Impact Gathering: Supporting Women In Impact-Led Business
On October 30th, Impact Boom and Mumma Got Skills hosted the sixth panel for Impact Gathering: Supporting Women in Impact-Led Business. Impact Gathering is a webinar series of Candid Conversations With Women In Impact-Led Business.
Panelists Jo Cavanagh OAM, Cinnamon Evans, Emma-Kate Rose and Donna De Zwart joined Carlie Dole to speak about how impact-led women can effectively support themselves, and develop strong networks of allies.
The Panelists
Jo Cavanagh OAM
Principal, Jo Cavanagh Consulting
Principal of Jo Cavanagh Consulting. Jo is an experienced Non Executive Director, Board Chair, Chief Executive, and social entrepreneur committed to creating impact for social good. Jo's social innovation mindset for social justice is the key driver of her professional journey. As a successful visionary leader Jo engages with diverse stakeholders to co-design solutions for complex problems. Jo works with government and community agencies as an informed voice committed to improving the lives of many.
Together, Jo translates knowledge and experience into action for outcomes to shape a fairer and more just world. Social justice is always the starting point and the end goal of Jo’s activities, and at the core of Jo's entrepreneurial efforts. Every voice is valued in pursuit of a vision for a fair world where people are empowered, and can live ethically and in harmony with each other and the planet.
Cinnamon Evans
CEO, CERES
CEO of CERES Community Environment Park and Chair of SENVIC (Social Enterprise Network Victoria). Cinnamon is an experienced leader in the social enterprise and not-for-profit sectors. Skilled in group facilitation, holding space and public speaking. Cinnamon is particularly passionate about the role of social enterprise within a broader movement for economic localisation and a transition to a regenerative society.
Emma-Kate Rose
Chair, Queensland Social Enterprise Council
Emma-Kate is a Program Director at The Next Economy, drawing on over 30 years’ experience working in business, social enterprise development, environmental sustainability, food justice and bottom-up economic development. In addition to her role at The Next Economy, she also leads Food Connect, a social enterprise which has led the way in transforming the local food system, using principles of ecological agriculture to engage ethically with family farms and local communities for over 14 years. Emma-Kate is one of four Fellows of the Yunus Centre for Social Business at Griffith University. Now in her second year as Chair of Queensland Social Enterprise Council, she has helped secure philanthropic and government funding to coordinate a sector-wide strategy to scale impact across Queensland.
Donna de Zwart
CEO, Fitted For Work
Chief Executive Officer of Fitted for Work, a not-for-profit dedicated to helping women in Australia experiencing disadvantage to get work, keep work and navigate through working life with success. Over the past 15 years, Fitted for Work has supported almost 40,000 women to build economic security through employment.
In her previous leadership roles in the commercial, VET and Higher Education sectors, Donna worked on empowering disadvantaged people with diversity and inclusion strategies. Donna believes every woman has the right to employment and a sustainable future. Because when a woman is fitted for work, she is fitted for life.
Carlie Dole (Moderator)
Founder, Mumma got skills.
Carlie Dole is the Founder of Mumma Got Skills, a social enterprise working to provide Post Natal support through creative experiences. Carlie is also a specialist Arts Teacher and works at Impact Boom in mentorship and communications.
Carlie has been on a journey since giving birth to her son to understand how women work, juggle, balance, thrive and survive in life and work. She is an advocate for female leadership, impact entrepreneurship and a new way of doing business for good. Impact Gathering is the passionate beginning of a greater project to come.
Highlights from the Panel
(listen to the podcast for full details)
[Carlie Dole] - I would really love to hear a more about who you are, where you've come from, and where you are today.
Emma-Kate, would you like to kick us off?
[Emma-Kate Rose] - Sure! I'm calling from Jagera and Turrbal country here in Meanjin or Brisbane. My background is in criminology and crime prevention, with a specific focus on social justice and community safety.
I had a bit of an epiphany when a few life circumstances led me down the road finding out more about the climate change issue. I switched careers, and started a little car sharing service here in Brisbane and ended up meeting my current partner, Robert Pekin through that.
