Queensland Social Enterprise Council Shares Key Lessons & History From Ten Years Of Pioneering Australia’s Business For Good Movement

Queensland has led the way for the development of social enterprise in Australia. In the lead up to the tenth anniversary of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council’s (QSEC) incorporation (May 2013) in 2023, we take a moment to reflect and look back at the important milestones in the journey so far.

QSEC will be working with Indigenous Businesses and Elders to articulate more strongly the common ground they share in-principle between traditional Indigenous Governance and social enterprise practice. QSEC have a lot to learn and share as we walk together to help shape a more regenerative future together and are grateful for the special connection they are developing around this very important work. QSEC are grateful to past and present Board Directors (respectively), Gaala Watson (PhD Candidate and Associate Professor) and Terri Waller (SevGen Founder) and the many Indigenous Business leaders across the sector for their contribution toward the movement for change.

In this podcast, we take time to listen to some of the founders of the social enterprise movement that were present at the birth of QSEC.

What part did you play to the growth of social enterprise in Queensland? Please add your photos, your stories or videos to QSEC’s History Pin! They will be celebrating this amazing milestone in the history of social enterprise in Queensland in May 2023. Stay tuned for more details!

QSEC Leaders in this podcast

Prof. Ingrid Burkett is the Co-Director of The Yunus Centre at Griffith University, an innovation centre that is focussed on impact.

Ingrid has a long history in social enterprise, social impact and social justice work in Australia and internationally. Her background includes qualifications in design, social work, economics and business and much of her work has focussed on how we can address complex problems - from place-based inequities to shifting how we invest and contract better for deeper impact. She is passionately curious about how we can shift systems to enable better outcomes for people, places and the planet.

Richard Warner is the CEO of Nundah Community Enterprises Co-operative, a social enterprise creating employment for people with disabilities, which was awarded best social enterprise in Australia in 2015 and 2020.

Richard is the current Chair of Queensland Social Enterprise Council (QSEC) - Australia’s first member based peak for social enterprise. Richard is passionate about social-change which sees those who are disadvantaged achieving a role, a stake & a fair share.

Steve Williams is Program Manager at the Office of Social Innovation, CQUniversity, where he specialises in working with students, staff and communities to uncover and develop innovative ways of addressing social and environmental problems.

Steve has started and managed numerous social enterprises over the last 15 years in Queensland, and along with colleagues in the sector was co-founder of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. As a mediation practitioner and teacher Steve brings mindful awareness to working with and coaching social entrepreneurs in his enterprise Mind Flow Grow.

Amelia Salmon is the Executive Manager of the Logan East Community Neighbourhood Centre, working closely with a range of stakeholders in the Logan area on a whole of community wealth-building project.

Amelia has a background in local and International community development and her first experience with social enterprise was working in a number of large-scale community enterprises at Gram Vikas, India. She and a group of colleagues started spiral community hub coop in 2001 in West End, which innovated and supported many early-stage community enterprises, a number of which are still operating today. Amelia is a co-founder of the Qld Social Enterprise Council and a former Chair.

Emma-Kate Rose is Executive Director of the Food Connect Foundation, drawing on over 30 years’ experience working in business, social enterprise development, environmental sustainability, food justice and bottom-up economic development.

Emma-Kate is a past Fellow of the Yunus Centre for Social Business at Griffith University. She is currently a Special Advisor to the Board of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council, where she was previously President from 2017-2020. During her time there, she helped secure philanthropic and government funding to coordinate a sector-wide strategy to scale impact across Queensland, as well as helping win the bid to bring the World Social Enterprise Forum to Brisbane in 2022.

Elise Parups is the inaugural CEO at Queensland Social Enterprise Council Ltd, and the first social enterprise peak body employee in Australia in 2019.

After leading teams in business, state and local government and nonprofits passionately serving in the arts and community development sectors, Elise turned her attention to the business for purpose world while working with the Qld state school education system. Elise holds a Bachelor of Arts, Graduate Diploma in Teaching and in Workplace Training and Development, a Diploma of Project Management and a Masters of Business Administration. Elise has devoted her recent work to support the quadruple bottom line; culture, society, environment and economics.

Tom Allen is Founder and CEO of Impact Boom, a leading intermediary and global social impact media agency helping entrepreneurs and innovators unleash their greatest potential to create a better world.

Tom has worked intensively with over 160 social enterprises to help them launch, develop and grow to sustainably create impact, many of which have become household names. Tom sits on a number of boards (including QSEC between 2017-2019) and his work has been recognised with two Australian Good Design Awards. Tom led the successful Australian bid for the Social Enterprise World Forum in 2022; a project which catalysed sector growth nationally.

