Alex Hooke On Social Procurement Growing Businesses For Good And Driving Value For Communities

Alex Hooke is the Executive Director of Advocacy and Engagement at Social Traders.

In his role, Alex oversees certification for social enterprises, data and impact measurement as well as relationships with philanthropy and government in efforts to grow the social enterprise sector and social procurement movement nationally.

Alex forges partnerships, advocates for policy changes, and builds networks that empower social enterprises to thrive. His experience and expertise in the sector, coupled with a deep commitment to social change through founding his own social enterprises, gives him a unique perspective on unlocking business for good.

Alex discusses how social enterprise certification helps government and corporates to invest in businesses driving community impact, and why entrepreneurs must avoid duplicating ideas and instead collaborate with fellow changemakers to spark change.

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

[Tom Allen] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led to your passion for social enterprise?

[Alex Hooke] - I had a bit of a zigzagging path to social enterprise which I've found is not uncommon after meeting and talking to people within the sector. Really, my journey began while I was studying a Masters of International Relations.

I came across the work of Muhammad Yunus in microfinance and his ideas around economic empowerment. At the time, I thought the best use of my skills, education, and privileged background of living in Australia would be to work in international development to try and create a fairer world.

Yunus’ ideas around using business to bring people out of poverty and to provide fairer, accessible opportunities really resonated with me. The ideas I was learning in my master's degree were quite high level and abstract, but I wanted to get more hands on and practical.

I thought that before I head off into the world and try to teach people about how to run a small business, I better just make sure that I could run a small business. The best way to know is to give it a go, so I moved to New South Wales where a friend of mine had a business idea.

My friend and I ended up creating a small community hub, where we retrofitted shipping containers and put them into the car park of an unused commercial building. We renovated the commercial building and sublet it out to small creative businesses who would otherwise have just been working from their garages.

We created a bit of a community hub and ran that business together, but I also worked for the university in Wollongong and ran some of their hospitality businesses. I now had this business and hospitality experience, so after a few years I started thinking, “what’s next?”

I went onto doing an MBA, and as part of my MBA, I was looking for a capstone research project. This led me to discovering an organisation called Social Traders who were running a conference, so I flew down to Melbourne to go to the conference.

Similarly to my previous experiences, I thought, ‘I love this concept of social enterprise.’ It included everything I was looking for regarding my ideas around economic empowerment.

Before I head off thinking I could contribute to the social enterprise sector, I wanted to just check and see if I could run one myself. I sold out of the business in New South Wales when I found there was great policy and government intent in Victoria, so it seemed like the right place to try and start a social enterprise.

I moved from New South Wales to Victoria when I was introduced to a council out in the Western suburbs who were looking for someone to run some social enterprises. We put a plan together and ended up being awarded that tender to start a café and catering business out in the Western suburbs of Melbourne.

With these businesses we were bringing youth trainees through programs in partnership with the local youth hub, which had a range of different services. That was my first foray into social enterprise, and from running one I learned a huge amount. The key takeaway for me was it's a lot easier to run a mainstream business than a social enterprise.

That was how I got into the sector, and after a few years of running that social enterprise, the trainees eventually made me redundant by being able to run the place themselves!

I eventually saw a job with Social Traders in Queensland and jumped at the opportunity to move to Queensland. This was both for this professional opportunity as well as for family reasons, so I became the first employee with Social Traders in Queensland.

As the Executive Director of Advocacy & Engagement at Social Traders, what have you observed about the social procurement landscape in Australia and why should social enterprises become certified?

There are huge opportunities for social procurement in so many businesses. A lot of first-time entrepreneurs might be only thinking in the B-to-C space (business to consumer), and sometimes that space has great opportunities.

However, there is a whole other world some people aren't as exposed to, the B-to-B space. With business to business or business to government work, the contracts can sometimes be a lot larger. There might even be more consistent opportunities for work, and it's a different market for social entrepreneurs and enterprises to try and access.

This is a huge opportunity, because nearly one trillion dollars a year is spent in this industry in Australia. Being able to net a proportion of that for your business through those larger, more consistent, and maybe even longer-term contracts can be a real gamechanger for your business.

