Paul Quilliam On Opportunities For Growing The Tasmanian Social Enterprise Ecosystem

Paul Quilliam is currently the driving force behind the emerging SENTAS – the Social Enterprise Network of Tasmania, and provides island state representation on the committee of ASENA - the Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks Australia.

By day, he is the State Manager for yourtown and Kids Helpline in Tasmania with programs across employment, children and family services and social enterprises.

Having spent two decades in the education and IT sectors, he spent the next several years cofounding Hummingbird House, Queensland’s only children’s hospice. With an Executive MBA, Paul has an extensive background also in healthcare, business and not-for-profit sectors. Paul recently served as global Board Chair of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network, is currently on the Elisabeth Kubler Ross international Advisory Board, and is a long-term Executive Advisor to QUT’s Executive MBA program.

Just prior to Covid-19, Paul was awarded Global Not For Profit Entrepreneur across 277 Business schools through the Association of MBA’s, for his work in palliative care. He has been awarded an Outstanding Alumni award through QUT and has been a Qld Local Hero finalist for Australian of the Year in 2017.

Paul discusses developments occurring in Tasmania's social enterprise ecosystem and his insights gained from leading organisations supporting children.

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

[Tom Allen] - Could you please share a little bit more about your background and what it was that led to your interest and passion in social enterprise?

[Paul Quilliam] - It's been quite a journey to get to this point in time. My background is in education, business, IT, youth services and healthcare, but I started out as a primary school teacher. I was originally inspired by work that I did in Launceston, and that put me on that trajectory to becoming a primary school teacher. I've always been passionate about getting the best out of young people, and I spent over 20 years in a school environment. I transitioned from being a teacher into educational administration. Then, I undertook an Executive MBA from 2009 to 2010. This experience exposed me to a complete paradigm shift through being surrounded by an outstanding cohort of senior executives. Those thought leaders over a two-year period literally changed my life trajectory and led me into one of my biggest entrepreneurial ventures to date, taking me from being chief of staff at a large P-12 school of 1300 students, to founding Hummingbird House, Queensland's only children's hospice. From there, after having grown up as a teenager in the North of Tasmania, I moved back, and I've loved every minute. My current role is building relationships across the social enterprise sector, and I’m energised by those that are genuinely turning ideas into impact.

As a founding board member of SENTAS, where do you see potential for social enterprise in Tasmania, and why is now the right time to be growing the ecosystem in this state? Also, what are key opportunities for the sector in Tasmania that you're seeing right now?

I'm really fortunate to find myself at the right time and right place for social enterprises in Tasmania. Tasmania is the last state to establish a formal social enterprise network, so SENTAS is still on its way. I firstly want to recognise all the incredible work of those that have been advocating for social enterprises over the last decade. There has been some really significant groundwork from Dr. Robyn Eversole and Kylie Eastley way back in 2011. During this time the first significant study was reported, and I think that was through a partnership with the Institute of Regional Development and UTAS. They did a survey, and there was 111 organisations across the state that identified through that survey that there was a total of 183 social enterprise locations in Tasmania. Over the last decade, there's been such a terrific intent to grow the social enterprise sector and ecosystem, and of course varying degrees of interest at times from both sides of politics.

There's definitely a feel that quite a number of social enterprises haven't been as sustainable and successful over the last decade, and I think that's where having a more formalised network across Tasmania helps to provide that support advocacy, which is so key.

This is particularly considering we are being tapped into the greater national Alliance of ASENA and all the state networks that are really committed to growing the national sector. Tasmania is one of those unique places where the economy has thrived despite the pandemic; there's never been a better opportunity to bring social enterprise ideas into fruition and realise the exciting impact that they could make to transform lives and strengthen communities. I think with the 29 LGA's it's quite unique down here. I think that's actually key to Tasmania’s uniqueness, that the islands broken up into 29 areas can really champion social enterprises within the ecosystem down here.

You are the state manager of yourtown and Kids Helpline in Tasmania, so could you share a little bit more about the work of those organisations and how they're already supporting the community?

When I returned to Tasmania three years ago, after having lived up in Launceston as a teenager in the eighties, I took on the role of state manager for yourtown (formerly known as BoysTown). This organisation been operating for more than 60 years. Then there is of course Kids Helpline, the national 24/7 helpline for children and young people, and that's been operating for more than 30 years now. As well as employment services, children and family programs, a key part of my role was inheriting the oversight of a gardening services social enterprise in the Northern suburbs of Hobart. It's grown from where we started off with only a couple of teams into the ‘Jim's Mowing’ of social enterprise gardening and landscaping. Now it's really scaled up to where we've got five or six teams. The grass grows pretty quick down here, so it's been really successful.

Yourtown's got a history of more than two decades of championing social enterprises, which started in Queensland with fencing and then expanding across the state.

It's included gardening, fencing, graffiti removal and construction activities just to name a few. I saw firsthand the amazing work of the trainers working alongside young people in areas of disadvantage who have been long-term unemployed, and it was probably just providing them patterns of work habits. All the extra work that goes into it provides patterns of community transformation, and the individual transformation of seeing young people stepping up to just new levels of giving back to the communities as well.

You founded the Hummingbird House Foundation, a specialised paediatric palliative care service in Queensland. What were some of these biggest lessons that you took away from setting up this foundation?

