Arianna Watson On Engaging People With Purpose Led Regenerative Enterprises
Arianna is an optimistic social entrepreneur, passionate about supporting individuals to question, explore and act on their potential for creating social and environmental impact.
With a background in international development and working with people seeking asylum, she now works at the intersection of business and social purpose, inspiring people and businesses to uncover the role they may play in empowering communities and regenerating our planet.
As a co-founder of Think Enough, she has created a platform that connects people to for-purpose businesses and initiatives, making good choices easier, fun and rewarding. Arianna's dedication to impact extends to her board role for the South Australian Social Enterprise Council, where she actively supports and connects local social enterprises. She also works freelance in the social enterprise space, coaching startups, running and facilitating workshops, showcasing business impact, and getting involved in various projects that sit in an alternative, more inclusive and regenerative economy.
Arianna discusses pathways to creating inclusive regenerative economies and reviving hope in the power of communities to inspire sustainable social and environmental change.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Sarah Ripper] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today?
[Arianna Watson] - I was born and grew up in Italy raised by English parents, which is why I'm always a confusing character nationality wise. I studied international relations in the UK and then from there I worked in the international development and charity spaces. I spent my first years after university in a few different African countries. I spent some time in Zambia and Uganda working with cool grassroots international development organisations and charities, but I ended up struggling with the international development model and watching how issues had been perpetuated by aid. There are a lot of goods, but also a lot of it is based around a struggle model. I spent some time working with great projects in Zambia and Uganda, but realised I had an issue with the model we were operating under. I ended up meeting a lot of people who were so resourceful, but there were these heavy systems of aid needs giving things to people rather than uplifting and supporting the people's own abilities. It was a great experience, but I had to move on and look for a different model. I developed an independence from the concept of aid. I ended up moving back home to Italy and working with people from refugee backgrounds. I loved my work because we came across so many fantastic different people from lots of different countries. I learned a lot myself; it's great to be in contact with so many diverse people. But again, I ended up falling in that hole, where all the best projects which were community led, strength based and focused on the people within the projects ended up getting their funding cut. They were basing their model on philanthropy or government funding, which tended not to be funnelled by the government funders or philanthropists to the people we were working with. There is this tension and frustration between the funded projects, and what the community really wanted. They didn't have the autonomy to decide how to develop and flourish.
I felt these models were not right for me, so I started thinking about how I could find a way to fund meaningful change that's completely independent from the external funders and donors?
That is why I entered this space. I heard about the concept of social enterprise and realised this is a cool idea, where an entity can create a positive impact while remaining independent from the donations and charity. Instead, the funding comes internally from the organisation itself. I got very excited about the concept of social enterprise; I wanted to learn more about the concept and thought about going back to university and studying it. I thought this would probably drive me crazy, and instead I remembered I had a year left to do a working holiday Visa in Australia. I applied for a working holiday in Australia and decided I was going to have an inspirational sabbatical. I wanted to come over to Australia, where I was going to spend a year not necessarily working but traveling around the country connecting with as many purposes led businesses and social enterprises as possible. I wanted to see any business model different from those donors funded or grant funded organisations; organisations making their own money and generating a positive impact. I arrived in Australia at the end of 2019, which was a very interesting time to be here. I spent very short stints of time in Brisbane and New Zealand, but then I was in Melbourne January of 2020. I was trying to meet different people creating these incredible business models operating for good while funding their own activities. I started collecting a list of all these places; I was getting excited talking to the founders about their stories and understanding what their models were. I intended to go back home to Italy and potentially implement some of those ideas myself. Then, at the beginning of 2020 in Melbourne, COVID-19 hit, so I got stuck over in Australia. I was lucky because I got locked down with a fabulous housemate who was interested in the exact same models. I also met with other wonderful people online, because I realised that rather than COVID-19 stopping me meeting people and learning about these businesses, people were more interested than ever in connecting and talking about their activities. Everything was grinding to a halt, so I would ask people, "will you have an online coffee with me? Can I ask you about your business? I love the idea of what you do, can you share a little bit more?" People were excited to sit online with me and have a chat about it, I was extremely excited about everyone's different business models and ways of creating impact. I collected this big, long list of all these fascinating places in Melbourne and around Australia, and I had this bizarre situation where people in Melbourne would start to ask me where should I go for a coffee with a purpose or to buy a gift for my friend? I would say, "I've only been in Melbourne for three or four months, why are you asking me?" But it was that concept of having specifically gone to look for things with a purpose which made people ask me. I ended up then (I always say by mistake) together with my housemate and two other wonderful women I met throughout pandemic. We started this platform, (think) enough, which became the reason I was able to stay. It started off as a list of all these for purpose businesses which people could go and spend time with while doing good. That has now turned into us mistakenly creating a start-up. That’s changed my trajectory, because I was only originally coming to Australia for a year to learn. But there’s a lot more here now that's interesting to me which I can create value with. I was able then to stay along and spend more time here to get more involved in the social enterprise sector.
As a Co-founder of (think) enough, please tell us more about your organisation and the impact it's generating?
