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Social finance in action
23 January 2012
Since SVA’s pivotal role in Australia’s largest social financing deal to date – the Goodstart Early Learning transaction – SVA has been working to identify opportunities to support the expansion of the social finance market in Australia.
While this market is still in the early stages of development in Australia, the SVA Social Finance team is excited to be working with a community healthcare organisation in Melbourne to put social finance into action, helping to meet local community needs through a financing structure aimed at providing investors with both a social purpose outcome and a financial return.
North Yarra Community Health (NYCH) has been providing free or low cost community health and welfare services to disadvantaged sections of its local community for 142 years, having started out in 1869 as the Collingwood and Fitzroy free medical service and dispensary. Strong demand for increased NYCH services in an environment of constrained Government funding led NYCH management to consider alternative methods of financing their social missions. Taking advantage of the gentrification of their local areas, NYCH has identified an opportunity to establish a private GP practice to generate profits to fund NYCH’s community healthcare and welfare work, and is currently seeking start-up funding to set up the practice and cover its costs until it begins to generate profits.
The profitable nature of a private GP practice together with the strong social orientation of NYCH provide a unique social finance investing opportunity and the chance to be involved at the leading edge of developing Australia’s social finance market. NYCH has been researching this opportunity and developing a business plan for over a year, and the SVA Social Finance team has been working with NYCH over recent months to review their plans and develop a suitable social financing structure. The nature of the funding is essentially debt, however tailored to the ability of the enterprise to make repayments, which was not possible through a commercial lender such as a bank.
NYCH has secured a lease for suitable premises for the GP practice and is about to enter the start-up phase of the business in earnest. In addition to continuing to provide its existing healthcare and welfare services, NYCH is intending to provide much-needed additional refugee healthcare services and children’s speech pathology services through the profits generated by the practice.
SVA is now in discussions with a number of potential investors about this exciting opportunity, with the hope of closing a successful social finance transaction as a great start to 2012.
For more information about social finance investing, or how you could invest in this particular opportunity, please contact Ian Learmonth (SVA Executive Director – Social Finance) on 02 8004 6729, or via email on ilearmonth@socialventures.com.au.
Something to sing about
4 January 2012
SVA is delighted to announce the entry of The Song Room into our venture portfolio.
The Song Room is a national non-profit organisation that provides free, tailored, long-term music and arts-based programs for children in disadvantaged and high need communities.
There has been growing recognition by educational leaders that improving educational outcomes is not simply achieved with a focus on numeracy and literacy, but that positive school engagement as well as social and emotional wellbeing are also fundamental building blocks to success. The Song Room’s vision is that all Australian children have the opportunity to participate in music and the arts to enhance their education, personal development and community involvement.
The Song Room delivers its programs to around 250 schools and communities each year and works with over 20,000 children every week. Programs are targeted to schools in the most marginalised communities from every State / Territory of Australia, from the 700,000 children in schools without specialist teachers in the arts.
Programs delivered by The Song Room are based on extensive research and have been demonstrated to not only improve educational and social outcomes for participants, but also help schools sustain their own music and arts programs.
As part of their inclusion in SVA’s venture portfolio, The Song Room will receive strategic assistance and consultancy designed to support them deliver their ambitious growth plans.
Working it Out
13 January 2012
Sitting at the heart of participation in the economy is paid employment. Long-term Indigenous unemployment is at an unacceptably high level 17%* and all the evidence points to the collateral social damage this causes.
While there is general awareness of this disparity and a widespread desire to ‘close the gap,’ a detailed and practical knowledge base of what it takes to successfully transition long-term unemployed Indigenous Australians into sustainable, meaningful employment has been lacking. SVA Consulting and the SVA Employment team recently completed a series of case studies on behalf of non-profit organisation GenerationOne, to illustrate how this can be achieved, and inspire others to engage in this work.
