Room for All
The Inclusion in Hospitality Podcast
Welcome to Room for All – the podcast where we dive deep into the world of inclusive employment and explore the power of creating opportunities for people with disabilities.
Andrea Comastri, CEO and co-founder of Hotel Etico, Australia’s first not for profit social enterprise hotel and Saraya O’Connell, General Manager of Hotel Etico. will be your hosts as they talk about the importance of breaking down barriers in the workplace with a particular focus on hospitality and other customer facing roles, and how businesses can lead the charge toward inclusion.
At Hotel Etico, we believe that everyone deserves a fair chance to succeed, and we’ve made it our mission to not only provide jobs but to build meaningful careers for people with disabilities. On this podcast, we’ll be sharing success stories, best practices, and inspiring conversations with industry leaders from the hospitality sector, disability sector, other social enterprises, philanthropy and of course our own trainees graduates and staff.
Whether you’re a business owner, an advocate for inclusion, or someone curious about the future of work, this podcast is for you.
So come and join us at Hotel Etico, or as we call it…the Hotel California for the heart. A place where once you have checked in…your heart will never never leave!”
So, let’s get started and open the doors for all.
Room for All
Room for All - S1 E6 - Sally McGeoch, Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE)
Exploring Social Enterprise with Sally McGeoch - Inclusion in Hospitality Podcast
Join hosts Andrea Comastri and Saraya O'Connell on the Room for All - Inclusion in Hospitality podcast as they welcome special guest Sally McGeoch. In this episode, Sally shares her inspiring journey from growing up in a family business committed to inclusive employment to becoming a Senior Advisor at Westpac Foundation. Learn about her work supporting social enterprises, including her involvement with the Bread and Butter Project and her ongoing PhD research on collaboration and scale in the sector. Discover the impactful initiatives of the Westpac Foundation and get insights into the challenges and opportunities for work integration social enterprises. Whether you're passionate about social impact or curious about the future of inclusive business models, this episode has something for you!
00:00 Introduction and Host Banter
02:20 Introducing the Guest: Sally McGeoch
03:32 Sally's Background and Early Influences
05:29 Career Path and Social Enterprise Involvement
10:29 Westpac Foundation's Mission and Impact
18:15 Challenges and Successes in Social Enterprise
25:11 Collaborative Efforts and Future Goals
31:28 Collaborative Practices and Ecosystem Growth
32:08 Streat's Strategic Shift and Purpose Precinct
33:37 Whitebox's Payment by Outcomes Initiative
35:49 Challenges and Successes in Social Enterprise Models
38:33 Jigsaw's Collaborative Approach
45:11 Future Prospects and Personal Reflections
56:56 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
_____________________________________________________________
Westpac Foundation - https://www.westpacfoundation.com.au/
Social Outfit - https://thesocialoutfit.org/
Bread and Butter Project - https://thebreadandbutterproject.com/
White Box Enterprises - https://whiteboxenterprises.com.au/
Streat - https://streat.com.au/
Jigsaw - https://jigsawaustralia.com.au/
Andrea: OK And we're rolling.
Saraya: Second time.
Andrea: We are rolling. Welcome back to the studio of Room for All, the Inclusion in Hospitality podcast. My name is Andrea Comastri and I'm here with my fantastic co host Saraya O'Connell.
Saraya: Hi, how are you?
Andrea: I'm very good. Very energized today.
Saraya: You are actually. Yeah.
Andrea: Yes. I don't know. don't know. We'll see.
Saraya: How many coffees have you had?
Andrea: No, actually I've only had two, which is half of what I normally have. So no, yeah.
Saraya: How many Red Bulls?
Andrea: None.
Saraya: It's a good day then.
Andrea: But we might need one for working on the floor tonight of the restaurant. So, um, we'll see how that goes. But
Saraya: I've had four.
Andrea: You've had four?
Saraya: Four. My limit is usually two.
Andrea: Okay. Okay, we'll see how that works out. Um, so we are here today with a fantastic, um, guest, friend of Hotel Etico. Um, Sally, Sally McGeoch How are you?
Sally: I'm great. Thanks, Andrea.
Andrea: You are. Giggly, another giggly one.
Saraya: And looking fab, I really do love the top.
Sally: Thank you.
Saraya: I loved the one you wore the other night
Sally: I needed to coordinate with the library.