He heads up Food Connect, the social enterprise, which has now been running for 16 years. I help out doing that, and I'm also chair of QSEC, the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. I've recently taken a position with the Next Economy where we go into communities who are transitioning economically and try to help them make decisions around what the best future is for them and their local economy in terms of its people and the planet. That's it for me right now.
Thanks Emma-Kate.
Jo, can we hear more about your career and everything you've done in a nutshell?
[Jo Cavanagh OAM] - I started my career as a social worker in the seventies working in juvenile justice and with children at risk out of home care. The things that I experienced, particularly once I'd become Deputy Director of a children's home, was about the abuse of children in out of home care and their lack of voice. To my great joy and surprise, I was successful with a Churchill Fellowship application, which meant that my husband and I mortgaged everything and travelled with our four children through the U.S. And Canada following a research trail.
We learned a huge amount from that, which really opened my mind and eyes to how much you can learn from other people in other contexts. We came back with a mindset of first of all trying to change problems, but [we also] learnt more and more about preventing problems.
Once I was a CEO, I had the opportunity to grow an organisation using enterprise innovation, and a real focus on developing other people to be able to create change. I stepped away from my CEO career at the beginning of COVID, [which was] terrible timing to have to transition an organisation. But now I've got more time for family and sustainable living. I've started two small businesses, myself as a sole trader and an Airbnb business.
I'm chair of a board for the Good Things Foundation, I'm involved with the Swinburne Centre For Social Impact and the Community Services Industry Alliance Reform Council amongst other things. Oh, and I'm also involved in the Melbourne Women Donors Fund. I wanted to mention it too because it's relevant to the conversation.
Great, thanks Jo. So much knowledge!
Cinnamon, can we hear a little bit about you?
[Cinnamon Evans] - Thanks Carlie. I was very fortunate as a young person in the seventies and eighties growing up in Victoria and Wurundjeri land to be taken out into nature often. My stepfather was a very enthusiastic outdoor person, [he loved] camping, kayaking, sailing and skiing. I think that that was really for me foundational in terms of my career. I studied secondary education in my undergraduate [program], and then from there I immediately started teaching at CERES, running environmental education program in the early nineties. At the time the program was very small, and CERES was very much an unknown program operating in the backwaters of Brunswick in the North of Melbourne. I was part of growing those programs and then I eventually became the leader of that team.
I eventually became leader of multiple teams at CERES, and CERES increased in size and scope. I was appointed CEO in 2012, and obviously CERES is a large organisation now with lots of parts.
There's still the environmental education centre, but also, we're an urban farm and social enterprise hub. We're actually across four locations in inner Melbourne, although we're strongly identified with the main park. I did post-graduate studies in environmental science, and then after that I was very fortunate to do some study in group facilitation and collaborative management, with the Group Work Institute of Australia now known as the Group Work Centre. My teacher, the late Glen Ochre, absolutely has informed my leadership practice since then.
Great, thanks for sharing Cinnamon. I feel like we are in good hands today. We're surrounded by such knowledge in this sector where we are trying to create profound change.
Emma-Kate, I'm interested to hear how the landscape has changed for women in social enterprise since you began your journey and where the opportunities have arisen to better support females?
[Emma-Kate Rose] - I mean, it's hard to tell because there hasn't really been a lot of studies done on women's involvement in social enterprises.
There's a couple around, but even when I started my first car-sharing enterprise, ‘social enterprise’ wasn't even a term in the ether. It wasn't even a concept really, and neither was the word impact, it wasn't around much either.
In fact, I remember specifically calling myself an eco-enterprise because of the environmental focus that I had, and talking to Rob too, he also identified Food Connect as an eco-enterprise at the time. It wasn't really until I think Social Ventures Australia started getting really active that they said, "hey guys, you're both social enterprises, you can help us!"
As the term has grown, obviously it's broadened the scope, and impact is now the most popular term. I think for women when you compare the statistics between mainstream business and social enterprise, around 30% of mainstream businesses are led by women and 50% of social enterprises are led by women.