Since its launch in 2008, the Australian Employment Covenant (AEC), sister organisation to GenerationOne, has succeeded in securing commitments for tens of thousands of jobs for Indigenous Australians. However, to date, only a small percentage of these roles have been filled. Together with GenerationOne they realised that to break the cycle of Indigenous unemployment employers need to know how to attract, develop and retain candidates for those roles. They need strategies that work, to get candidates ‘job-ready’ and help them navigate a pathway from employment exclusion to meaningful, sustainable employment – not just a job but a career.
The case studies took the team around Australia to learn from a diverse range of organisations, from Karen Sheldon: a small catering and training organisation based in the NT, through Skill360: a Group Training Organisation in North Queensland, to the Crown entertainment complexes in Melbourne and Perth, Woolworths and ISS: a facilities management company. These are employers who are achieving demonstrable, positive outcomes and were prepared to be open and candid about their experience. Each offered inspiring stories and unique insights, but shared similar foundations that underpinned their success.
Collaboration: drawing on the specialist skills and expertise of aligned partners was common among all of the organisations. Supporting individuals to navigate the labyrinth of service providers and access the support they need requires a joined-up, case management approach. The SVA team talked to many parts of that system, including executives, program managers, employees, job service providers, wider family and community members and other stakeholders. What emerged was not the bleak and hopeless laundry list of barriers to employment with which we’re often confronted. The overwhelming sense was that, yes, success requires that you work very hard (and smart), and devote significant resource but yes, it is definitely worth it – there will be challenges but the benefits to all involved are compelling.
Maria’s story is one of many we heard which are characterised by resilience, determination and the partnership of employee and employer in overcoming challenges. Maria came to Crown, Melbourne as a single mother of two. Early in her employment she was faced with an incident where a co-worker made a rude comment towards her. Strong support from her manager, Wayne, and the understanding and skills of Charles Williams, the Aboriginal Employment Program Manager, meant the issue was addressed quickly, effectively and sensitively, according to Maria’s wishes. Maria was then consulted around the delivery of a session on Indigenous issues to the whole business unit. The negative experience became a chance to educate.
For Maria, the biggest challenge came not from the workplace but from the broader system. Working created additional costs: loss of housing support meant an increase in rent. At the same time she had to fund childcare and transport. All these costs hit in the space of a week. Crown tried to support Maria, changing rosters to minimise childcare and transport costs. They even organised for her to see a financial counsellor, who conceded that she was actually better off financially if she wasn’t working. Maria resigned but at the time of writing was about to start back at Crown. So what changed? It wasn’t the welfare system or the cost of working. Maria’s children actually persuaded her to go back to work – they saw the positive impact that employment had on their mother and simply told her they liked it better that way.
These case studies and the stories they contain provide some clear lessons for employers: the need to invest in pre-employment training aligned to employers’ needs and actually leading to a job; the value of giving job-seekers the opportunity to explore their interests, build from their strengths and test out various roles to find the right fit; the importance of creating a support network which ideally involves and invests family and community in the employee’s success. Already the next steps to ensure this information is effectively shared, used and built on are being discussed. However the most important lesson arising from this piece of work is simple and applies as much to Indigenous job-seekers and employers: ‘it’s not easy but it’s possible, and it’s worth it.’
Read the full case studies ‘Working it out: Case studies of success in transitioning long-term unemployed Indigenous Australians into sustainable employment’.
*Approximately 17 % of very long-term unemployed job seekers are Indigenous people. Source: ‘Investing to Close the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’ Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
Nurturing growth of social enterprise in Queensland
10 January 2012
Finding and keeping a job can feel like an insurmountable obstacle for Australia’s many long-term unemployed. Economic stress, mental illness, poor health, social isolation are some of the common consequences for those who are excluded from the labour market for any protracted period. SVA has long recognised that employment is one of the critical pillars of a healthy society and is committed to supporting organisations working to create opportunities for the long-term unemployed.
SVA is continuing to expand its work supporting social enterprises in Queensland in partnership with the Queensland Social Enterprise Partnership (QSEP), funded by the Queensland Government’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI), providing business and relationship management to 15 growing businesses working in this vital area.