Andrea: Yes, yes. For the blush. That's right, like the velvet look.
Sally: Yes.
Saraya: I love it. I kind of want to touch it, I'm not going to lie.
Andrea: We actually send instructions to our guests on what not to wear, what to wear. So, um, yes,
Saraya: I don't read them.
Andrea: You often, you often wear green.
Sally: I do. I love green and I've got the green earrings to match. Eucalypt leaves.
Andrea: Nice. The other night you were wearing.
Saraya: That was good. That jacket you wore the other day. I was so jealous.
Andrea: Green sequence jacket. Is that a social outfit?
Sally: Yep.
Andrea: You are completely sponsored by Social Outfit.
Sally: I know, know, I'm a social enterprise fangirl.
Andrea: Very good. Yeah, that's what the topic is today. Um, so before we get into that, Sally, tell us a little bit more about who is Sally?
Sally: Well, I think when I tell my story, I like to go back to my childhood, if that's okay, we'll let it go there.
Andrea: You haven't started the timer, so that's fine.
Sally: Um, just because I grew up in a family business. Um, my parents ran a wholesale plant nursery on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Saraya: Brisbane, the place to be?
Sally: Yes.
Andrea: So you're a Queenslander?
Sally: Uh, yeah, I lived there for quite some time.
Andrea: Okay.
Sally: And, um, Um, the plant nursery, um, was a wholesale plant nursery, so we used to grow plants there. And, um, I grew up there from about age eight. Um, and my dad and mom, um, were very passionate about inclusive employment in their nursery.
And they actually had, um, a relationship with the local special school. And, uh, used to employ a lot of young people with disability in the nursery. I actually called my dad last night saying, you know, over those years, how many people did you actually employ? And he said, Oh, I think over 20. And, um,
Andrea: quick, let's do an impact report.
Sally: And one of the women that worked there, I think she was there for about 30 years. Yeah. So I think, um, Social enterprise is a little bit in my blood because I, I sort of saw this inclusion in my own family business. And then my dad was quite entrepreneurial as well. Um, one of his initiatives was partnering with the Brisbane gaol and they wanted to set up a nursery inside the gaol. And so he developed a partnership with the women's gaol and would train them in horticulture and they would grow the plants and we would buy them back. And they also had a partnership with HELP, uh, which is a disability organisation in Brisbane. And they helped set that nursery up, which is still going today.
Andrea: Wow.
Sally: So, yeah, I think I always was really interested in social impact and how you could achieve that through business. But took a more traditional career path. So studied sort Um, business and communications, um, traveled quite a lot when I was young, but was very much drawn back to how I could create impact in, in, in a role. And my first sort of not for profit role. Um, was with Oxfam in Sydney and then I got started. I started getting quite interested in, in social enterprise and joined the school for social entrepreneurs when that got started in, in Sydney back in 2008, was there for seven years and saw probably about
Andrea: Oh, you were working there?
Sally: Yeah. Yeah. I would've seen about 300 different social entrepreneurs come through the school in that time, and some of them. Uh, kind of household names in the social enterprise sector, um, now. So, um, who gives a crap, Simon Griffith was one of the students that, so yeah, I saw a huge diversity of, um, of different types of enterprise models. And my role was specifically to kind of support the school, to bring in corporate partnerships and to help the school to grow. And also to network the individual social entrepreneurs in terms of access to support and funding. And it was when I was at an event at Westpac that I was chatting to some of the colleagues there and I was actually managing a business sort of relationship between the school for social entrepreneurs and Westpac. And there was a maternity leave role that came up and asked if I'd be interested. And I was kind of interested to get, get back into the corporate sector cause I'd spent some time there earlier in my career and, um, see what I could do from the inside of a business to support social enterprise and
Andrea: Trojan horse. That's what I used to call myself.
Sally: Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. Cause, um. It's like a kid in a candy shop going into a big corporation when you've come from a very much small startup, not for profit. And yeah, so that's been my mission since I've been at the foundation to try and unlock all these amazing opportunities.
Andrea: So what, five or six years now?
Sally: Actually I'm going on 10 years at Westpac Foundation.
Saraya: Project manager, what's your official title at Westpac Foundation?
Sally: Uh, the official title is Senior Advisor.
Saraya: Senior Advisor.