There's a natural kind of bias already in social enterprise, because a lot of women are very much naturally attracted to combining entrepreneurial skills with causes that benefit their own community. I know my motivation personally has always been around my children's future, that's what made me stop doing criminology and [instead] start working for my children's future and doing something to create a better future for them. It was because I saw the science coming out and I thought if I don't do something, then I can't look them in the eye when they're adults asking me why I didn't do something when I knew full well what was coming down the line. I think when that light bulb gets switched on for a lot of women, we really have no choice, we just can't un-see it.
I think there is a natural propensity for women to start social enterprises. Even if they don't identify as social enterprise, I think if you have a look under the hood and see how they run their enterprises, I think you would probably see a very different type of organisation, in terms of the systems and the processes and the way decisions are made in those enterprises.
While I can't point to any specific statistics, that is my current feel in terms of where we're at with social enterprise currently, particularly in Queensland. There are a few things around, like the SHE-EO movement, I'm sure many of you have heard about it, where women are investing together to help out women with their entrepreneurial ideas and seed funding. There's a great group which helped us out in our equity crowdfunding campaign a couple of years ago when we were buying our warehouse. A women's giving group here in Brisbane set us up with all the costs associated with our legal needs and being able to pay someone to run Food Connect while Rob and I led the campaign.
But I think a lot of those things are really relationship based, and I think we really need to remember it's not explicit. I can't be just a regular female wanting to start a social enterprise here in Brisbane and go and knock on someone's door and say, "hey, I'll have that women's package that you've got thanks." It doesn't exist!
We're very much focused on relationships here. I'm sure there are other things that I haven't mentioned, but I know that the ImpaQt will be launched by Lisa Siganto (she's a leading philanthropist here in Brisbane). She wants to launch the Fund in March, and I know that that is specifically focused not just on impact-led businesses, but also has a big focus on women-led businesses as well.
Thanks, Emma-Kate. I think relationships and community are the big things. Are women better collaborators, and do they have that drive to collaborate? That's a point that I'd like to speak on with you some more. We might go to Jo now; you specialise in leadership. In your extensive experience, what have you seen to be the change in needs for women in impact led business in regard to support growth?
[Jo Cavanagh OAM] - Let me follow on from the point that Emma-Kate was making, because when I first started in a leadership role, it was in a very small community organisation. Again, it was my community, and I wanted to make a contribution when my children were growing up, and I think I had a sideways entrance in, rather than actually having to apply to the job. At the time, all the books on management and leadership just didn't kind of feel comfortable.
But then I discovered this amazing woman, Sally Helgeson, who'd written The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership, and what she pointed out in her research was that all the management studies were actually conducted on men as managers. Hence, the models were privileging those more authoritarian, gung-ho leaders.
This is exactly what we're worried about with AI now, with there being an embedded bias in data. Even though it wasn't always in computerised machine learning data, Sally Helgeson's work was brilliant because she really called out successful women leaders including people like Frances Hesselbein, whose big strengths were the soft skills that she was pointing out were actually the hard skills, including how to relate, collaborate and develop others. Sally wrote about the web of inclusion and women as everyday revolutionaries. It's exactly what Emma-Kate was talking about, but it means that we've never been in the main game. There's a lot of change going on in that relationship and networking regarding how women help each other. Not all women, but most women use that approach of safety in numbers, saying, “let's work on this together with collaboration opportunities.”
But the systems haven't changed, and the data tells us that the power and the control of the systems are still in traditional male hands, and that also particular types of men still dominate. We don't have the diversity, even though we know that now more than ever, we need diversity, creativity, innovation and regenerative ways of thinking rather than power and control.
You can look at the last federal budget which said it all. Having gone through COVID, and suddenly caring was an essential skill and childcare was needed, et cetera. [People may say] "oh, but now we're back to business. Sorry women, off you go, there's other more important issues." [In regard to] who's making the decisions about supporting women in business, we've still got a way to go. We've got lots of allies in amongst our brothers and the men folk, and us women who've raised the men to think differently. I think my generation would be feeling that we have made an impact. But you know, we still are not there, there are just too many recent events [that say otherwise].
