Hello from our CEO: September 2020

Following six months of working almost exclusively from home, the Sefa team is in a good place. We’re grateful for the opportunity to be busy and to continue with our purpose-driven work in these unsettling times.

The full Sefa team has now settled in and we are proud to have attracted an amazing calibre of individuals.

Our newly formed independent investment committee (IC) is working well with the team to take a principle-based and collaborative, yet rigorous, approach to investing in organisations and partnerships. We are delighted to have a broad range of dedicated professionals from a diverse background join us on the IC.

With the key parts of strategy, governance and team in place, we recently took some time out for a deep dive into who we are and why we do what we do. The team developed some work on our three core values (togetherness, integrity and champion – more on these soon). This was followed by a wonderful development day with the Board and IC to nurture personal relationships and embed these values into our behaviours and communication with clients and partners.

With the Social Finance team up to full strength, we have seen our first significant disbursement this year with The Sydney Retreat and loans approved in the education and Indigenous sectors.

Social finance transactions take time and we hope to be able to continue offering loans under the SME Guarantee Scheme's second phase that will allow larger loans and more flexibility on terms. We believe that this is a good opportunity to consider working capital facilities that have historically been under-supplied in the Australian impact investing market.

Sefa is increasingly focusing on fee-for-service as a mechanism to deliver on our purpose. The engagement team, working with Sefa Partnerships, has recently completed our first investment readiness engagement for The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC), working with an Indigenous community health organisation.

Now that all Sefa’s major puzzle pieces are in place, we can forge ahead with our important work. We can make headway, championing purpose-driven organisations and working with investors on purposeful returns. This is keeping us focused during this challenging time and we hope that you have also found renewed purpose for yourself and your organisations.

Stay safe

Hanna Ebeling, CEO