Highlights From The 2023 Social Enterprise World Forum In Amsterdam, The Netherlands

At Impact Boom, we are passionate about connecting changemakeRs and driving collaboration between organisations to create social impact. As a media partner of the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF), This year held in Amsterdam, we approached global leaders to discover their highlights and key learnings from this global movement.

Growing the movement over fifteen years, in 2023, SEWF was co-hosted by Amsterdam Impact and Social Enterprise Netherlands, with the official forum commencing on the 11th of October at De Kromhouthal. Many delegates arrived earlier to attend fringe events and social enterprise tours, which provided a broader perspective on the movement’s history, progress and future obstacles.

Following on from last years SEWF in Meanjin (Brisbane), The Netherlands welcomed a cohort of 63 Australians and international delegates eager to learn more about the European movement. Changemakers from a myriad of backgrounds gathered to share their insights and experiences, with several core ideas being consistently shared during these conversations.

key themes which emerged from discussion and interviews during the forum included:

First Nations Knowledge: Indigenous knowledge must be preserved and brought to the forefront of the social enterprise movement to refine regenerative and inclusive business practices.

The Next Generation: Young people will be next to carry the social impact torch. Access to investment and opportunities will help them realise their potential and cause the next wave of environmental and social change.
Demand for Internationalisation: Social enterprises primarily serve small communities and customer bases. Consider exploring opportunities to reach a wider audience.
Think New Economy Approaches: Problems caused by old economic systems cannot be fixed by these same systems. How can we alter our future through transitioning to an innovative New Economy model?
Continuing Collaboration: Networks must thrive post the Social Enterprise World Forum. Continue to check in with your newly discovered connections and maintain the movement’s momentum.

SEWF 2023 concluded with the announcement that in future years, the forum will be held in-person biennially, with next year being online.

21 Impact Professionals who attended the 2023 Social Enterprise World Forum share their highlights and learnings live from amsterdam.

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

Rachel Steffensen, Firesticks Alliance

I'm a Takalaka Erab Island woman from Australia. I'm here at the Social Enterprise World Forum in Amsterdam, and one of the main highlights for me has been seeing the Australian First Nations presence and connecting with other social enterprise movements from around the globe. It's been a fantastic opportunity, and I will take these learnings back home to what I do at Firesticks Alliance and see how we can use it in our space and work.

Rashvin pal Singh, Biji-biji Initiative

SEWF23 in Amsterdam has been fantastic. It allowed me to explore and understand different economic models, and I'm understanding a lot deeper how the new economy is a pathway for us to fundamentally change how we do things and redefine economic growth going forward.

Nicola Stokes, AMP Foundation

It's been an extraordinary few days, but my SEWF 23 highlight actually came from the very first social enterprise we visited, Locale. It was the connection they had with their community and municipality which was inspiring, it was all about the people and place. It just started off my week with the most extraordinary bang.

Stefan Panhuijsen, Social Enterprise NL

There were a lot of highlights from SEWF 2023. Of course, seeing happy faces from all over the world was one, but I was most impressed by a session at the end of the program. Young entrepreneurs took to the main stage, one being the founder of Speaksee in The Netherlands. These three entrepreneurs under 30 made me realise what you all do it for, and I'm optimistic about the future.

Nanouk Grootendorst, Social Entrepreneurship At Rabo Foundation

My highlight of these two days was in between sessions, where I could connect with social entrepreneurs and people visiting the Forum. The networking, linking and connecting with people for me was the biggest highlight.

Oliver Chang, Impact Hub Taipei

My highlight of the Social Enterprise World Forum would be meeting new as well as old friends. I was inspired by so many speakers, especially rising stars who are really young but doing great things.

Faiz Kamaludin, Catalyst 2030 (Malaysia)

I loved SEWF 2023, and my highlight was actually meeting everyone in person, networking and finding out about their stories and narratives around social entrepreneurship and innovation.

Sally McGeoch, Westpac Foundation

My highlight from the Social Enterprise World Forum has been learning about different corporates taking a leadership role in supporting social enterprises, who are just the innovators in terms of building a new economy where we put people and planet first.

Hazwan Razak, Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation

My SEWF 2023 highlight was definitely the amazing connections you make with like-minded individuals who want to do the same thing; make a difference in the world. From this conference, we've got a lot of projects planned together to change the world.

