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If there is one thing we’ve learnt in Tanzania, it’s that dealing with poverty in Africa is complicated. We arrived full of energy and passion, ready to contribute and make a difference. But the more you learn and experience, the more you realise that it’s going to take a lot more than that. Read more
Last week I launched a new marketing tool kit for the not-for-profit sector in partnership with the Australian Marketing Institute. I’ve spent the last two years working on it with a team of not-for-profit marketers, which has given me time to reflect on why so many not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises don’t appear to value marketing, when it offers such an important opportunity to increase social impact. Is it that they just haven’t had time to think about it? Or is marketing a dirty word? Read more
One of the most popular tweets at the RMIT Global Shifts social enterprise conference in Melbourne last December was along the lines of “the best way to start a social enterprise is to just go and do it”.
There is a lot to be said for ‘just doing it’. Social entrepreneurs by nature are people who have a big idea, take a risk and don’t give up. But ‘just doing it’ without appropriate planning and strategy is a dangerous approach. Read more
“Transcend parochialism” caught my eye before I read the first sentence of Ben Hecht’s recent blog ‘Collaboration is the New Competition’ in the Harvard Business Review. His argument is simple and makes amazing sense: collaboration – whatever sector you work in – has collective impact that individual competitors cannot match. Read more
Over December we wanted to share case studies of social innovation and community engagement that we’ve been involved with to inspire local change-makers and their organisations to embrace new ways of addressing disadvantage and injustice. Our next story centres on a food co-op in a housing estate. Read more