Elise Parups On Supporting Social Enterprise Through Effective Advocacy & Policy Change In Queensland, Australia

Elise Parups has worked in the public, private and the Not for Profit sectors in senior management roles for education, arts, communications and marketing and in community development. She was the co-founder of a “for-community-benefit” and co-working space in Redland City called The Red Place, which served some 20 local start-up and social business initiatives and was the home for dozens of community-building organisations over the six years it operated in Cleveland CBD.

Elise is primarily an artist and writer, with a degree in fine-arts, who has conducted multiple public art projects, exhibited and provided commissioned works for private collections, and has written multiple short stories and contributed to published plays.

Elise has worked in both state and local government in community development and policy areas, running state-wide and regional projects of some magnitude, during which she completed her Project Management Diploma.

After a brief time in the private sector in marketing and brand management, Elise found synergy in the ‘for-purpose’ space, setting up a social enterprise and performing as the Communications and Business Development Manager and 2IC and Acting CEO at the state peak membership body Parents and Citizens’ Qld.

She completed her Masters of Business in 2018 with a social enterprise and quadruple bottom line focus.

Elise is now the inaugural Executive Officer for Queensland’s Social Enterprise Council.

Elise discusses the growing momentum of Social enterprise in Queensland and Australia, gives insight into the differing responses impact-led enterprises have had to the COVID-19 pandemic and shares ideas for a positive way forward.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Elise, I'm really keen to hear a little bit about your background and what led to your passion in social enterprise?

[Elise Parups] - Well it's been a pretty long and winding road, [going from] an artist, to teacher, to cultural development, public servant and business and management later. I started out as an artist and a writer, and I sometimes refer to myself as an arts refugee, and I've left the arts. But I have continued to be a passionate arts and cultural advocate throughout my entire career. My personal mantra is life is art, and artists have often been at the forefront of changing the world. They not only lead our aesthetic by what we listen to and what we watch, but also how we see trends and fashion. They also break tradition, they challenge our rhetoric, and they hold the mirror up to let ourselves see the greater scheme of things. I guess as a painter, and largely an introspective soul, I've learned to observe some patterns in society and I really became fascinated by the positive impact that culture has on communities.

Sadly, I know we've got a bit of a deficit in cultural priority in Australia, and those artists are really suffering through this COVID-19 time. I really became fascinated in policy and systems change, and for that reason [was] looking at more inclusive ways to engage those diverse voices and build community resilience. So, some years ago now, I threw myself into that purposeful systems change space. I shifted into more government positions, leading arts and community development projects, and then into more purpose-led organisations.

I really saw there was a big need for community development, grassroots change and systems change for good.

In 2012, my life partner, Paul Bishop and I co-founded a space called The Red Place; a community benefit organisation in my hometown of Redlands City. It was really initiated to bring more businesses and creative souls together in a co-working space.

We really wanted to work with communities of practice to learn from each other and to build a real sense of community resilience.

I love volunteers. I've volunteered for so many P&Cs and bush-care communities and sporting clubs and community groups. I just have a real passion for the purpose space, and also for serving, for want of a better word, I love to serve. I worked some years at the Parents and Citizens movement, supporting state schooling enterprises. These are people who work tirelessly to ensure that every child across the state has every chance of learning in public schools, and it's a member organisation of some 1,200 or so organisations. They're all based in state schools, and these are all groups of parents who run social enterprises surprisingly. They run tuck shops and after school care and uniform shops. Some of them were actually turning over millions of dollars. It's all to benefit our kids in state schools. I am completely, absolutely passionate about the good work that they do on the ground. During that time, I did my Masters of Business and I knew that what I really wanted to put to use what I'd learned to help build a more positive change in the world.

That's been wonderful experience leading up to your existing role as Executive Officer at QSEC, or the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. So, tell us a little bit more about your current role and the purpose of QSEC.

I'm just so happy to be working at the Queensland Social Enterprise Council (QSEC). It's an organisation that was started some years ago, originally as an organisational group of people called the New Mutualism [Group], and it had some of our stalwart amazing starters in the space. Steve Williams, Rob Pekin, Ingrid Burkett, David Langdon, Amelia Salmon, Richard Warner. All these people that we hold so dear to our hearts in the sector still today, and they really fostered its growth and the community for that for-purpose enterprise. It was born out of a time when there was a lot of intermediaries in the space, bankers and ex-corporates, and they were really pushing social enterprise as financially capable. But it did sort of bring about a bit of an understanding that there was a missing core purpose, which was actually the voice of the social enterprises themselves.