The story of Hummingbird House has been another amazing journey and it feels in some ways a bit of an accidental journey. As I mentioned before, I undertook an Executive MBA back in 2009 -2010, thinking that I was going to apply all those studies into educational leadership in the role that I was in at the time. But, as often is the case, the universe conspires and I found myself co-founding Queensland's only children's hospice, and again, I’ve always lived by the mantra of, ‘I must do something’. As a result of this process of advocacy too, I sat as the global chair of the International Children's Palliative Care Network, the global peak body for paediatric palliative care, and there are an estimated 21 billion children challenged with a life limiting condition. I went from primary teacher to board meetings in Dublin and Berlin, and I was working on so many levels.

A key part of that success was building relationships right across the sector. When you bring relationships across a complete ecosystem, you're not sure of the context to start with, but it’s the skill of navigating complex issues, and relationships are always key.

A particular note was we formerly partnered with the Duchess of Cambridge's charity, East Anglia Children's Hospices, which in turn led to private meeting with Princess Kate in 2014 (which was quite amazing). Later in the same year, there was another meeting in the UK which was quite memorable. But again, it came out of building quality relationships. The key lessons I learned from this whole experience are the importance of good governance.

If anybody ever asks, "what is the secret sauce to success,” it is good governance.

It's ensuring a really solid foundation of work processes, and it’s particularly key to political and philanthropic relationships.

You can always have great passion for a particular idea for impact, but you've got to make sure you back it up with a really robust business plan for sustainability. However, I like to use the phrase 'revenue resilience'.

But again, there are so many ideas that are led with passion in paediatrics and the palliative care space. There were so many examples of organisations led by passionate parents, but you've got to make sure you do your homework in an evidence-based manner and that you've got more steak than sizzle in everything you do.

What advice would you be giving to people who are really keen to get out there and make change happen?

I think the key advice I’d give to any social entrepreneur listening is to prioritise the relational over the transactional. I always talk about how the R-value always trumps T-value.

Transactions are just part and parcel of business, but it's when the transactional overtakes the relational where things start declining.

I'm also a really big advocate (particularly due to my IT background) of applying Gartner's Magic Quadrants to starting up a social enterprise. It's also key to successful seed funding. There are four quadrants, and the X axis is called the Completeness Of Vision and the Y axis is called Ability To Execute. The model is about how you commit balance and commit energy to both axes.

You can have social entrepreneurs that are really passionate and think they've got the completeness of vision, but unfortunately don't have the elements, framework or scaffolding to execute the idea.

On the other hand, you can have people that have rallied troops to execute the vision, but perhaps that vision isn't really complete within that ecosystem. I'm always looking at that top quadrant, and when I did executive coaching work with QUT in Queensland, it was about really identifying the energies around at both axes. I've been really fortunate to get good mentors around me. I've been fortunate to work with some really inspiring philanthropists that have provided that ability to execute through their financial generosity and have been terrific mentors throughout my journey. They have not just funded me back with Hummingbird House, they have committed to funding the work and impact down here in Tasmania. They've been generous individuals over the last decade and invested more money into impact. Also, this was not just financial investment; they've given me such significant time and wisdom too. I would always tell social entrepreneurs to surround yourself with really good people that challenge you. I think the one thing I've been really blessed to have been mentors that when I pitch a bold solution challenged me and asked if it is bold enough. Get those people around you immediately.

What projects and initiatives are happening in Tasmania that are creating positive social change?

It's a challenge to identify just a few, but there is some inspiring work going on at the moment across the state. Whether it's in the North, South or North-West, social enterprises are not just addressing disadvantaged youth, but really good things are happening in the disability sector or with First Nations people. It's such a good spread, and apart from the great work we do at yourtown and with our gardening social enterprises, Impact Communities works with young people in the retail space and provides training opportunities for them to transition into full time employment. Another enterprise is Hamlet, which has been a huge success through working with young people at one of the best community cafes in Tasmania.

It is always a great place to book meetings and support the great work of Tasmanian social enterprises to make a real difference in impacting young lives.

Particularly with the hospitality space down in Tasmania, there is some great food culture. But, to see social enterprises happening in the hospitality space is really important. Finally, I’d like to mention The Tasmanian Bike Collective, which has been maybe more notably known in Risdon Vale. They are training up students who are disengaged from school in bike mechanics so they can sell second-hand bikes to the community. Such a vast array of educational podcasts will be coming out of Tasmania for sure!

Finishing up, what books, resources and blogs would you recommend to our listeners?

My number one go-to book I recommend to everyone I help mentor and coach is Stephen Covey’s Speed Of Trust. Social enterprises only develop at the speed of trust, and it's created by that combination of character and competence. It is an absolute must read for anyone and its full of great insights. I'm also a big fan of an Irishman, Cormac Russell who works in the area of asset-based community development.

There are some really good materials out there by him that will provide great reading for how social enterprises and entrepreneurs can be of maximum value to any community that they work within.

Lastly, I'd say make sure you read Jim Collin's two books Good To Great and Built To Last. They are written predominantly from a large corporate perspective. They're really good readings through the lens of social enterprise, and there are so many takeaways. Even if you've read them before, I encourage people to go back and read them through that lens of social enterprise and what entrepreneurial action looks like within communities. Obviously for all things social enterprise, we want to take them from good to great, and we want to make sure that they're built to last. We want to make sure that they're serving communities and delivering impact not just now, but for people's lives in the future.