It is interesting to ask, "where is the gender lens being applied?" Because it's not enough to say, ‘are we just making it equal opportunity for all’, because until we are influencing decision-making, especially with artificial intelligence and the embedded bias, we don't know how much systemic bias is still against women.
Also, if you haven't read any of Caroline Criado-Perez's work on invisible women, look at her research and data, or just watch her on YouTube, she is amazing. It's up to us to build the ecosystem and continue generosity. That's why to me it's a fabulous opportunity to talk to women that I don't meet in my everyday life and share what we've learned over the journey.
[Note: Donna enters panel after technical difficulties]
Thanks, Jo. That's exactly why I wanted to start this conversation, because we can do all the good we want in the world, but we're still operating in a system that doesn't serve that. What you have said really resonates with that.
Did anyone want to talk about that?
[Emma-Kate Rose] - I understand that we live in a patriarchy and capitalism is the tool. At Food Connect, we've always subscribed to the concept that Buckminster Fuller put forward, that you can't fix the existing system, you have to create a new model so that it’s ready for when that system collapses.
[Our system] is in a state of collapse and decline, and we have to accept that we're in late stage capitalism. There's a whole bunch of things being revealed and made transparent about how it's corrupt and benefits only a few.
I think the subtle way that women work is that we are creating a new system, and it doesn't subscribe to the pillars of late stage capitalism at all. We actually do it very differently.
COVID and any natural disaster that we go through demonstrates that really clearly in terms of the networks, social capital and goodwill that kicks in, that's unpaid, valued and keeps things functioning.
I think that I see where you're coming from Jo in that we're not being recognised in the current system, but I don't think we ever will be. It's so far stacked against us that we actually need to step up and take the lead to set up a new system so that when the patriarchy does fail, we're ready to take over.
Yes! It's uncomfortable though Emma-Kate, to step out of a lens that has always existed, and then stand in your own power and back that power. It's unsettling, but so very necessary.
Fitted for Work.
Donna, I think the next question is really pertinent for you, because your work centres around helping women into the workforce and the dignity that that brings. I was wondering if you could speak about some of your strategies for supporting the women that you work with, and it might help all of us to understand where women come from.
[Donna De Zwart] - Thank you so much for having me. What I think particularly the last 10 months or so have shown us, certainly through the bushfire crisis and now a pandemic, [is that] behind every crack we have in society stands a woman.
Whether you're talking about childcare, aged care, the casualisation of the workforce, low superannuation balances, or the majority of people who work in the caring industries, behind every crack I believe there's a woman.
We're certainly seeing that at Fitted For Work. Traditionally our work has always been with women in crisis. We as women, I have to say (not all of us), a lot of us are not great at putting a hand up and asking for help. We often wait, and we think we have to find the answers ourselves. We often see women literally searching the internet about how to live out of their car by the time they come and ask us for help. We've always known that if we could get to women much earlier, that would make a massive difference. We worked with women who are aged from 16 through to 65+, and we are seeing women 60+ and certainly 50+ [accessing our services] are growing exponentially.
That's a very real concern for us. The spotlight is certainly on the 50+ women through this pandemic. I think what we are seeing is a whole new group of women that are trying to access our services, who've never had to access our services before.
Everything is in a little bit of a holding pattern because of JobKeeper and JobSeeker. When that stops in March, we will see an avalanche of women coming our way. We know that a lot of the jobs that those women have now will no longer exist. We are certainly experiencing that here in Victoria. The way that we work with women traditionally has always been to help them get ready for work, help them find work, and then help them stay in work. Every woman's journey into work is very different, so we'll work with women who haven't finished high school and we'll work with women with PhDs.
The reasons why women find themselves in places of disadvantage basically cover the whole spectrum of human experience. Every woman's journey is very individual to her, and our services need to be tailored to where a woman's at in that journey. But the biggest common denominator across all groups and across all ages is confidence and self-esteem.
Cinnamon Evans.
I think we're going to see a lot of women come out of the pandemic, but when we start to see things open up, we're going to see a lot of traumatised women. Particularly those women where they've been in vulnerable situations where they've experienced domestic violence and so on.