They really wanted to build this group of social enterprises, they really wanted to build a voice and a sector that could advocate for that grassroots kind of push.

As the national awareness grew, the group reformed as an incorporated association in about 2012, as the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. It became the first peak body in Australia for social enterprises, which is pretty fantastic, and since then it's been run under some amazing volunteer power.

It was in the last few years that social enterprises have gained new momentum.

The Queensland Government, and pretty notably too, Brisbane City Council has backed QSEC with some funding and some great initiatives. Since then, social enterprise has really grown from strength to strength, and it was only in 2018, Tom, QSEC responded to assist [Impact Boom] with the Social Enterprise World Forum Bid.

That really started a bit of a momentum close to home here. Last year, QSEC was funded to have some staffing, which was brilliant. It brought me on board, to help bring that strategic direction for the sector to move forward. Now we're a member-owned, member voice organisation. But we also include associate members and intermediaries to help bring a real balance to the voice for the advocacy role that we perform. QSEC is pretty small; it's only about 150 social enterprises and associates, but we're also a peak body and a bit of a quiet achiever as a not-for-profit ourselves. We're not actually a social enterprise. Yet, we really play a valuable role in breaking down barriers to success for our social enterprises.

We love to build partnerships with funders and we love to change policy for better, link our resources and provide that critical data information to members so that the whole social enterprise ecosystem can grow and build.

We're really about advocacy (number one), and policy change in new markets. QSEC really loves to promote the awareness of social enterprise. We're really trying to get that voice of what is a social enterprise, and also provide some access to networks and resources for support. We do a lot.

You do! It's been great to see QSEC grow over these previous years, and fantastic that it is now a one of those pioneer peak bodies within the Australia movement that we've seen grow a lot in the last 12 months.

What are your observations Elise, in terms of the social enterprise sector in Queensland?

Well, social enterprise is such a hairy behemoth of a thing. We like to suggest that social enterprise itself is about the definition. It's social, [so] it's got to have social, cultural, environmental and economic outcomes to the business, and to the core. The purpose-led organisation or enterprise is really what we're about. That quadruple bottom line, which is my favourite thing. It has to trade rather than just be a charity or accepting donations. We really want to see that it's a trading organisation. We also talk, (and it's fairly contentious), about impact investment; the quantity of profit or investment into growing that purpose is really important to us, and for us.

We're such a broad church, we like to see that people are making attempts in that space rather than putting a figure or a number on it.

We like to just say that that is an imperative theme of social enterprise, is that it's important to nominate your social, cultural, environmental or economic practices, you’ve got to trade and you've got to talk about what your investment is going toward in that purpose space.

It's difficult for us to put a stamp on that definition. There's so many different audiences that would like to see potentially social procurement, and that needs to have a lot more focus on the numbers and measuring those outcomes, which is completely understandable. But for us, we like to have that development of that broad-church approach, inclusivity that allows enterprises to work toward better outcomes and a continuous improvement trajectory rather than just a point in time.

What we hear most is that people say, "I had no idea that I'm actually a social enterprise. I didn't even know I was part of this community."

There's such relevance and sense of support and belonging when you connect into that broader network. So much more can be done when we work together. We love to be able to embrace all comers and find a place within that ecosystem so that they feel at home.

It was interesting, we embarked upon a survey at the end of last year with the Yunus Centre, Griffith University, to really help us understand who was who in the zoo, and what point of time they're at. We divided up the survey participants. About 60% of them were in that start-up space, surprisingly, and start-ups for social enterprises go for quite a number of years. It can be five, sometimes seven years in the start-up space while people are finding their feet and trying to find relevance in their business and get their outcomes.

Sometimes it's a bit of a side hustle for a lot of start-ups to begin with while they find their feet. Then we've got the stand-ups who usually have been running for about five years or so, and they've got some supply chains, they've got some employees perhaps, and they might have a real sense of purpose for their business. They fall into probably about 12% to 13% of the people surveyed were in that space. Then we've got our stay-ups, and about 15% to 20% of social enterprises have been operating for more than 10 years. They have really got their colours up, they know exactly who they are, they're looking to scale, for great opportunities, they're ready for procurement, they're ready for contracts, and they're in a really good space. Once we identified what the sector actually looked like for us, we could then see that there was a pipeline development that was really required.

