Social Enterprise for Wellbeing and Mental Health

Presentation by Associate Professor Jo BarraketThe Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies

Jo.barraket@qut.edu.au

Aims

• A definition and review of social enterprise activity• A quick look at the health and wellbeing impacts of

community-focused social enterprises

Defining social enterprise (from FASES)

• Social enterprises are organisations that:– Are led by an economic, social, cultural, or

environmental mission consistent with a public or community benefit;

– Trade to fulfil their mission;– Derive a substantial portion of their income from

trade; and– Reinvest the majority of their profit/surplus in the

fulfilment of their mission.

Types of Social Enterprise

• Charitable trading ventures• Cooperative and community-owned businesses• Intermediate Labour Market enterprises• ‘New start’ social enterprises

Industries in Which Social Enterprises Operate

Main Mission of Participating Social Enterprises

Targeted Beneficiaries

Barraket and Archer Study

• Looked at impacts of community enterprise on individual and collective wellbeing

• Based on:– Literature review– Online survey (N=66)– In-depth interviews with 10 enterprises (N=21)– Case studies of 4 enterprises– Workshops with 22 practitioners

Findings

• Economic participation– Most strongly emphasised– Individual participation through training and

employment creation or bridging– Area participation through retention of services,

employment and economic flows in local economy

– Prevailing theme: the social context for economic participation

– Tension: market demands vs member/participant needs

Findings (cont’d)

• Social Participation– Strong emphasis on bridging social capital.

There has been a whole lot of social benefit out of it from a whole series of people involved; there has been a series of networks developed between young people and older people…we had a number of working bees where people; the kids who worked on their part of the project and the people who had worked in [the

theatre] 30 years ago, were in the same place at the same time, so that interaction was really good.

– Emphasis on social dimensions of the day to day of doing business

Findings (cont’d)

• Civic participation– Much less evidence of individual civic participation

(consistent with European research)– Some evidence of rehabilitation of public/civic spaces

by community enterprise

Acknowledgements

• 600+ research participants• Social Traders and Westpac Foundation• Victorian Department for Human Services• Victorian Local Governance Association• Dr Verity Archer, Deakin University• Drs Nick Collyer & Heather Anderson, and Matt O’Connor,

QUT