Highlights from the Panel

(listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Though Victoria is often cited as playing a major historical role in the development of social enterprise in Australia, Queensland certainly has led the way in many critical ways. So what have you learned over the years about the history of social enterprise in Queensland?

[Prof. Ingrid Burkett] - Yes, that's right. Queensland actually had lots of firsts in the social enterprise space, and I guess what we've learned is, if we go right back to the 1800s, the first social enterprises that were recorded in European history in Australia are cooperative. And I think that's really telling that the first recorded social enterprises are of the mutual tradition.

We know that the social enterprises didn't just emanate out of Brisbane. Actually there were recordings of cooperatives in Far North Queensland and they were joint First Nations and Non-Indigenous cooperatives as well. So in our history, in our DNA of social enterprise in Queensland, there is this mutual tradition and there is a connection to the reconciliation tradition. That's really important.

We also really early on recognise the connection between social enterprise and economics. And so, if we look at other firsts, in terms of the tradition in Queensland, we had Forester’s Community Finance, and a lot of resourcing and in fact Australia's first impact investment. That focus specifically on finance for social enterprise started in Queensland.

Then also the history of social procurement. So the very first contract that was in the social procurement space was with Brisbane City Council and Nundah Community Enterprises Cooperative.

That connection between outcomes and the need to resource those outcomes in the form of finance and procurement has been important.

Ingrid, you were one of the co-founders of the New Mutualism group, which was ultimately the precursor to QSEC. Can you provide a little bit more insight to how that group was formed and how it was fundamental to the formation of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council?

[Prof. Ingrid Burkett] - It happened around the time of all of these financial and procurement conversations, and I guess social enterprises realised that everyone was doing those things on their own and trying to work out how to create sustainable business with outcomes wasn't gonna provide us the mutual power that we needed in order to really progress the agenda as a whole.

So really the new Mutualists came together to think about the mutual history of social enterprises and reform that mutualist agenda of ‘the many are better than the single’ and have conversations about the way that social enterprises were sharing a lot of the early struggles of how do you maintain a sustainable business and create those outcomes.

Could we join together in order to create almost a federation of support and capability building and power to advocate for what social enterprises needed to in order to achieve those outcomes? There were some fantastic conversations and you'll be talking to some of the early members of that New Mutualist group on this podcast.

But I guess we also needed the energy of a few more people. So what we learned, I think, was the power of even more people coming together and creating that political energy that was needed to drive the movement forward. And that's really what QSEC has provided.

So just to confirm, Ingrid, that New Mutualist group started back in 2004?

[Prof. Ingrid Burkett] - That's right Tom. Before that, there was lots of murmurings and the real gathering together probably started earlier than that, around 2002, when people were coming together to talk about contracts.

Fascinating. So we're talking a solid 20 years of great work that's been happening in Queensland. Richard Warner, you were obviously part of this in a strong way as well, because the Nundah Community Enterprises Cooperative (NCEC) was involved very early on in the development of social enterprise in Queensland too. So what was the starting point for you?

[Richard Warner] - The starting point was really a problem that people raised with us. People with disabilities and mental health issues who were long term unemployed; there was no avenue for them to gain the employment they were desiring [despite] trying all the different systems and supports around. So it was really born out of necessity, our entry into social enterprise. People coming and saying, ‘I want a job.’ And so for us it was a classic community development process. We weren't entrepreneurs at all, but brought people together and said, ‘Okay, what do you wanna do about it?’

Then we looked around for models, and one of the models was the cooperative tradition or the mutual tradition. And also the traditions of social enterprise that were emerging in the UK and North America. We looked to those as well and also Southeast Asia. Lots of examples in India and Sri Lanka of people doing that kind of work.

Elise Parups, Tom Allen, Hon. Di Farmer MP & Saba Abraham.

It's been great to see NCEC also playing such a strong lead role in Queensland. So what's one of the key reflections you've had now that you've been running that organisation with the other members for this period of time?

[Richard Warner] -

I'd say as an entrepreneur, your most powerful resource isn't money, it's not expertise, and it's not even an entrepreneurial spirit. It's really the community of people who are connected to a common cause. So if you have that, that's really what drives things forward.

And that's what helps you stay the course as well. And what keeps you true to why you're doing it; that connection with people with an important social, environmental, or cultural agenda.

