Social Enterprise Finance Australia (Sefa) backs grassroots initiatives working for change in communities. Photo: Supplied.
Community-minded women in the Riverina are being offered a chance to boost their social enterprises or community organisations through a fully funded training program.
Social Enterprise Finance Australia (Sefa) is looking for organisations that support positive outcomes for disadvantaged women in the Riverina/Murray region to join the EmpowerHer: Activating Change Makers program.
Engagement manager Lise Genzo explained that many grassroots, socially oriented businesses qualified for the support.
“There are a lot of people doing really important stuff for the community and they have created small businesses to support First Nations people or women or people with a disability or the whole community,” she said.
“If you’re doing that, and you’re doing good, and you’re making some money or operating as a charity, then you’re a social enterprise, but lots of people don’t realise that that’s essentially what they are.”
First Steps Count Child and Community Centre in Taree has been supported by Sefa. Photo: Supplied.
Ms Genzo said the definition could be applied broadly and Sefa worked with a diverse range of organisations aiming for positive social outcomes.
“We’re working with an organisation at the moment based in the western suburbs of Sydney that is working in schools with vulnerable children and using different therapy dogs,” she explained.
“We worked with another organisation in Northern NSW, where they support 15- to 18-year-olds who are still at school but are not really engaged. They run on-the-job training and help young people get into work or trades, so it’s very practical.”
For the EmpowerHer program, Sefa is prioritising female-owned and operated enterprises and First Nations-owned and operated enterprises in the early stages of operation.
Ms Genzo said it was a chance to acquire the skills and knowledge to transform an aspiring, purpose-led business into a thriving, impactful enterprise.
“If it’s a side hustle, that’s totally fine because that’s the way a lot of community organisations and social enterprises start,” she said.
“As long as you’ve been operating for a while, you’re past the idea stage, and you really want to grow the business, you’ll meet the criteria.”
The program is fully funded by the NSW Government and will be run in partnership with Riverina Community College in Wagga.
“We wanted to choose the right region where the market was big enough, there was enough interest, and it was very important to us to work with a local community education partner.
“We were really trying to avoid being one of those fly-in, fly-out project experiences for local people.”
Delivered over four months between August and November the EmpowerHer program will develop skills and foster connections as well as help participants to communicate how their enterprise generates social and financial value and identify, measure and demonstrate its social impact.
“The important thing about social enterprises is that success is measured by the impact that you make, and that might be with the people that you’re employing, or with the services you’re providing to your community, or the way you’re training and skilling up people,” Ms Genzo said.
“It’s about impact and the difference you want to make in people’s lives.”
Expressions of interest can be submitted until 4 August and you’ll find the program information here.
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