To the point of the other speakers, from what I heard, the budget was a very clear message to the women of Australia that we're only worth 0.006% of the entire budget over a four year period, because the central issues that women are facing now have not been addressed. Our mission has always been to help women into work and stay in work. It's not about job creation, but we've had to do a little bit of mission creep to start looking at those issues because the job creation opportunities just haven't been made.
We're certainly hoping that some of the state governments, will take this opportunity and use it, but I think it is about an ecosystem that needs to support a woman. We just look at the employment part, but that's only one part of it. We know that another part of it might be childcare, and another part of it might be health and wellbeing, but we know that a big part of it is financial security and housing.
I think there's a big opportunity for a collective voice to come together for women working in the community sector to decide this is not good enough. We need to find real pathways to help women because otherwise, in the next 10 to 15 years, we're going to have women of my age. We're going to have an epidemic of homeless women.
Jo was just speaking a little bit about that age group just before we went on air. Jo, do you have some more to add to that, because it's a big issue that we're at the moment pretending isn't happening?
[Jo Cavanagh OAM] - Thank you Carlie, and hello Donna! Just as a little side note, I had the joy of making a tiny contribution to setting up Fitted For Work with Marion Webster and sharing a volunteer management program to help with your start-up and some of our business models.
Again, I think that's what a lot of women in leadership have done, which is actually contribute and share to help grow the ecosystem rather than themselves as a competitive, independent entity.
Look, one of the things I think is really important is that we've got to have this layered approach. Whilst we invest in [as a member of Melbourne Women's Fund] initiatives that are going to look after women with problems now, we have to look up to the systems that are perpetuating those problems.
We equally need to work together and collaborate with those who are in advocacy positions or working for policy change, legislative change, superannuation, and maternity leave issues.
I have a really good colleague, Avril Henry, who you may know from Avril Henry and Associates, and I certainly recommend her book and her leadership program to you as well. She and I worked for a couple of years trying to get this tiered approach to say, "where are the advocacy points?"
But let me tell you, and I won't name the particular group, but she's really brilliant on the numbers [I'm never good on the numbers], we pitched to a major business conference for a panel conversation about these structural issues, which hold women back from contributing to the economy. We were told that there would be no interest in hearing a group of women talking about women's issues at a business conference! We were not pitching this [event] as women's issues, we were saying these are structural barriers to the economy progressing, and all the evidence supports it.
But again, the decision-makers can't see it. We've got to really keep partnering vertically as well as horizontally to push up the messages, the data, the stories and the initiatives that are effective to demand that they be changed at the political level.
At times we've seen that when female politicians gathered together and picked up an issue, they actually could influence change, but we don't call it out often enough. Up until now, we've been happy to let it go on behind closed doors, but we actually need to now call it out when it is happening and when it's not happening. I do think whilst we keep responding and helping every woman who's important, we've got to pull out [and question], "what's the theme here and where is the locus of change?" If it's a piece of legislation, we need to make sure that the effort's going there.
Thanks Jo. Emma-Kate, Cinnamon, did you want to add anything?
[Cinnamon Evans] - I'm just loving Jacinda Ardern really! She's my hero in terms of women in leadership and the well-being economy and starting to talk about notions around that. I think she's bringing those connections to light. I really appreciate her.
[Emma-Kate Rose] - I agree.
I think that the old saying, "you can't be what you can't see" [is true], and I'm seeing more women in leadership really challenging the patriarchy in such an obvious way as Jacinda Ardern is, which is very inspiring.
It's rewarding for her, I mean she just got re-elected on a landslide victory, so it works if you take it up and you present the issues and you don't get called a crazy cat lady, then you know it's working for everybody. I think that's the lesson that a lot of men in power need. They need to check their privilege and they need to have a look at the evidence that's coming from around the world.
We can see that through the response to COVID, as a lot of the women led countries around the world that are responding to COVID have responded in the best way, and their countries are back on track. Then you compare that to the U.S. and the U.K. and it's a no brainer!