QSEC's role could be a lot more about providing resources at the point that social enterprises find themselves in. So, I think some of the work we've done in the past has really highlighted our lack of connection into regions.

We know that there's a lot of social enterprises operating in local communities, but we really have found this gap of connectivity and identification of those social enterprises in regions.

That's where we're really going to be putting our focus in the next little while, really trying to identify and get our social enterprises to stand-up, connect and then plug them into the resources that they need along that pipeline.

We're talking in May of 2020, Elise, pretty much smack bang in the middle of this COVID-19 outbreak. I'm curious to hear then what changes you are seeing in social enterprises, and their response to this pandemic, and also where you see strong opportunities for the sector in Australia? What is needed for us to build on the current momentum?

What an extraordinary time Tom! I mean, who would have thought at the beginning of 2020 we were sitting there thinking, "wow, the world is our oyster. 2020 looks like [it’s having a] fabulous vision forward, full steam ahead.” As social enterprises, we're finally getting our stride up, and then here comes COVID. There's been a lot of discussion in the sector, and what we're seeing is three kinds of businesses that are falling out, or three states of COVID if you like.

Elise Parups, Hon. Shannon Fentiman MP and Emma-Kate Rose.

We've got many social enterprises who've just gone into hibernation, and you're in big trouble. They see that there's a lot of challenges. They don't know how and when the next lot of support from government will impact, or if it will reach them, if there is a next level of support.

A lot of businesses have just stopped operating for now, to wait and see what's around the corner, to see how quickly we can recover or to make plans to get people back.

A lot of people in that space, generally speaking, are in the products and services, [but] mostly products market. They've got retail shops; they've got businesses that are restaurants and those sorts of things and they're really suffering. Then we've got some businesses who've been able to see some of the opportunities that have arisen out of this, and are pivoting. They're looking at their skills, they're looking at the new markets emerging, and they're changing their business models, not necessarily their purpose. Some of them are actually going, "well I have to park my purpose for a minute and just survive." But many of them are still very much connected to their purpose and are finding new ways to pivot their businesses along to new emerging kinds of markets.

Then we've got some businesses who've been absolutely swamped with demand. They've found that there's a whole bunch of demand for their product, particularly in the food space and agriculture.

It’s become a little bit difficult; supply chains have been a little bit more difficult to source. But also, in surprising ways, like the businesses who might be re-purposing computers or things like that for kids at schools. They're having to scale up their employees, they're having to find new ways of training, really adapting and scaling their business systems.

The biggest advantage for social enterprises is the focus that we've had around purpose, and also their strength in their communities, because a lot of social enterprises are deeply embedded with their local communities.

The communities in this time need more than ever their purpose-led organisations to help them through. Some of them are finding new relevance in some ways with their local community. That's one of our great advantages, I think. As we move toward whatever recovery looks like, I think a lot of social enterprises are also very much led by people, and they're people centric organisations that really look after their staff and the people in their supply chains.

That's extremely valuable at this time when everybody's under a lot of mental and economic duress. Having people who care and are kind in this space, has never been more important.

I think that's probably the biggest areas of advantage that social enterprises have over normal business as usual.

Absolutely. So, when we look at the sector more broadly across Australia, what do you believe is needed to build on this current momentum that we're seeing? How might government best support impact-led businesses and that momentum, the joining of state bodies for example?

There's some amazing things happening in the National Alliance, and it's got to be said, thank you Tom, for your very strong advocacy in this space for such a long time. I know that it's been a long journey and a vision of yours to have a national voice for social enterprise, and thanks to your strong leadership in this space.

It's really been a team sport!

It's a team sport alright! But we are delighted in our national relationships.

at the moment, we're forging ahead with a submission to really help articulate what the sector needs. We think that strategy is the most important thing. If we could get a national strategy around direction forward for social enterprise as a whole, that would be great.

We also need to raise up our profile. We need to really allow ourselves to understand the impact that social enterprises deliver, and not to be afraid to demonstrate that. We're building a bit of a momentum around a campaign that will help social enterprises not only understand what business as usual is, but to also demonstrate how they go beyond business as usual and reveal the impact in a way that potentially hasn't been harvested before. I think it's going to find a new voice and a new relevance in our times now, because it's smaller than ever. People really need to see the communities coming together and working together to get better societies. I think that's really where the opportunities at that national level sit.

