Sonia Martin On Profit For Purpose Business Delivering Health Services To Vulnerable Communities

Powered by a passion to increase connectivity and decrease stigma around homelessness, Sonia Martin had a vision to step up and tackle homelessness head on, providing access to quality healthcare for thousands of vulnerable Australians.

In 2018, Sonia had a dream to take healthcare to the streets. Sonia sat with people on the streets who had been disengaged from healthcare for up to 30 years, listening to their stories and their worries. She was struck by the loneliness of people sleeping rough and doing it tough. Alongside her business partner, she decided to begin to change the lives of thousands of Australians by setting up a simple nursing kit, writing up policies and procedures for a service named Sunny Street, and started providing healthcare from the back of a car boot. Today Sunny Street is an award winning health service.

Sonia Martin holds a Degree in Health Science and has been a Registered Nurse for 30 years. In 2022, Sonia was the recipient of the national Outstanding Leadership Award in Entrepreneurship. In 2021, Sonia was the winner of the Health Minister's Nursing Trailblazer Award in Australia, and was nominated as Australian of the Year in 2020. She has always felt driven to help others and through her nursing career she has been successful in accomplishing this humanitarian goal. Sonia is a courageous leader inspiring generations of women and nurses as she continues to pave the way in healthcare innovation, positively affecting the Australian healthcare landscape, and leading with a philosophy of kindness. Sonia is passionate about learning, collaborating and innovating in the Australian primary healthcare space for vulnerable populations.

Sonia discusses how gaps in healthcare systems reduce outcomes for vulnerable communities and where social enterprises can provide support and create positive impact.

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

[Tom Allen] - To start off, what led to your passion in health and social enterprise?

[Sonia Martin] - I've been a nurse for a long time, about 30 years now. It was just really witnessing the humanity of others, why people make the decisions they make and how systems fail people. I found in 2017 there were a lot of people coming through the emergency department where I was working in a public hospital, and they were experiencing loneliness. They were experiencing homelessness, chronic mental issues, and just a general sense of hopelessness. Unfortunately, our emergency departments are amazing but just not the right place for those issues, and so I witnessed this come through and thought, "something has to shift." I did try within the hospital initially. I raised funding for a position within the hospital to help, but in the end thought it's got to come from outside these walls. I quit my permanent public health sector role alongside my business partner at the time and decided to start a health service from a car boot. Really, what I wanted to do is bridge the gap for people experiencing all those concerning issues between emergency departments and medical practices.

As the CEO of Sunny Street, tell us about the projects you're involved in and the key challenges you've been observing when it comes to the health system?

It's been an evolving state, especially starting from a car boot to where it is now half a decade later. Now, we're across Queensland, which is fantastic. But essentially, we have two major projects. Firstly, we have a centre. It could be considered a medical centre, but I'd say it's a health centre more because we have such an amazing team of allied health professionals, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and admin providing quite comprehensive care there. It is care you'd find anywhere in any GP centre, but one of our passion projects has been our outreach, which is where we began. We continue to provide outreach within about a 50 kilometre radius of our centre, but we really do some incredible work and reach out to different groups. We're in community centres, so a nurse might spend two hours in a community centre. We go to flexi schools, schools that have difficulties or maybe pupils that have difficulties heading to mainstream health. We work within domestic violence shelters and see a lot of women and children and care for them. We also do work in the corrections space, because we found a lot of people coming to us on the street who were post-prison and didn't have the prescriptions they needed or access to a GP. Those projects have been the core of what we've been doing.

It has been interesting to see the challenges and barriers we see. For vulnerable people, there's a lot of barriers. When I first began, people would say, "healthcare's free in Australia". I would say, "healthcare's free if you can afford it!"

Some can’t actually afford to pay the GP, have a vehicle to get them to an appointment, they don’t have a level of education and health literacy so they can understand and comprehend a diagnosis and what that means, how that will impact their health, life and loved ones. There are quite a few barriers that people that don't have those opportunities face. Many of us have lived experience or living experience of trauma, and when you have complex trauma, you need consultation times more than seven minutes, more than twenty or forty minutes with a doctor or nurse practitioner.

Really for me, what I observed very early on, and I still see now five years in, is that we need a more equitable, accessible healthcare system for all Australians.

What is your current take on the state of social entrepreneurship in Australia and what are the opportunities or challenges you've observed?

I'm really excited about social entrepreneurship in Australia. When I began five years ago, it was an interesting space. I had never heard of a social enterprise. I had quit my job originally and thought what I want to do is provide healthcare for people who are vulnerable or experiencing vulnerability. I thought that's benevolent work, so it should be a charity. I went to River City Labs in Brisbane, and at the time was challenged by a couple of people there who said, "maybe it doesn't need to be a charity, maybe you need to look at being a profit for purpose model." I had never heard of it.

At the time I was writing a constitution, and I just put the brakes on that, because I saw massive potential around being a social enterprise and having an enabling community to control what healthcare looks like for them.