It's definitely so simple, but we have to be our own voice. No one else is going to speak up. It's like, "okay, we need to keep backing ourselves and shouting and shouting and shouting." We've got the action behind us to prove that we can do it.
[Emma-Kate Rose] - That starts with our own relationships with the folks around us. I actively pull Robert up because we're partners in business and in life, and we have a pact that if either of us are asked to speak on a panel the first thing we ask is, "who are the other panellists?"
Is it equal representation of female and male, and we even go to the point now where we ask, "are there any indigenous females on the panel?" This is because we just want to take it to the next level. I think you've got to just constantly challenge yourself and challenge that privilege that is often so blind to the people in power.
Not just political power, but cultural power. There's lots of different types of power out there, and I think women have a real role to play in leading that cultural revolution.
I agree. Cinnamon, we spoke before and you said, "I don't see this so much in my industry", which is refreshing. I would really like to highlight that for a little bit and see if we can pick up on some of those themes that are very gender neutral. I guess my question is you are a passionate advocate for building a strong network for social enterprise and impact led business, so how do you build and sustain an active and healthy community regardless of gender? How are we going to have this active, healthy community?
[Cinnamon Evans] - Great question. I was reflecting on this before today's session, and I was thinking that there are two key influences on my thinking. One of those is the model of collaborative practice. As I mentioned earlier, I've been fortunate to learn from the late Glen Ochre who established the Group Work Institute of Australia now known as the Group Work Centre, and she developed a model of collaborative practice for organisations.
It's like the layers of an onion, and at the core you have the values and principles that underpin the work. I think in social enterprise, those values are often very clear and very much about the wellbeing of all, and the middle rings are our own self-awareness and our own skillsets around interpersonal communication.
Glen called them micro skills, around how we communicate every single day with everybody that we interact with. The outer ring is the organisational processes that we use, including collaborative decision-making or conflict resolution, planning, meeting processes, and all the other ways that we interact. For me, those have been the guiding model for how I lead my organisation.
I also need to acknowledge [and this is the second theme], the importance of self-organising systems, communities, networks, families, and organisations. For me, leadership must support a self-organising model. We see in nature ecosystems are self-organising and social systems also can be. I think that's where you get resilience, diversity and growth.
I see myself, even though I'm the CEO of my organisation, I don't think I could control the organisation, even if I tried. I think of myself as someone who intervenes in the system in order to help it become more of what it's wanting to become, rather than me trying to guide it to be something. Those have really informed my practice. I do think social enterprise is a space that is obviously full of values, relationships and collaboration. Working in the social enterprise community more generally in Victoria, I see that it's a very supportive network and community.
Thanks Cinnamon. Collaboration, it comes out again. The collaborative nature of it makes you feel like you don't have to step in and have this ultimate power. The power is with everyone within. That's ultimately I feel like what we're speaking about when women work together with men as well. It's that collaborative approach, as opposed to that top down type working.
What are some initiatives that you know of that are directly supporting women in business, and this could be in the form of mentoring programs, networks, or grant opportunities? [This is] because I think there's a lot of women that are coming to these panels to learn how they can help themselves and what they're doing, so I'd love to hear from each of you some standouts and we can put them in the podcast as well. Emma-Kate, please start us off.
[Emma-Kate Rose] - I've mentioned some earlier, but the first that comes to mind [especially because I wish I had some amazing mentoring panels when I was going through all my angst leading organisations], are accelerators, incubators and seed funds like SHEEO. I know of ImpaQt Queensland, the fund that's going to be launched in March has a specific focus on female-led impact businesses. Also, in terms of philanthropy and support, there is a women's giving circle in Brisbane. It's largely anonymous though, so you have to ask around to tap into that knowledge base, but they're the initial ones that come to mind.
I guess here in Brisbane a lot of the female social entrepreneurs are very familiar with each other and tend to bounce stuff off each other in a very informal way with some pretty nice blokes surrounding us as well.
Like Cinnamon mentioned, it's a very collaborative space, and we do like to see each other succeed and we do support each other. That's all that comes to mind for me at this point.