Sally: Yeah, so my colleague Lisa Waldron and I are sort of 1. 3 FTE.
Andrea: Okay.
Sally: Um, and between us we sort of manage all of the grant programs and the capacity building programs.
Andrea: It's incredible how much you do.
Saraya: Yeah, it is.
Andrea: Just in that little amount of time.
Saraya: Yeah.
Andrea: Official paid amount of time.
Sally: Yeah. Yeah, no, but we, we absolutely love what we do there.
Andrea: You're just, you are the household name in the social enterprise space. Like just everyone.
Saraya: So the theme of today is obviously social enterprise and, and that will cover a lot. But Andrea, do you want to use your metaphor for those that don't know what a social enterprise is?
Andrea: Well, let's see what Sally,
Saraya: yeah, let's see what Sally comes up with.
Andrea: Like what's, what's the, what is a social enterprise? What's, uh, You can't quote the, the, the, the podcast that you've listened to, but no, that's, that's something, the definition that you've heard before.
Saraya: Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a business that, um, operates like any other business, but it, it's driven by, um, a mission to, yeah, create a more sustainable world through, yeah, focusing on people and planet.
Andrea: Yeah, yes.
Sally: Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting cause there's lots of different definitions, but I think that focus on putting people on planet first is, is really important. Um, but yeah, I think there's just so much diversity in the social enterprise space. You don't want to be too tight with your definition.
Andrea: That's why when I heard, you know, um, the, the definition of the example of it's a baby between a business and a company.
Sally: I think that's a great one too.
Andrea: really what we are and people can connect with it quite easily. But I can see a pattern here already in very few episodes that we've had where our guests love what they do and inclusion and social enterprises. Because of how they grew up and what, what happened in their childhood with their parents. I remember Scott telling the story about his mom and dad.
Saraya: But that episode hasn't dropped yet. So, oh, I suppose it would go before this.
Andrea: Doesn't matter.
Saraya: Um, yeah, Mariella too.
Andrea: Yeah. So everyone, obviously the imprinting that you get as a child.
Sally: Absolutely. And I don't think I realised until sort of 10 years ago. I was like, Oh, that's right. But our family business, we did this stuff. But Like hat term social enterprise was
Saraya: So different for me.
I didn't have any disability until I was 15. No, no experience whatsoever. So completely different for me.
Andrea: Yeah, but the, the spirit of helping others, I don't know. That's, that's sort of, that seems to be a bit of a pattern. Um, and, um, and so your role at Westpac Foundation, we said what it is. Um, so, um, yeah, do you want to tell us a little bit more about what does Westpac Foundation do within this space?
Sally: Thanks. Sure. Well, I mean, for those that aren't familiar with it, it's a philanthropic organization. We sort of sit within Westpac, but we're separate charitable entity. We have our own separate board. Um, and it was actually started 150 years ago, uh, by Thomas Buckland who had a thousand pound bonus. And he actually used that bonus and invested that and, um, started paying financial hardship grants. Uh, to families where the Westpac employee had passed away, so to help their, um, wives and the children. Um, and we still actually provide those grants today.
Andrea: Wow.
Sally: Uh, so there's a team member, um, that works on those financial hardship grants. Um, but then over the years, the, um, mission expanded. Um, and then probably for the last 20 years, it's been very much exclusively focused on social enterprise. And then probably maybe 10 years on work integration, social enterprises, which are social enterprises that exist to create employment and training for people that face barriers to employment. And we were so focused on this mission of supporting WISE, work integration, social enterprises, that we set a target that we wanted to support our social enterprise partners to create 10, 000 jobs by 2030.
Saraya: How are we going?
Sally: Well, we just. You smashed it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're like, okay, we're going to re forecast. So we're looking to do that now just to really signal to people that that's our commitment because, um, yeah, I think what Westpac as a bank do and the foundation's done has been very consistent in, in their approach. And so, yeah, people know they can come to us, um, needing support if, if they're a work integration.
Andrea: Right. Okay. Well, 10, 000. That they started. Do you know that they still have a job or how does that, that's really hard to measure, right?
Sally: That is hard to measure. And, um, we've tried not to be too, um, prescriptive about, um, what people measure because obviously impact measurement requires quite a lot of investment. Um, so with all our partners, we just ask them while we're funding them, how many new jobs have you created?