It's a great insight; that connection with people which are really working towards a common cause. I can absolutely relate when we talk about the Social Enterprise World Forum project.

Steve Williams, you also played a pivotal role at the start and the formation of QSEC. So what was happening prior to 2012 for you, and what was the aim of QSEC in the early days?

[Steve Williams] - Prior to 2012, as Ingrid mentioned, there was lots of activity around social enterprise and in those early days of new mutualism, we’d use the term community enterprise because a lot of people who were involved and instrumental specifically in the southeast corner, were social workers and community workers who were looking to work with people in a different way, just as Richard Warner just expressed.

So around 2010 was when a number of us started to meet, to talk about how we could form some kind of group that eventually became a peak body.

People like Nina Bobridge, who was working at Brisbane City Council at the time, and Amelia Salmon who's on this call, Richard Warner, Mark Sims and Saba Abraham. So, really long-term experienced community workers who also had experience in running these small fledgling social enterprises.

I think that the important thing about the movement in Queensland coming from that arena, as Ingrid also mentioned earlier, is that there is a power analysis. You know, we recognise that there were a lot of professional intermediaries in the space at that time who were taking up all of the airspace and it meant that social entrepreneurs and community organisations running social enterprises really didn't have much voice to power.

I think that that was the key reason that QSEC was formed. Some of those early aims were about lobbying around policy development and funding and recognition of the sector. And I think that one of the highlights of that early period was the Queensland Social Procurement Forum, which happened in 2015, and there were about 300 people at that forum; government ministers and procurement professionals, and I think that we are seeing that some of the effects of that work now in Queensland.

It's great to get that perspective Steve.

Amelia Salmon, you were also very much there at the starting days of QSEC and I'm interested to learn a little bit more about how you built recognition of social enterprise? Because, as we all know, this term has really only only been emerging, not for a huge period of time and has been referred to in many different forms as Steve highlighted earlier.

What were some of the early hurdles in establishing credibility as a peak body, and what was your initial focus?

[Amelia Salmon] - I think we certainly weren't the only ones who began to establish the concept of social enterprise, but I must say when New Mutualism got going and as we were in the process of setting up QSEC, the idea of social enterprise was still quite new. So we did have that concept of really having to explain not only what we were doing, but what social enterprise was. Quite a lot. We just talked to everyone and anyone who would listen to us to build it up. Steve and I had lots of meetings with people in Queensland; government at all sorts of different levels, and there was lots of interest. I think it wasn't a hard sell in some ways because employment was an outcome, but it did still take some years for the concept of community based business to begin to be taken seriously. And social business to begin to be taken seriously. Because they are in some ways some very different worlds; the world of business and the world of community organisations, even though we are all very comfortable working between the two.

Nundah Community Enterprises Cooperative during Impact Boom’s bus tour.

Great reflections there. Amelia. Thank you.

Emma-Kate Rose, you too have, have played a really strong part being one of the recent Chairs for QSEC. Throughout your time in the Chair role, you played a really solid role in engaging with State Government for policy support. I'm keen to learn a little bit more about that and also, how did QSEC lead the way in connecting member networks around Australia? Because when we look at the state based membership networks that now exist, they've only existed for the last two to three years. Many of the networks are very, very fresh compared to QSEC.

[Emma-Kate Rose] - I spent a lot of years head down bum up in our own social enterprise at Food Connect, really just trying to focus on, as Amelia mentioned, living in those two different worlds and making it work. I was always aware and connected with QSEC, but not really having the time to engage too much other than the really fun networking drinks that they used to organise all the time. I really did align with the goals of QSEC in wanting to establish legitimacy and credibility. As legitimate businesses in our economy. Only parts of our economy were being acknowledged and given that legitimacy by the powers that be.

So being able to have an opportunity with becoming Chair and standing on the very broad shoulders of Amelia and Steve and Richard and others before them really paved the way for me to be able to engage with the State Government at policy level. It was timing and luck in many ways.

We had a State Government Minister (Hon. Shannon Fentiman MP) who had worked for quite a number of years previously as Minister of Communities, and through that role, she actually got to see what social enterprise was all about. She was particularly close to one organisation called Micah Projects who initiated a number of social enterprises to assist with long-term unemployment of marginalised people, and she really understood why social enterprise needed to exist [and] the need for the sector to come together. Whereas traditionally, the intermediaries, social enterprises on the ground and the universities and other policy advocates tended to work in their silos.

