Hello from our CEO • Autumn 2023

After almost three months under our belt, the year is in full swing, and we have had a myriad of activity at Sefa and Sefa Partnerships already.

Much of this was centred around the highly anticipated launch of the Paul Ramsay Foundation’s first Social Enterprise Incubator, focused on growth stage organisations. Following an in-depth screening and interview process, we’re excited to be supporting eight fledging social enterprises  from across Australia - all looking to become more resilient and grow to unlock even greater impact. The highly customised 10-month coaching program resonates with our capability building approach, meeting purpose-driven organisations where they are at and walking besides them on their individual paths.

One of those paths over the past year has been with Miyay Birray, an Indigenous-led youth service in Moree. Together with Sefa’s Engagement Team, they have embarked on the journey of setting up a trades-based social enterprise – ‘Warrama-Li’ (Goomeroi word meaning ‘to build’) . And we received some exciting news last week: Darrel and his team completed their first paid job, with more repairs and maintenance on the Moree Plains’ horizon.

We at Sefa have learned that development paths of purpose-driven organisations are individual. They need a diverse set of capital and capability tools at the right time, and it takes patience and passion to face wicked problems and to create change. That’s the unmasked reality of social impact and impact investing as I see it. In recent years, I have seen the expectations of and public messaging around impact investing heavily shift into a shiny world of fairies and unicorns who live happily ever after. It's time to burst the shiny bubbles and bust some myths.

But before I let you drift off into magic land, from which you will hopefully return for a fruitful exchange on how we can make change happen together… come and meet our new Portfolio Analyst up close. Pavel Stanek is holding the fort on the Social Finance front.

Best wishes for the golden Autumn times,

Hanna