Andrea: I know you asked that.
Sally: Yeah, and it, and it could be a blend. So casual, part time. Full time and then we also ask how many people have actually moved on to other employment while you've supported them Yeah, and that's another outcome.
Andrea: Yeah, which is our core in a way, right? So I always find you know often forms from funders and when we report is we always need to specify They don't continue working with us. We're a pathway.
Sally: Yeah, it's a transition and and that's um,
Saraya: Yeah,
Sally: Also one of our focus areas. So as I said, social enterprise is quite broad, but also work integration, social enterprises is quite a broad sector as well. So you have models where you can have a job for life, uh, or a model, which is like a pathway or transition model. And we tend to focus on those. That's I think just our preference because we want to. be influencing the mainstream job market. Um, so yeah, we, we ask people to count transitions as well. And then we also ask them about employment pathways, cause there's quite a lot of work integration, social enterprises that, um, just run training programs and work readiness for young people, for instance. So they might not be, they might not be employing them. They might be offering them, um, training or even just work experience, unpaid work experience.
Andrea: So we do the lot.
Saraya: Yeah, we do. We're pretty good, but
Andrea: we do the lot.
Saraya: There are some other great social enterprises.
Andrea: Provide employment, pay them from the beginning, train them from the beginning, put them through.
Sally: Best practice
Andrea: I think we are.
Saraya: Yeah, we are.
Andrea: I think we, or at least we strive to.
Sally: Definitely. I think the piece that I love to see is when there's those strong employer relationships. So there's somewhere for them to go. Yes. Um, because there's nothing, you know, the, the sector, you know, there is some criticism, I guess, potentially of wise models if they're setting people up.
Saraya: Yeah.
Sally: For, you know, not having a job after that experience because then they can.
Saraya: And you really do need, for it to be successful and for people to be successful in a career, you really do need those wraparound supports. Like we find it.
Sally: Absolutely.
Saraya: It's really, really hard. Um, we do it. It's amazing. And, and, you know, but yeah, the industry needs to be, On that journey with you, you'll actually meet, you'll meet a lot of our industry partners and our partners on the 10th of December.
Andrea: Yeah, that's right. Uh, yeah. And that support costs money and that's of it, you know, like that's,
Sally: I can talk about that if you want, cause we've done some research.
Andrea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. So, so first, um, so Westpac foundation. There's also other foundations within the group, right? And you're merging them or something? Or that's something happening?
Sally: Yeah, so Westpac, um, has acquired multiple brands of businesses over time. And so we, um, have five foundations. So there's the St. George Foundation, Bank of Melbourne Foundation, Bank SA Foundation. Um, Westpac Foundation, as I mentioned, is the oldest foundation, and then we set up the Westpac Scholars Trust in 2014, um, and that was to celebrate Westpac's 200th birthday, and it was a gift of 100 million from the bank to fund 100 scholarships forever. And you are one of those lucky recipients. Yeah.
Andrea: It's been an amazing experience. So every year, um, uh, there's well,
Sally: there's a 10 social change a year, but overall there's a hundred scholars. Yeah. So we all work in one, one team within, um,
Andrea: what are the other areas? What are the other
Sally: future leaders? Scholarship, Asian exchange, scholarship, young tech. Yeah,
Andrea: the research
Sally: and then there's a, yeah, a research one.
Andrea: Amazing.
Saraya: Yeah, I know you were buzzing.
Andrea: Oh my God. Yes.
Sally: Yeah. It's a fantastic. network
Saraya: Still are buzzing. Like even the wraparound support that you get from the scholarship,
Andrea: I still have a little bit of money to spend actually on my coaching, mentoring and coaching.
Saraya: Good. You need it. it. Maybe you can work on editing skills.
Andrea: Yeah, no, no, they're fine. And it's more like deeper than that. Um, okay. And, but, but now they're sort of somehow merging or.
Sally: Yeah, we just, we're all kind of one team, I guess. Um, within Westpac, uh, so Westpac cover operational costs. And so we have some sort of joint team members that run operations across the foundation and then. Yeah, we have individuals that sort of run the various programs across the foundation.
Andrea: You get support also from the corporate side of Westpac I am assuming
Sally: Yeah, of course. And, you know, uh, yeah. And then we also go into the business and try to find opportunities for our partners as well. So that's something that I've been working on for the past 10 years.