There wasn't a central convening space for all of us to stop talking past each other all the time. So one of the key moments in that early engagement phase with the State Government was really Shannon Fentiman being critical in establishing a round table. That got us all around the table, eyeballing each other and forcing us to sit in the same room. Some of us traditional rivals not necessarily agreeing on each other's forms of social enterprise.

Yeah, I remember those conversations.

It was quite tricky. But we got there, didn't we? And Shannon Fentiman, after a year of consultation and genuine consultation, really did champion the cause and we ended up with the statewide strategy. So that was awesome. As soon as I became Chair people immediately engaged with me. I was completely out of my depth. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had people like Frank Dineen from the State Government and procurement. I had policy officers from small business. Alex Hanant had just arrived from New Zealand and immediately engaged and then QSEC decided to run an unconference and bring the whole sector together, which was a really magical weekend on the Sunshine Coast. That really solidified a lot of our goals and really created a lot of solidarity in the movement and a lot of trust.

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

That's, I think, why we've been able to take it to the next level by connecting and really supporting other networks around Australia, because we had that initial trust building exercise in the first couple of years.

So being able to assist you with the bid to bring the World Forum to Brisbane and being able to get bursaries funded through the State Government to go to Social Enterprise World Forum in 2019, and then off the back of that really wanting to reach out to people all around the different states; people who were interested in stepping outside of the intermediary space and looking at member-based organisations and seeing the power of that through QSEC. I think that was quite instrumental.

There's some great points there and I can see the difference behind this really strong grassroots movement. These have been people coming around a table with the genuine interest of the sector prior to the money coming in from government, which could be different to other state-based networks.

[Emma-Kate Rose] - I remember talking to Amelia Salmon when she was handing over the President's role to me, and I said, ‘how many hours a week would you say I need to do this?’ She was like, ‘Oh, probably about seven or eight, give or take.’ And I remember doing up the tally towards the end of my tenure there and it had built up to a proper part-time job. It was at least 20 hours a week by the time I left. And that's not just me. Everyone who has been on QSEC’s board has always gone above and beyond and often sacrificed a lot in their own businesses to really get their heads above water, out of their business and to see more broadly across the ecosystem what was happening. It was just as important for the viability of our businesses connecting to each other as it was being head down, bum up.

Yeah, absolutely. There's some great perspectives there and you referenced QSEC’s support of the Social Enterprise World Forum and I would like to say a huge public thank you to QSEC for the support of Impact Boom in leading the bid to bring it out to Australia which ultimately began back in 2017 alongside strong support from the Yunus Centre (Griffith University) and the English Family Foundation as the principal supporters.

Elise Parups, you have been a strong part of the sector for the past few years now, and there is absolutely some great momentum that's been building. In your time in the sector, what have you witnessed and importantly, beyond the SEWF, what's next? Because it's essential that we talk about legacy, right?

[Elise Parups] - Thank you so much Tom. I just want to start by just taking a moment to go, ‘small times many makes mighty.’ The people in this room and also the many volunteers that have done such an enormous amount of work as we start to prepare for our 10 year anniversary for QSEC. I think it's really important to take a moment and understand how many voices that have been at this table and how many people have contributed their blood, sweat, and tears over so many years to get here. It's astounding and I feel extremely privileged and so grateful for the opportunity to be the first employee at QSEC. It means so much to have paid resources.

The momentum gathering through these last years has definitely been because there's been a couple of us now in our team who've really been able to be paid to be doing this job. It's amazing.

What an incredible burgeoning and emergence of the sector we've seen in this last few years.

I guess where to from here at this very important juncture for QSEC, as we stand on the brink of almost 10 years of QSEC (in May 2023)? As we stand here, together, it's really important to recognise how many connections are now being made with social enterprises on the ground in every corner of the state. It's giving me goosebumps just thinking how many social enterprises are coming out of the woodwork and emerging.

We find ourselves post-Covid, in a space having to assess some of the really huge systemic challenges we have in our society. Where to from here? Well, this year in 2022, we've had the Social Enterprise World Forum. I think that this is going be a massive catalytic moment for Australia.

Emma-Kate spoke about bringing the networks together across the nation. We've also got the emergence of Social Enterprise Australia. Such an amazing opportunity for the whole nation to join together for a strategy for social enterprise across the nation.

And then as we look toward the Olympics in 2032, how might we use this time?

To look at the opportunities beyond 2032, how might we build a regenerative society together as social entrepreneurs, as people working in the impact space across any business?

I challenge all businesses to start to think about how we might all do better, be better and address some of these massive systemic problems that are emerging post-Covid.