We're also looking at areas of funding and seeing what kinds of initiatives might be able to be born out of these opportunities that are arising in the new markets. There's a lot of activity and talk about the way social enterprises could be mainstreamed in some way. Using social enterprise as your business as usual, helps you to go beyond business as usual, even if you're a big organisation or local government state body. So really looking at procurement and seeing where some funding opportunities may be able to come down the track.

I love to hear you talking about business as usual, because I think in the ideal world right, we wouldn't need the term ‘social enterprise’. We'd just simply call it ‘business’.

And why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you go beyond business as usual? Everybody wants it.

So, what about some inspiring projects? Are there any particular initiatives or organisations? You come across a lot in your role at QSEC, but which ones do you believe are really creating some great positive social change?

Well I love the story that came out of Substation 33 down in Logan, around [rebuilding] computers for children at home. That was so heartbreaking to hear in one short week, schools moved from everybody turning up to everybody being online.

Knowing the education sector so well, I understood immediately the pressures on low socioeconomic families. The access to computers, the access to technology, having a computer was not necessarily going to solve all of those issues, but it sure goes a long way when you've actually got a device that you can plug in.

Even if you're able to use a town centre WiFi, or your neighbour’s WiFi if you beg. Having access to that technology was really fantastic, and it was great to hear that there was such great local support for Substation 33 in that way. They rebuilt these unused, unloved computers, and were able to give computers to those low socio-economic kids. So that was really inspirational.

Hope Street Cafe, [is] providing meals for front line workers, re-establishing some supply chains through that mechanism. Being able to provide work for their people was really fantastic. Also, very heartbreaking to hear the Nundah Co-ops Cafe (Espresso Train) going down the same trajectory and having some of the volunteers come forward and just say, "I need to have somewhere to belong. Please just let me help. Help me work." So, they amped up some of their other avenues in their business streams as well to try and help give people a place to belong. The same sort of thing happened at the World's Biggest Garage Sale, people just wanting to have something to do.

There's been a huge number of social enterprises pivoting, or ‘pirouetting’, as Leanne Kemp would say. Changing the way that they run business, connecting and reaching out to their local communities, and there has been many pearls amongst the disaster that has been COVID.

There's been some beautiful things happening. The arts and cultural sector, it really is a private passion of mine, but they have thrown themselves and all their skills to the fore, suddenly becoming online teachers of their art and craft, providing inspiration and advocating for community building events and connecting online has just been an extraordinarily overwhelming position. The talent that's shown through there is just amazing. So, hats off to my arts friends.

There's a bunch of great initiatives there Elise.

To finish off then, what books would you recommend to our listeners?

I'm also not only an art's advocate, but I'm also an advocate for permaculture. Permaculture is a fabulous way of being. People often associate it with gardens, but it's actually a lifestyle. If you adopt these principles of people care for people, care for planet and fair share of everything for also equity. It's such a beautiful policy or framework to live your life by. I would say that anyone in this COVID time should really have a good hard look at Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. It's a great place to start. It's a huge book, it's quite a tome. But the 12 principles of permaculture are actually perfect at this time. David Holmgren’s just released his next book, which I'm starting to thumb my way through. Again, a beautiful tome of work, Retrosurburbia: A Downshifter's Guide To A Resilient Future, and it's got some really inspirational ideas for people to move to a new way of being, a new economy in the next economy that really needs to happen.

It's for all of us to have a good hard look at how we can reduce our negative impacts on the planet. So those are two books I absolutely adore, but I have just finished one from a local entrepreneur called Stark Naked Numbers by Jason Andrew, and he was a co-worker at The Capital, back in the day when we used to be able to sit beside each other! Jason Andrews came up with a really fantastic book around uncovering financials, unlocking passion and unleashing your profits, but in such a really user friendly way. Whilst it's more a business and financial book, I think there's some really brilliant, simple, applicable tools and ways it explains numbers. I'm not a numbers girl, but the book really spoke to me, and really helped me get perspective on how we can unlock our financial capacity in this time. It could be something that social enterprises could really benefit from.

There's a bunch of really great insights and experiences that you've shared today Elise, so I really appreciate you sharing all of that and I will most certainly keep track of the work of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council and personal endeavours heading down the line. Thanks again.

Thanks so much, Tom, and good luck to everyone out there.