Andrea: Yeah, nice.
Sally: Um, tapping into. whole range of different opportunities. I mean, just to give you one example, um, we have an EAP at Westpac
Andrea: which we use,
Sally: and we thought, why can't we offer that to our community partners? And, um, so we just give them the code and they go, and that's been a huge, huge, huge, um, and that's, you know,
Saraya: It's something that a small organization like us just can't afford. Can never afford. No. Yeah. Never.
Sally: I'm glad you use it.
Saraya: Yeah. We do.
Andrea: We do. We do. We use it to distribute information.
Saraya: Managers.
Andrea: When someone has some problems, we sort of say, look, this is available. Do it. And that we don't know because it's all confidential. So that's great.
Saraya: I love the EAP.
Andrea: It's great to know that we have it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Saraya: They even have, the EAP has like a manager's um, like coaching and stuff.
Sally: There's quite a few different offerings.
Saraya: There's quite a few different offerings on it, yeah.
Andrea: So, and so you talked about the approach really, uh, what are some highlights of your work? Like, what's your thoughts? Apart from us.
Saraya: Yeah, obviously. Well, hang on, wait. How many times have you been here now? Sally, this is your first.
Sally: Well, this is my second stay, but my third visit, because I came for dinner with some friends one time when I was kind of passing through.
Andrea: And then the second time you were holding a paintbrush.
Sally: Yes. We joined the working bee.
Yes. And Justin, uh, my husband changed the doorknob.
Andrea: He tried.
Saraya: Yeah, he tried.
Sally: It took a few hours. And um, we both did some painting of the Academy of Independence.
Saraya: You even did a, um, Mitre 10 run.
Sally: I went and got extra paint. Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah, no, that's very good. We love our working bees. We do them now every six months. And it's a great opportunity.
Saraya: I love that we just roped you into it. Like, so what are you doing tomorrow?
Sally: Well, no, I think I volunteered.
Andrea: Yeah, but you didn't know when you came.
Sally: Oh, no, no, I didn't. But that's part of the beauty of coming to stay.
Andrea: And Justin, um, your partner. Yeah, it was great as well. Great, great attitude. And, um, yeah, fantastic. So, yeah, highlights of your work, apart from us.
Sally: Highlights. Um, well, um, I would say maybe just a couple of examples.
So one of the things that we try to do a lot at Westpac Foundation, we're actually quite a small corporate foundation. And so we really, in terms of distribution of funds. So, um, you know, like it's all relative, I suppose. But, um, yeah, so we award, um, about two and a half million dollars of funding a year. Um, and so we're always looking at ways we can leverage that funding and also, uh, in a sense, crowdsource other funding into our passion area, which is work integration, social enterprise. So we came up, um, with an idea of what if we would create a pooled fund, um, where we invited other foundations to work with us on a single grant round for work integration social enterprises because we know how difficult it is for organizations like Hotel Etico to navigate philanthropy. I mean, Andrea, you're very familiar with philanthropy, but a lot of social enterprises are not. And so they're hunting around and, and, um, yeah, there are a lot of, uh, foundations also don't have open grant rounds because it could be too overwhelming for them or. You know, they, they, they operate in in different ways. Um, yeah, so we were successful in, um, partnering with seven foundations and had some fantastic support from Mint Ellison to set up this collaborative fund. And it was led by Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation in Melbourne. And we, um, raised 4. 7 million that we then gave out in grants to 14 organizations.
Andrea: That's the one that I didn't get.
Saraya: Yeah, I remember.
Sally: Well, there was a reason for that because you were already being funded. Funded by one of the partners. And so we're trying to spread the love.
Andrea: So that wasn't part of the eligibility criteria, but anyway, that's a different conversation, , but it, so is that something that will be repeated?
Sally: Um, yeah, we're working on that now.
Andrea: Nice.
Sally: Yeah, so we're really hoping, um, we'll kick that off again next year.
Andrea: Nice.
Sally: Um, so yeah,
Saraya: I, are we eligible for it?
Andrea: Yeah, well,
Saraya: just checking.
Sally: Should be.
Andrea: I don't know. 'cause we get, yeah,
Saraya: it's very competitive.
