What a day, what a vibe! Social Traders Convene 2024 drew a crowd of over 220 social enterprise and business leaders.
The conference in its 10th year brought people from across the sector to connect and collaborate on a shared vision of making social enterprise mainstream. In partnership with Westpac Group, Social Traders Convene 2024 had 40+ speakers, 20+ sessions and 17 partners supporting the day.
Imagine an economy where business was a means, not an end.
That was the opening of the conference held in Sydney this year. Be bold and have fun in changing the way we do business, is what Social Traders CEO Tara Anderson encouraged everyone in the room to think about.
Tara also shared Social Traders vision for our next phase of evolution. During the first decade, we provided broad support for the social enterprise sector. The past six years we have built the social procurement marketplace.
So what’s next? To be an industry body for social enterprise and responsible business. That means supporting social enterprises to build credibility and revenue. And being a partner for business to deliver and report on responsible business goals.
There are exciting new products and services on the way, some of which announced were:
- FREE certification for social enterprises: making it fully accessible for all and building a thriving social enterprise sector
- Social Enterprise Identifier: a live and interactive dashboard of almost 6000 social enterprises, showcasing the composition, size, location and impact of social enterprise in Australia;
- New Social Spend Report: a tool for any business to measure social procurement impact outcomes and benchmark against industry peers; plus
- A future responsible business program to help SMEs identify and integrate their social procurement, ESG and DEI needs.
Social procurement needs to become simply, procurement
A consistent theme throughout Convene 2024 was a real focus to speed up the pace of change and move to a world where social procurement is just procurement.
Alex Hooke, Social Traders Executive Director, Advocacy & Engagement said momentum was building across Federal and State Government to make this happen but that the time is now for businesses to start prioritising impact.
“In the years ahead when social procurement becomes embedded in government policy, do you want to be forced to start then, or do you want to have it embedded and a track record of impact? The choice is clear,” Alex said.
Responsible business creating social impact
It was great to hear that there are businesses who are clearly showing the way on how to be a responsible business, leading with purpose. In discussing Nando’s partnership with social enterprise Cleanable, Kriss Alexander, Changing Lives Manager at Nando’s, highlighted how every business has a role to play.
“We may not be directly big enough to make systemic change but what we can do is advocate for change and inspire other businesses,” Kriss said.
On stage with Kriss, Joe Karten, Head of Sustainability and Social Impact at Australia’s largest privately owned property developer, Built, described it as being the pebble in the shoe. That if we advocate enough, no matter how small we are, change can happen. And there is also a business rationale to make this change today.
“Leadership at all organisations has two key areas of focus – profit and reputation. Social procurement plays into both these levers - there is a growing expectation that business make a positive impact and if we do that, we’ll keep winning work and being profitable. It is a virtuous cycle,” Joe said.
The session facilitated by Vanessa Pilla from Social Value Collective provided some key takeaways.
- Be an advocate for change: Even if we're not the biggest players, we can ignite change and inspire others to make a difference!
- Embrace the double win of social procurement: Leadership thrives on two crucial areas - profit and reputation. By embracing social procurement, we can meet the growing demand for positive impact. When businesses succeed in this, they attract more opportunities and boost profitability - a truly virtuous cycle!
- Set bold targets and celebrate success: Accountability fuels results, so let’s aim high and celebrate every achievement along the way!
Social enterprises change lives
There were also plenty of stories shared where working with certified social enterprises change lives.
Nan Caple, Deputy Chair of Community Bank National Council described how social enterprise can make dramatic change to local communities. Sharing the success of Bendigo Bank’s community banking model that allowed local communities to fight back against bank closures in the late 1990s. They were able to buy into a franchise and set up a local branch to serve the community and where the majority of profits (80%) went back to the community, not shareholders.
Over the past 15 years this has allowed almost 200 communities across Australia to re-establish a local bank and deliver an income stream to put back into grassroot needs. Many of these community banks are today becoming certified social enterprises to embed their purpose in their community for the next generation. We say, bring on more purpose-led banks!
The founder of WomenCAN Australia, Mikaela Stafrace, talked to building a peer-led model to help women get into education and work. In five years, WomenCAN has helped move over 1000 women in Australia off Centrelink. Beyond the social impact for those families, that equates to a $60m dividend for the Federal Government. Mikaela used the stage to say it is through collective impact - community, governments, business – that societal change happens.
These are just some of the key highlights of the jam-packed conference. The energy on the day was filled with enthusiasm, willingness to share ideas and collaboration in all directions.