governments and key stakeholders such as Social Traders to develop and implement a Commonwealth social enterprise strategy.

If adopted, these recommended actions have the potential to provide foundational support, policy and investment into Australian social enterprises into the future. The question then becomes ‘what might a Commonwealth Social Enterprise Strategy look like for Australia’. Social enterprise strategies have been in existence in various countries and jurisdictions across the world for the last few decades. These social enterprise strategies led and endorsed by government, sets out a roadmap for how the government, the social enterprise sector and other public and private sectors can work together to stimulate targeted support, market access, investments, and networks for social enterprises to help them achieve measurable positive impact that aligns with the government’s objectives.

The Social Enterprise National Strategy (SENS) project commissioned by national peak body Social Enterprise Australia and undertaken by the Griffith University Centre for Systems Innovation in 2021 provided two key research reports. Part One of the project investigated the perspectives, provocations and sense-making for strategy through sector consultation, which then informed Part Two of the project which sets out a pathway for progress towards a National Social Enterprise Strategy - the key principles and theory of change for how a National Social Enterprise Strategy can lead to impact outcomes for Australia.

To build on the SENS project and to help answer the question of ‘what might a Commonwealth Social Enterprise Strategy look like’, Social Traders has undertaken a review of social enterprise strategies from five different jurisdictions around the world to understand the key themes, motivations, formats, investments and actions to identify and understand what best practice in social enterprise strategies (and their development) might look like.

This review covers jurisdictions within Canada, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia and were selected for review due to their comparable economic, social and political contexts. The review also takes into account international research and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommendations which provides additional evidence for the role of social enterprise strategies in driving a social economy (which includes social enterprise) to thrive at international, national and local levels.

We're pleased to share Social Enterprise Strategy Best Practice Review December 2023