Thanks Emma-Kate, that's great! Jo?
[Jo Cavanagh OAM] - Well, yes, I'm in Victoria, and the Victorian Government has committed to over a number of years now a social enterprise strategy and growing social enterprise. There's the Social Enterprise Network, and I've noticed too that the federal government has got a program called Boosting Female Founders Initiatives.
I don't know whether anybody's had any engagement with that, but I certainly know that from women I've worked with [and some mentoring myself] it is challenging to find those funding opportunities that don't require hours and hours of paperwork and preparation because much of the granting process is still risk averse. It's those networks that will do what Warren Buffet said and have confidence in the person with the ideas and their track record to go from idea to execution and be able to work with failing forward.
An idea might still be a good idea, but you've got to pivot as everybody has done in COVID and do it slightly differently by backing the women founders to do that. I mean, the statistics are that only 3% of global venture capital funding actually went to women in 2019.
We are a long way, and I know of the Women Donors Network, the Melbourne Women's Fund, and there are more and more initiatives. There's giving circles that are really trying to bring the gender lens to the forefront, because we can't hope that merit will catch up. Wendy McCarthy, Susan Ryan and my generation thought education was going to be the answer, that we would open up education and on a merit system, women would then rise to the top. But, we haven't!
In some cases, we've gone backwards, even though we're so highly educated and particularly in caring professions, we're highly educated and yet the most poorly paid. I do think it is still about networks, and I think the clever use of LinkedIn and some other online platforms are important to get yourself connected, and ask, "who can I talk to?"
Because although the collaboration is important, business strategy is really important too. You have to strategically be able to work out how you're going to get from here to there, and how you'll know whether things are on track or not, because there's people relying on you being successful. If you're trying to benefit others in the community, we can't just kind of throw darts.
We have to actually be very intentional. We do need all that good business mentoring as well, and there is lots of that out there. But, because you're in the less well-paid spheres, I encourage women to speak up and ask for scholarships and ask for not-for-profit rates. Sometimes it's just that people haven't thought of doing it.
If there's something on at the Australian Institute of Management Leadership, and you want to attend, you should ask, "is there a scholarship rate, or a not-for-profit rate?" Again, approach women, as most women who have got a track record are happy to donate time and provide specific direction to what people are wanting to do and share their experience. Also, Zoom has just changed everything in terms of getting like-minded, interested people with shared interests together for a little pocket of time to see what you can share with people.
Thanks Jo. Donna, do you have any advice for our women?
[Donna De Zwart] - Look, I concur with what Emma-Kate and Jo said.
One strategy that I found really useful is to develop your own board of directors. Have the idea that no one person is going to be an expert in everything but develop that board of directors that's going to help you.
Over the years, I've delivered quite a few talks to university students who are really interested in getting into the sector. Often, we see a lot of heart, but not a lot of business acumen.
It's great that you've got the passion and the vision, but you also need the business acumen as well. Certainly, when you're looking at the community sector, and I come from a corporate background originally, money is seen as something a little bit dirty. But it's not, it's just green energy that we need to keep going.
I think it's really important to have that board of directors that elevate all those different skills that you need, whether it's the interpersonal or whether it is around creating a budget that's actually going to deliver.
I like the term green energy, Donna! Very true.
Cinnamon, any advice to finish?
I'd add that local governments often have initiatives. In Moreland, where CERES is based, there's the Moreland Businesswomen's Network. I've been to a few of their events and they're always very well attended.
Also, I would encourage women to build their own networks, look around you and find colleagues and peers as Emma-Kate said. Go to lunch or go to coffee and just hang out. I joined an informal network of CEOs of precinct-based organisations, people who are running community centre organisations.
That's been fantastic to talk about what it's like to run a business within the context of a community place. I don't think anybody externally could have established that network for me or provided that opportunity for me. It was about finding those colleagues and initiating the connection.
Thanks, Cinnamon. I've never been so inspired as when I've sat around with women who are in business doing good stuff. That's where we get our energy from, so it makes so much sense to create your own networks.
A huge thanks to our panellists for joining us today, the conversation has been really insightful.
