Social Enterprise Australia reports there are now more than 12,000 social enterprises across Australia employing 206,000 people and contributing $21.3 billion to the national economy. With the key aim to keep people and planet at the heart of everything they do, social enterprises change lives for the better.
Melbourne is home to Australia’s first dedicated social enterprise shopping precinct.
Spread across seven shop fronts, The Purpose Precinct at Queen Victoria Market stocks the products from more than 80 Victorian social enterprises and has employed 75 young people since it opened in 2023.
Leading Victorian social enterprises Good Cycles and STREAT developed the precinct in the hope of creating better visibility for the sector.
Good Cycles and STREAT, who both support young Victorians into meaningful employment, and have worked collaboratively to run the precinct. The two enterprises employ young people from their programs to work in the retail and hospitality areas of the precinct.
STREAT co-founder Bec Scott said the precinct created a front door to social enterprise.
“Most social enterprises are small and individually as organisations aren’t big enough to have any kind of significant retail store, so we started to imagine what it would look like if we created a collective in a really public location,” she said.
“At The Purpose Precinct we're able to take a small fledgling social enterprise that might just have one product that they want to test and give them access to potentially ten million visitors through showcasing their wares here.”
STREAT co-founder Bec Scott and The Purpose Precinct General Manager Llawela Forrest. Photo by Mackenzie Archer.
Purpose Precinct General Manager Llawela Forrest said the precinct showcased some of Victoria’s most successful social enterprises, as well as those just starting out.
“Social enterprises exist because they see gaps, they see areas that aren’t being filled,” she said.
“The hybrid model addresses the needs of the community while also trying to create that as a sustainable business model.”
Ms Scott said it was the ‘enterprise’ part of social enterprise that made the model so successful.
“The appeal of social enterprise is the fact that they are real businesses with real jobs,” she said.
“Work Integrated Social Enterprise (WISE) are a specific type focused on creating the right environment for someone to get the support they need and making sure that support extends beyond the social enterprise.
“We exist to work with a cohort that is normally facing barriers, and we’ve got a bunch of extra supports built into the model to do that.”
The Purpose Precinct is located in the 'F' laneway at Queen Victoria Market.
Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Program Manager - Inclusive, Sustainable Economy & Jobs Stephen Torsi said the Foundation had been funding social enterprises for more than 15 years. The Foundation has supported Good Cycles and STREAT, and other social enterprises with products in the precinct such as Moving Feast, Sweet Justice and Green Collect.
“We have seen for a long time the impact that social enterprises have, because they have a traditional business model, but a lot of the time, their purpose is social,” he said.
“WISE are a clever mix of support and employment. They break down some of those barriers that would be there in other cases.
“The traditional standard employment service model is similar in a way, but I think what the social enterprises do is that they're much more rooted in the real world.
“They are giving people a much more rounded understanding of what it takes to succeed in a mainstream workplace.”
Mr Torsi said there was a particular element of sustainability that social enterprises were trying to create for themselves.
“Rather than having to rely on continual grants, the social enterprise model enables the enterprise to grow and increase their trade and become less dependent on granting,” he said.
At The Purpose Precinct, a working kitchen is diversifying the precinct’s revenue streams and fulfilling its circular innovation mission.
Inspired by a similar model in London, the precinct rescues market produce before it becomes waste and turns it into value-added products including jams, sauces, chutneys and preserves before retailing them to the market.
Ms Forrest said the precinct provided a space where consumers could directly engage with social enterprises.
“The key reason why we wanted to have an aggregated marketplace was to provide that shopping experience for the conscious consumer,” she said.
“They know that every single product at the precinct is made by completely legitimate enterprises that are contributing the majority of its profits to its mission or cause.”
Article written by Mackenzie Archer.