What is Impact Collective? Impact Collective is a partnership between leading WA community services sector organisations including Chorus, Rise Network and Ruah Community Services, who are utilising their wealth of sector knowledge and financial resources to address complex social issues.
What are Impact Collective’s social impact problem statements?
Impact Collective have several key statements across which, given their organisational missions, Ruah, Rise and Chorus have a shared desire to tackle:
- How might we grow our workforce capability for the future of work, and creating social mobility for our own clients and care workers?
- How might we increase social inclusion and mobility through innovative transport options for older Australians and people living with a disability?
- How can we reduce costs, increase income and/or increase social benefit by increasing availability and/or use of assets for community and clients?
- How do we build the capacity, capability and desire of individuals and neighbours to care about each other to reduce social isolation and loneliness?
How will Impact Collective work to achieve this mission? Impact Collective is working in partnership with Impact Seed, WA’s peak social enterprise and impact investment capacity builder who provides expertise in social enterprise development and capacity building support for social entrepreneurs, to help them ready their enterprises for taking on impact investment. As a member of the Impact Investment WA Alliance, Impact Collective is also part of a broader network of cross sector partners who are working towards growing finance for good, and government policy for social innovation, social enterprise and social procurement.
How will Impact Collective engage? We will be seeking expressions of interest from WA changemakers and social entrepreneurs to identify, incubate and invest in new or existing WA social enterprises that have a system level impact across the social impact areas of the three Collective organisations. This EOI process is open until 17th November 2019 (link below).
How will Impact Collective support great ideas and social enterprises? Shortlisted applicants will have the opportunity to pitch their idea to the Impact Collective panel. Successful applicants will then work through a collaborative design and validation process to ensure the objectives of the social enterprise are best-aligned to support the impact mission and objectives of Impact Collective. Successful applicants will also receive:
- Practical one on one and group design, innovation and development support for their social enterprises towards commercialisation and investment readiness
- Business modelling, governance, market validation, impact strategy and measurement and team structure support
- Access to the network of Impact Collective’s organisational leaders and mentors
- Toolkits, resources and engagement frameworks to support an accelerated path to impact investment readiness , and potential investment to grow their social enterprise in partnership with Impact Collective
What is the impact investment funding amount? This is designed to be an early seed stage social enterprise fund, and applicants will be assessed on their business model, maturity and funding requirement on a case by case basis.
Are there any examples? We are currently working on solutions to the question “How can we reduce costs, increase income and/or increase social benefit by increasing availability and/or use of assets for community and clients?”. Fair Ride is one of the social enterprises we are currently working with, which is piloting a community-driven approach to Ride-Sharing that could leverage Impact Collective’s network of 1000’s of vehicles and community supporters.
How does Fair Ride work? The Fair Ride pilot is currently underway, and will seek high-impact in delivering:
- A fairer Ride-Share Option – lower cost vehicles with no lock-in contracts drivers allowing drivers more ‘choice’
- Accessible Transport – Fair Ride would eventually give community members who cannot easily access mainstream options access to a lower cost transport available after hours and on weekends.
- Better Asset Use – Fair Ride will assist community service NFPs to create efficiencies through better use of their underutilised vehicles and draw additional income, resulting in better service provision.
- Broader Community Support and Profile – Utilisation of larger fleet vehicles for low cost community charter at a competitive market price.
Social isolation and community disengagement are a leading cause of depression and mental health issues for many people who lack transport options. - Through a collaborative approach the Fair Ride initiative seeks to benefit of clients, NFP organisations and the larger community, as well as corporates looking for a socially responsible rideshare alternative.
What are the expectations and principles of working with Impact Collective? Impact Collective’s resources will support social entrepreneurs and changemakers through a collaborative design, validation and development process. The value our organisations add to the social enterprise’s capacity during these phases can be significant, with no expectation of flow-on effect back to Impact Collective. Therefore:
- We will ask that entrepreneurs work with us to spread the story about Impact Collective and the benefit we can add for early stage social enterprises.
- We work with people and organisations that want to create more social good in WA. As such we work together based on principles of goodwill, and in the interests of creating social good, rather than the interests of particular organisations or egos.
- As the MoU we ask you to enter into not legally binding, we operate on principles of trust and respect. We will not share confidential information about your enterprise/idea with others; and we expect that you will not share confidential information about Impact Collective in return.
As a changemaker or social entrepreneur, how will Impact Collective engage with me? We’re committed to transparency, collaboration and authenticity in engaging with our communities. So how does that work?
- If you’re a changemaker that just wants to find a good project to sink your teeth into with a social entrepreneur we’re already collaborating with, then we’d love to hear from you! No strings attached.
- If you’re a changemaker with a partly or fully formed idea for a social enterprise that might support Impact Collective’s mission, we’ll ask you to share your idea and then work with us on the best way to develop it in tandem with others
- If you’re a social entrepreneur with an existing social enterprise that supports Impact Collective’s mission where time and/or financial investment has already been made by you, then we’ll invite you to work with us on a no-obligation, no-fee basis to see if there’s a good fit with our mission.
If I am a successful social enterprise applicant, how will my intellectual property be protected through the collaborative design process? If we progress to investment, then we’ll offer you terms on any investment offered. If we don’t wish to proceed to an investment, the members of Impact Collective have the first right to proceed in their individual capacities. If neither the Impact Collective nor the members wish to proceed with investment in an idea, the intellectual property reverts completely back to you.
Are staff or clients of the Impact Collective member organisations able to participate? Absolutely. Impact Collective is as much an open social innovation process, as it is a social enterprise incubation and collaboration program. Our community is our beating heart, and we know we don’t have all the answers to how to best deliver for you, so please get in touch.