So the world is our oyster. As we move forward, I believe, and this moment is so important that we stand here and look back at the generations before us, and to hear the stories of how people have strived, have thrived, have created their businesses, bonded together, collaborated, and to really use this position to hear the many voices of the social enterprise movement, not just for QSEC’s sake, but for the sake of all social entrepreneurs and the work actually that the social enterprises are doing on the ground. This is a real moment to help us come together and really bring a sense of purpose through our journey moving forward. So as we are looking into the future, to really help us to make, I guess, strong connections with our past in order to move forward.

There's some great insights there, Elise. Thanks very much.

QSEC are celebrating their 10 year anniversary and there's been so many key lessons that have come to the fore throughout these years.

So, Ingrid, are there any other key points you wanted to share that were really fundamental QSEC formation and journey?

I think it's really important to recognise that in order to start a movement like this, we need the shining stars like QSEC.

But we also need a whole lot of champions across the ecosystem who went out of their way to create opportunities and possibilities, and they came in the form of government ministers, they came in the form of bureaucrats, they came in the form of philanthropists. They came in the form of private company owners who all did their bit to open opportunities for social enterprises to start to grow and flourish. And I think that's really important.

As a final thought, I'd say social enterprise is a rehearsal and it's a rehearsal for what every company should be focused on. What we need in the future, if we're going to build regenerative and distributive futures, we actually need businesses who care about the impact that they create, who care about how they engage with workers, who care about how they engage with people who are disconnected from mainstream employment and who set out to make a difference.

Social enterprise has demonstrated that. My hope is that will inspire mainstream businesses to also have a go at making a difference.

Richard, let's cross to for some final thoughts. What are you thinking?

Having heard all these reflections. I'm thinking, Tom, of the amazing confluence of people wanting to create really positive social and economic change. That's one thing. And the fact that a movement really is not the work of any one or two or even three individuals. It's the work of many hands, and it's certainly not our story, much of the story here, Southeast Queensland centric; but I just wanted to acknowledge there's many others around the state who have been pioneers in social enterprise who've more recently joined through QSEC and through things like the Ministerial round table who were doing similar things. And so, there's multiple points of which this movement has begun and there's confluence now. But I just want to acknowledge those other pioneers and people around the state and outside of Queensland who've pushed this down the road.

And it's great that we're all starting to come together and talk more, through forums like QSEC and ASENA and other social enterprise forums.

Steve, you've seen this all unfold since being one of the original Chairs at QSEC, so are there any parting thoughts or reflections?

Yeah, thanks Tom. Just really echoing what other people have said, it's a movement of people towards the goal of creating a fairer economy in a fairer world.

But I'd really like to highlight the work that you've done, Tom, and especially with the Impact Boom podcast. 330+ episodes of the pod is quite a feat, and I really think that it has greatly contributed to the discussion, not only here, but internationally too. So just an acknowledgement to yourself and thanks for all your hard work.

Substation33 during Impact Boom’s bus tour.

Thanks, Steve. Amelia, let's, let's cross to you now. Where would you like to leave some final thoughts?

I think partly the great role that so many people have played, who are from so many different sectors and I'm thinking of some of the early adopters in Housing and Public Works and Brisbane City Council and people who just activated from wherever they were to put social enterprise on the agenda.

Another final thought is where our original vision was really around creating a world where all business was social business.

It's just exciting to see how the system and ecosystem is developing and where people are coming together around community wealth building projects that involve a whole range of players as well as social enterprise. So that's great to see that whole of community approach beginning to happen too.

Emma-Kate, what would you like to add? What are your parting words?

I'd like to just reach out to all social entrepreneurs in Queensland who aren't yet members of QSEC to appeal to them that it does take a movement and to join up and also consider coming on the board, because having board experience is incredibly valuable and you learn a lot. It's very much a personal growth challenge, particularly a board of a social movement and when you have so much responsibility to your members. I think it's hard for people to understand what solidarity really means until you're in the trenches with your fellow members. And you don't underestimate the power of that, working side by side with people who are doing the hard slog with you every day. That lived experience is incredibly important and the support that you get from your peers is so powerful.

Elise, what would you like to say to all the listeners out there?

It's just really important, number one, to recognise the diversity of our sector and uniquely the unity behind our movement to actually change the systems for better.

But we really need to highlight it's small times many makes mighty. So to help us to celebrate this 10 year anniversary, we really need to add everybody's voices to build the piece of the puzzle that is social enterprise in Australia.

Add your voice to that shared story so that we can build a vision for the future of social enterprise in Queensland and then hopefully across Australia.