The partnership will also enable SVA to offer investment plus support to up to 10 new social enterprises in Queensland. The selected social enterprises will benefit from practical business support, expertise, training and funding that will assist them to grow and create jobs.
One of these social enterprises supported by SVA is Sandgate Enterprise for Economic Development (SEED). Established by SANDBAG, a community organisation based in Brisbane’s North, SEED is a Parks and Property maintenance service that provides landscape and property maintenance and commercial cleaning. This social enterprise initiative creates job opportunities for people in the community who are excluded from the traditional labour market. The SEED operating model is based on ‘real work, real pay’ for all employees and to date a total of 29 people have been employed with 15 current employees, surpassing their original targets.
From modest beginnings mowing parks for Brisbane City Council, SEED has steadily grown and developed in the last two years and now boasts services which include body corporates and domestic mowing through to large-scale landscape maintenance and street maintenance projects. They have also expanded into office and shopping centre cleaning using greener products. Through quality leadership, hard work and best practice, SEED has flourished. Working with SEED, SVA continues to provide strategic support through QSEP, to assist its successful transition to a fully diversified business, providing job opportunities for locals who would otherwise struggle to find employment.
The partnership between QSEP and SVA is designed to expand SVA’s work supporting social enterprises in Queensland that are creating employment opportunities for people who are excluded from the labour market. SVA is committed to providing targeted support to innovative solutions such as SEED, which have the potential to impact and create positive change on a larger scale.
Taking the guess work out of grantmaking
23 January 2012
Making the decision to give generously to the non-profit sector can deliver enormous and meaningful community benefit. However for many philanthropists deciding where best to direct their funds and which organisations to support can be challenging. This is the point where Fiona Higgins steps in. Managing the SVA grantmaking and evaluation service, she understands these challenges and works with private ancillary fund (PAF) holders to navigate the complexities of the non-profit and philanthropic sectors as they decide which organisations should benefit from their giving.
Explains Fiona, “Questions we’re often asked is ‘How do I go about assessing funding applications or potential grant recipients?’ or ‘What makes a good grant?’ While it’s satisfying to pick philanthropic ‘winners’, there is no definitive formula for grantmaking success.”
Fiona recognises that every organisation is different, even those working in the same sector towards similar ends.
Drawing on her own experience working with many organisations, their projects and proposals over the years, as well as the experience of other experts in the field, she has identified 10 key indicators, the presence of which within an organisation tends to predispose it to success in achieving its objectives. “We recommend people consider these indicators when weighing up a philanthropic opportunity,” she says.
And while these indicators provide a good evaluation framework, Fiona cautions against blindly following a formula without due consideration of the individual circumstances. “Don’t obsess about ticking all the boxes. Like most things in life, there is no ‘silver bullet’ – sometimes an organisation or project can exhibit many or all of these themes, and still fail to meet expectations,” she adds.
When it comes to knowing what makes a good grant proposal, Fiona has some pragmatic advice. “It’s important to recognise that a good grant proposal and a ‘good grant’ are not one and the same. In our experience, while a good funding proposal makes for pleasant reading, a slick application doesn’t always translate into programmatic impact. (In fact, the slicker the application, the more questions we ask.)”
At SVA she advises funders to, wherever possible, ensure they make meaningful personal contact with the decision-makers and ‘on-grounders’ within an agency. Spending time in meetings or site visits, reading an organisation’s annual reports and financial statements, and exploring an organisation’s health in terms of our ‘10 Key Indicators’ can all help to identify red-flags before any funding changes hands.
The 10 key indicators to maximise the impact of philanthropic funding:
- A charismatic and capable leader
- Clarity of purpose
- Execution ability
- Measurement of true impact
- Creation of lasting change
- Active collaboration
- Good communication
- A compelling model
- Built-in reflection time
- The X-factor
For more information about how SVA’s grant making and evaluation service can help you with your grant making process, contact Rachael McLennan on 02 8004 6755, or via email on rmclennan@socialventures.com.au.