It is really interesting, five years later with social entrepreneurship or social enterprise, people are getting used to hearing about them which is fantastic. But quite often, broadcast media will often say that Sunny Street is a charity, even if I say please don't write that it's a charity so we are clear and transparent around what a social enterprise is. But more people want to understand that as well, and I'm really excited about seeing the amount of people that are keen to move into social enterprises. Certainly, I've played a role in educating people in that space, but the move away from more traditional models and having a company that provides profit but also purpose is absolutely life changing for communities.

What have been some of the challenges you've faced on the Sunny Street founding journey, and what have you learned as a result?

Sustainability is a problem, it's always an issue. It would almost have been a little bit easier if we were a charity, because corporations would look to support us, and we don't have DGR status. Instantly, we have to think a little harder about what giving looks like. For me, with sustainability, I've had to come up with other business ideas within the business, and so for example, we have a corporate flu program, and there's people that create that just as a service itself. For me, I've had to come up with different business ideas. Another challenge would be that I've had to learn to market well. When you're in a social enterprise, you really want to have a voice for your impact, for your change and the good that you're doing in community, because at Sunny Street, we are doing this for good, we are doing this so that people have equitable access to healthcare.

You must really learn to push out, have a voice, be your own brand ambassador, and stand for something as a social enterprise, because social enterprises do stand for something.

Another challenge is, as any entrepreneur knows, that when you start up, as you're going through the first couple of years, you are all the roles. You are everything, and you don't have money to hire and cover your weak spots. I shouldn't say the word weak, that's probably not it, but less good! You might not have great skills in social media. It could be just tough if you don't have funding, or you don't have the money. You find yourself in a difficult position initially, and it's a real challenge when you're trying to create that impact, head into that space and start to get sustainable enough and market yourself well enough so that you can hire assistance. These are major challenges, and I think the final challenge is resilience. You find out pretty quickly how resilient you are as a businesswoman or person.

You've got to get up and show up as much as possible. You must be kind to yourself some days; if you can't, then you just can't.

But, as a social enterprise and an entrepreneur, initially, it rests on you. There are a lot of challenges, but there are a lot of opportunities as well.

For all the social entrepreneurs or those aspiring to tackle a problem with business, what advice do you have for them?

I've definitely reached out to people.

For me, I knew that I had to find mentorship or a tribe early on.

I didn't have the finances to do that, so I thought as a nurse I would stick to the health industry. But then I thought I also need to look at what other entrepreneurs are doing. How are they solving problems? Then, I didn't want to stick to the health industry, so I would say move to an area that's a little bit different to the problem you're solving and see how others are thinking, what pathways and skills they're using to solve a problem. For me, I moved into the health space, an entrepreneurial space, and for me, a female space, because being a female CEO isn't super common. It's important to reach out and find your tribe and people that are going to help you solve your issues and give you a hand at the time. I think also keeping abreast of companies or groups in a similar space and what they're up to and to learn from them is critical.

I learned very early not to worry about competition. There's enough room for everyone, and that collaboration is a much better outcome. But really keep abreast of what is happening in the industry you're in.

Also, have a voice for your cause. It's important to stand up, and if you've chosen to be a social enterprise, what does that mean? What are you standing for? Really have courage to stand up and shout out to the world and share all your experiences.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently which are creating positive social change?

I get really excited about this. There are social enterprises that do amazing things like The World's Biggest Garage Sale around circular economy. It's worth looking up. Also, Pay It Forward Productions are actually videographers that do pro bono work for groups like Sunny Street. We just finished working with them to show t what good is happening in the world. It's so fantastic to see this whole environment of social enterprises grow. I would encourage people to think on a state, national, but also global level. In 2022, I was fortunate enough to be successful in gaining a Churchill Fellowship, and what I'm really excited about is that I'm heading to around six different countries this year to look at how they are providing primary healthcare to vulnerable populations and to look at how they're managing data and using technology for better outcomes. I would suggest think globally, then nationally, and finally just challenge yourself around whether you're thinking only for state.

If you're thinking within Queensland, instead think Australia-wide and then globally, because there's so much good around you and people doing incredible things.

It's the only way you can pivot, learn and shape a social enterprise into what it needs to be and to provide the outcomes you're after.

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

I think I read about a book every fortnight. A little bit of a broad range comes to mind. There's a fantastic book (it takes an hour and a half to read) called QBQ! The Question Behind The Question by John Miller. It's actually really fantastic, it talks about going the extra mile. Really great to read if you've got employees and even for yourself. I did read The Four Hour Work Week, which is an interesting read, but I did appreciate its concept of retiring early and the change in mental state around when you have a week, on weekends, consider you are retiring early. I love that. This is a bit cliche, but Brené Brown's Atlas Of The Heart just helped me understand all the different feelings and emotions that I had around starting up, including my frustrations and resilience. There was a fantastic book by Joan Garrett, she's a nurse in the US, called One Life Lost, Millions Gained. It's about how she actually set up a telehealth service for airlines. It goes through her entire journey as a businesswoman. It was worth it. Of course, I watch movies like Founders, Steve Jobs, The Pursuit of Happiness, Joy, there are so many great movies as well. There are amazing podcasts, whatever media you can grab hold of that you align with, I would say learn from as broadly as possible. It doesn't have to be within your industry, but just push out and see how other people have solved problems, because essentially that's what we're all doing.