This was certainly my experience in running businesses. While we did have a B-to-C arm (a café), it was really the catering contracts and those larger purchases that helped us bring more people through our programs and into employment.

In terms of reasons for certification, what we are finding is more corporates and government agencies are looking to deliver more community and environmental benefits with every dollar they spend. In addition, consumers often make decisions based on how much they resonate with a brand and its social impact elements.

By certifying as a social enterprise, what organisations can do is quickly identify who is creating genuine impact and who could be prioritised to receive funding and easily and quickly deliver social benefits.

Certification is also being used across a whole range of different areas now. While it started initially to be a flag for social procurement, it's also being used in grant processes and as a general identifier and way to define and showcase the social enterprise sector while generating more attention.

What advice would you give to governments and corporates who are seeking to create the best outcomes when it comes to their procurement?

Bringing social value into the decision-making process is critical. It's also in their self-interest, so it's not just about doing the right thing, although that's often how people end up in the social enterprise community.

For government, delivering additional community benefits will also reduce the costs for government over time, and it's another way of delivering community cohesion, inclusion, and benefits.

Overall, you’re getting more value for spending your dollars with social enterprises when you are also taking social value into consideration. That's really my main piece of advice, build social value into your decision-making processes, and this is important for governments and corporates.

As I said before, consumers are voting with the dollars that they spend, and they want to see corporates build community and do the right thing by their customers and stakeholders. This also includes their staff, and this is also a great staff engagement tool.

When it comes to the Australian business for good movement, what are the next steps we can take to tackle social, cultural, and environmental problems while growing the movement sustainably?

I think the important part is to continue to build on what has happened in the past and continue to push the movement forward.

I have heard on past episodes of the Impact Boom podcast this idea of working together around the same cause areas and not duplicating work that's already being done. That's important for any aspiring social entrepreneur listening to remember.

If you've got a business idea or a solution for a difficult problem that you would like to build, have a good look around first to see who else are already doing the things you want to do. See how you can leverage and build on that progress rather than just duplicating and rebuilding something from scratch.

I think this is the main opportunity, for us to supercharge, improve, and iterate on the past efforts which are now driving the movement. On one hand, I did start a social enterprise from scratch, but I do think it's important to bring more social enterprises together to work on the same problems.

More collaboration and a united approach is required, because if we come together and scale our organisations and efforts, then we're going to be much more effective in the long run.

Rather than chasing perfection, we need to be moving for progress in the social enterprise movement. We're competing for space in the eyes of government, corporates, and the wider community.

It's a busy, distracting world we live in. Coming together with coherent messages and coordinated approaches is fundamental to supercharging this movement.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently creating a positive change?

There's a bit of recency bias in this recommendation, but it was fantastic to see Geoffrey Smith nominated for Queensland Australian of the Year for what he's done with Australian Spatial Analytics.

ASA have been mentioned quite a bit over the last couple of years in the social enterprise space, but I do think they're worth pointing out as an important demonstration of what can be done in this space.

They're working in spatial analytics, an area where you wouldn't have historically thought of social enterprises operating. They're breaking down multiple barriers and stigmas, one around even being a social enterprise, but also the stigmas surrounding what's possible when working with people with disability.

The way they've been able to scale quickly and grab the attention of the wider market is an important demonstration for us to continue to point to and support.

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

One of the books that influenced my zigzagging career and getting into this space early on was Freakonomics. I would've read that book in my late teens to early twenties, and it taught me how to think differently and look at trends, numbers, and economics in a different way. It broadened my thinking and it was quite influential on the professional direction I took.

The other critical resource I’ve loved listening to over the years, especially during my early years of working in Queensland, is the Impact Boom podcast. It helped me get an idea of what other people are doing in the sector and who/what is already in the market.

The Impact Boom podcast is a library of inspiring stories, and one of my favourite podcasts or Impact Boom interviews was an inspiring conversation you had with a guest. I've ended up connecting with that person over the last couple of years, and we have had some great conversations and attended similar forums.

Often when new staff start working at Social Traders, I direct them to the library of Impact Boom interview. It's worth diving back into the archives, as while some things have changed there are also a surprising amount that remains the same with the challenges the sector is facing.