Impact Collective was launched pre-Covid in 2019 as a not-for-profit led impact investment initiative for social enterprises. It was a first for WA with collaboration and investment to addressing social and sustainability challenges through impact investing into innovative enterprise models.
Founding members Chorus, Rise and Ruah Community Services worked closely with social entrepreneurs in the first round, and a leveraged investment of $1.5M was made by Impact Collective together with Sefa and Impact Seed into Aboriginal social enterprise, Kardan Construction, to help scale their impact in creating employment pathways and jobs for people experiencing vulnerability and disadvantage into the construction sector
Impact Collective received funding from Lotterywest in 2021 to continue its work with impact ventures, and to share tools, templates and lessons from its work more broadly across the WA community services sector, and we are thrilled to launch our second round Expressions of Interest for social enterprises seeking partnerships and investment.
The Impact Collective uses a 3 phase process to mobilise its resources and support social enterprise development in WA:
Phase 1- Attract: We seek interested entrepreneurs and change-makers through an expressions of interest (EOI) process.
Phase 2- Validate: Successful expressions work with Impact Seed to validate, strengthen and prepare their ideas for potential investment and/or support from the Impact Collective.
Phase 3- Invest: The Impact Collective chooses successful social enterprises from the validation phase for financial investment and on-going support.
The upheaval brought by COVID through 2020 has seen unprecedented demand for support services provided by the not for profit community services sector with many hundreds of thousands of West Australians experiencing vulnerability and disadvantage accessing these services last year. The sector, which employs over 120,000 West Australians in this vital work, is under immense pressure to explore innovative solutions to increased service demand amid funding constraints. The unfolding negative socioeconomic repercussions of COVID has catalysed community demand for a new approach to build back better.
As such, Impact Collective is focussing on supporting impact ventures tackling serious issues which have been exacerbated by the global pandemic, and are facing WA communities, such as the rise in Family and Domestic Violence, the lack of transportation options for older people and people with disabilities, the reported increase in loneliness across the community, as well as upskilling the not-for-profit workforce to respond to the changing needs of the industry.
If you have an impact venture working in any of these areas, or responding in some way to the global pandemic, we want to hear from you!
Have a look at our FAQs (link) for further information.
What’s in it for you?
- Practical one on one and group design, innovation and development support towards commercialisation and investment readiness
- Business modelling, governance, market validation, impact strategy and measurement
- Access to WA leaders and mentors
- Toolkits, resources and engagement frameworks
- Potential access investment to grow your social enterprise from one of the IC members
To submit an EOI in the current open round, please click here.