Dr. Sreevas Sahasranamam, Strathclyde Business School

I teach social entrepreneurship and technology for social impact, so the biggest takeaway for me from the Social Enterprise World Forum (coming from an academic lens) is the opportunities I'm seeing at the intersection of academia and practice. This includes how academia could work more closely with practitioners to build the evidence base for looking at the impact social enterprises are creating and helping that work with government and policy actors to create advocacy and make a meaningful impact globally.

Erinch Sahan, Doughnut Economics Action LAb (DEAL)

The launch of the People and Planet First verification is an absolute game changer. This means we have a new solid way of communicating around the world, about the fact we've got enterprises that belong to the new economy and put people and planet first in their very structure. This excites me and is going to be a big deal.

Tezzita Tefera, Social Enterprise Ethiopia

My highlight has been meeting amazing people from all over the world and attending all the fascinating sessions.

James Finnie, International Social Enterprise Observatory (ISEO)

My highlight was speaking to two fantastic people from Italy about a joint mutually beneficial opportunity. We would never have had that if we hadn't come to SEWF.

Cindy Carpenter, The Bread & Butter Project

The absolute highlight of the Forum for me has been meeting so many people from around the world. I’ve realised the world is much smaller than you think, and social enterprises around the world have the same challenges and opportunities we have in Australia. We have the opportunity to team up and collaborate with them on a global scale.

Michael Lim, Beyond Value

My highlight of the Forum would be connecting with a global group of social procurement practitioners, which I was able to do across the immersive tours and fringe day which brought together all the practitioners, learning and best practice into one place. On the actual Forum days themselves, being able to connect with people who are practitioners, policy makers, entrepreneurs, social enterprises, buyers and suppliers has been cup filling, because social procurement work can be very isolating and lonely. I’m keen to go back to Australia and apply some of these learnings.

Tara Anderson, Social Traders

My highlight from SEWF was listening to the SED talks, where we heard from founders of social enterprises talking about the reasons they set up their organisations.

The reason I loved it was because of the passion they brought when talking about why they do what they do. This is the reason why we can use social enterprise as a demonstration model to reshape the entire economy.

Mary Anne Scully (left) speaking with Hazwan Razak (right)

Egon Van Wees, Amsterdam Impact

My highlight of the Forum was taking a Scot on the back of my bike at the tour who missed when we were going to the next location!

Lyndsey Jackson, WeCOllaborate

This trip has been amazing. It's been interesting to see what's happening globally and get a feel for opportunities, similarities and difficulties being faced globally around social impact, but also a range of other social issues. It's been nice to come here to connect and be reminded that although Australia has its challenges and we'd like things to be faster or more sustainable, we do punch above our weight. We have a lot of community and generosity when it comes to ideas and information sharing. It's been a pleasure to be here.

Tom Dawkins, StartSomeGood

Two of the key themes I heard a lot of discussion about at this year's Social Enterprise World Forum were the challenges of scale and connecting with capital, particularly more risk tolerant and flexible capital. This is especially for earlier stage enterprises who are ready and seeking to scale. Second, there is a desire for collaboration across the sector as we pursue some of these shared goals, but collaboration remains largely something hoped for rather than carried out. We get together once a year and discuss these issues, but then we mostly go back to our home ecosystems to work on them. That's nowhere more true than when it comes to early stage capital; every country is trying to essentially dig up and unearth its own potential impact angel investors. One of the things we believe at LendForGood (the new impact investment platform I've been part of launching) is we need to build a global community of early stage impact investors willing to make bets on great enterprises. My belief is that while some impact investors certainly are only focused on their home markets, that's absolutely not true for all of them. This is one example of many where we need to move from the dialogue to practice of collaboration.

David Balhuizen, Fun Forest

My highlight was connecting with other people to be in it together and work on these challenges at the same time. It was quite daunting to see how much work there still is to do.

Arianna Petra Watson, (think) Enough

My highlights for SEWF were a combination of Rachel Steffensen's reminder the Aboriginal people of Australia have been social enterprising for thousands and thousands of years, and the debate between the impact economy and the new economy (which was clearly won by the new economy).

The takeaway message I'm choosing is the way forward is a new system; an economy based in First Nations knowledge of country and community.

Impact Boom remains committed to helping drive action around growth of the ‘business for good’ movement globally. Get in touch to discover how we can partner to design, develop and deliver capacity-building programs or turbocharge awareness via our media.