(think) enough is a platform connecting individuals with for purpose businesses and initiatives. It highlights solutions to environmental and human problems, promotes transparency through questioning business models, and makes good choices easier, fun, and rewarding. In practice, we started off as a directory, an Instagram account showcasing purposeful businesses which give you a product or service you need or want, like a coffee shop, a restaurant, or a fashion store. These businesses have a social and environmental impact, so you’re able to shop in accordance with your values. Starting with a directory, we shifted a little bit more into a community building role. Our impact now is through bringing people with purpose together and helping them to see solutions and give them hope for what a world that cares could be. We do this through meetups, trails, and tours of different places. We give people an excuse to go to that cafe they wanted to visit but didn’t have anyone to go with. We all go together and have deeper conversations. We've started impact challenges to make things a bit more fun and quirkier. We've mapped out different road trips to show what different businesses you can visit. I’ve become the person you can ask, "can you find me a business that has positive impact? We try and connect people with good options for what they're looking for.
What have been your key learnings and how can people create effective, inclusive, regenerative economies?
One of the biggest things is to create this system and move towards this caring, regenerative, and inclusive economy, we need to remind ourselves it's the system that's broken, not the people. We need to get people to believe in people again in order to change the system. There is a lot of lost hope, and the assumption people are inherently selfish because of the current system we're living in. That's key to the capitalist system, but where is the actual proof of that? Let's remind us of how much people care and do? That’s what I've seen within all the different projects and roles I've been involved in, and I want to make sure other people can see there is another option. Because if you see or experience it, then you start believing in it. We want to restore hope and show there is a difference, and that's a slow process. That’s the frustrating thing, there is no easy or quick fix to that. The concept of regenerative economies is all about those small little changes you make and observe. People learn from them, make more and it can change the system. We need to be reminded that it's okay to just make little changes to build up momentum. We need to get people to see, believe and then make small seemingly unimportant changes. These are acts that change your inner framework. Another thing is we need to cultivate care, there's a real need to cultivate an internal sense of purpose. We need to look for that sense of purpose and discover how we can help bring that out of people or point it out when it’s happening. Where we spend a lot of time in the social enterprise world is with businesses intentionally creating something for a social or environmental purpose. It's about beginning with purpose and intention, realising this make it easier to spot issues like greenwashing. It's about what's the intention behind the business you're creating as opposed to retrofitting your existing business to have a purpose side because it's fashionable and millennials want an increased sense of purpose! Understand your sense of purpose and cultivate that. That goes full circle with trying to get people to believe in people again. A last thing is within this more extractive and capitalist economy, we're so obsessed with the individual, but we need to move to looking at the collective more. We need to look at who we are together, as opposed to just who we are individually. Our internal inner purpose is important, but what is our purposes as groups of people, friends, businesses, and organisations?
We're in this system together, but the current business model thrives on telling people what they individually need, should be buying and should be doing. If we can spend more time focusing on collaborating and building as a community, then we can see each other act in a purposeful way which entices us to believe in creating a positive impact.
What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across creating a positive social change?
People ask me, which is my favourite social enterprise all the time, but the trick is what I love most about this space is there are so many of them and they cover loads of different angles. Looking at that economy and all those businesses together is just beautiful. It's down to what model people prefer. Recently, because I'm currently Italy, I went with my family to visit a permaculture farm called La Scorscesa in the Chianti region (our Tuscan wine region). It was fascinating because this guy has created a permaculture farm on the slope of a hill. Most people would look at this hill, especially the bottom part where it’s not cultivated and think, "there is no way anything is going to grow on that land." It is so rocky and dry, it's just that kind of earth where everything has been extracted from it and there's nothing there. With an eclectic background as a historian and scientist, he was able to study the history of the land and understand what happened there before. By doing this, he learnt the composition of the land and started working to regenerate it. He’s selling produce from his farm now, but usually people in that area don't grow anything apart from grapes. He's selling tomatoes and has lettuce coming up. He's growing various forms of greens, even native greens, which is so interesting. I haven’t had the chance to learn much about native Italian produce before. He grows local cherries, and their stones once grounded up, taste like authentic vanilla - authentic vanilla from Chianti. He was fascinating, the concept behind his work was to just do it and provide proof you can regenerate things, even when people don't believe you can. It's such a beautiful example, you look at that and think you shouldn't be able to do that, but he’s caring for that land and bringing it all back. Looking at that gives me hope, I now have started thinking about all those people who are doing all those things to begin regenerating their landscapes.
What books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?
Over the last few months, I've been hopping around telling everyone to read Stolen Focus. It's not a book about purpose, business and social enterprise. The premise is essentially how currently in our modern society humans have lost the ability to focus. We're on our phones, we've lost the ability to read a whole book or let our minds wander. It says at the beginning it is not a self-help book to help you build your habits, put your phone down or be more productive. It's showing you how the reason your focus has been stolen is down to the business model. You can't expect to be putting your phone down when behavioural scientists are studying how to keep your attention.
This book shows what system people are using to draw our attention, steal our focus, make us more individualistic and less creative, just because it feeds a specific business model. If we can flip the business model and change that paradigm, all the difficulties coming from that could break away.
It’s a fascinating book I keep suggesting to everyone. Just as a resource, especially because I talked about permaculture, farming, and a sense of hope, look at The Biggest Little Farm. It’s a great documentary about a permaculture farm and what a family has done to live in symbiosis and regenerate their land. If I can say another one as well, watch Damon Gameau's 2040 and Regenerating Australia. Both those documentaries instil a bit of hope of what humans are doing and could do in the future.