Andrea: We don't really get funding anymore from philanthropy, from anyone in philanthropy on an ongoing basis. So. Most likely.
Sally: That's impressive.
Saraya: No.
Andrea: I mean, we still need it. We still need funding.
Saraya: But it becomes a lot harder when you're three to four years older as well.
Sally: Yeah. I guess you enter into a different stage. Um, and so, yeah, people in the philanthropic sector looking at the model now would be going, okay, what opportunity, yeah. Looking at a blend of loan and grant. Um, Yeah. And then
Andrea: on the journey,
Sally: the other highlight, I guess, um, which is relevant to you guys would be the board program.
Saraya: Yes.
Sally: Um, so that's something that I set up about seven years ago. Um, so we support, you know, 70 or 80 different wises, uh, every year. And I was just seeing trends over the years of organizations needing to sort of bring in skilled, um, people to their boards. And at the same time. A lot of Westpac people are super passionate about using their skills in the community, and very senior people want to get some experience in governance. Um, and so we thought, you know, what if we were to kind of combine these two things into an observership offering? Um, we modeled it off the Observer program, which already exists, um, which is a not for profit that matches, um, emerging leaders. Yeah. Great. Um, brilliant. Yeah. That's a great program too. And, uh, but we thought, what could we do within Westpac and we actually partnered with Minter Ellison so we invite, uh, the social enterprises that we support and our broader kind of customer base at Westpac or other, um, networks we have to put in an EOI as a board if you would like an observer. And then we, um, put candidates forward from both Westpac or Mint Ellison. And then it's up to the boards to select, uh, who they would like to have as an observer based on Um, skills gaps potentially in the board, um, that observer then observes the not for profit board for a 12 month period. And they also, um, have access to a sort of a six module training program that we run with future directors.
Andrea: Which you also open up to the charities themselves.
Sally: So we realized that after a couple of years that the boards were looking for professional development as well. So we said, okay, every, anyone can come along.
Andrea: Brilliant. It's a brilliant program.
Sally: So, yeah. It's just been so. Fantastic to see, um, some of those observers convert into director opportunities.
Andrea: How
Sally: often does that happen? Is that a. I think it, it, it's hard to track to be honest, but I would say potentially up to 40 percent stay on as a director or as a strategic advisor, because obviously not all boards are going to have openings for a year. Uh, Um, so what we do see probably more commonly is that they stay on in maybe a subcommittee until an opportunity pops up.
Andrea: Yeah. So yeah, for us it worked really well. Like we have, um, two directors that come from that program and two more observers who are effectively, um, you know, like directors, even though they don't have the legal responsibility. So yeah, it's, it's a great,
Sally: and I mean, I sort of think about things on a bit of an impact. Curve and obviously employees from Westpac coming into a not for profit, they can come and do sort of ad hoc volunteering, but if they come in at that level, then the potential for impact and that kind of. support from Westpac.
Andrea: Yes. Very, very smart. Very, very smart. So talking about work integrated social enterprises, you have done a lot of work, not just from within Westpac, but it's your passion. And so you've done, tell us, tell us what you've done about it.
Sally: Yeah. I mean, one thing that I got involved in, it's probably about 13 13 years years ago. Cause I actually, um, I got involved just before I had my second daughter, which is that she's 13 now, but, um, a friend of mine, um, Paul Allam who ran the Bourke street bakery.
Andrea: Yeah.
Saraya: Oh my God. I love that.
Sally: Was really thinking deeply about how he could employ more refugees. He was already employing a lot of refugees through his, uh, retail bakery chain. Um, and he'd sort of said to me once, Oh, you know, what, what would it look like to have a wholesale bakery? Employee refugees and I said, well, that's a social enterprise. He's like, what's that? So I said, don't worry. I I've got all the contacts. I'll help you out. And, and, uh, so I, when I went on maternity leave, I just sort of basically sat at my computer full time. Luckily Evie slept very well. We called her baby easy.
Saraya: And she was your second?
Sally: Yeah.
Saraya: I always say the second is the most challenging.
Sally: Oh no, she was a breeze. Yeah, she gloats about that quite a lot.
Andrea: Our second was the opposite, yeah.
Sally: Yeah, so I sort of connected them. Actually, they had a connection with the law firm to get the DGR, but I was able to connect them to a lot of different funding opportunities, including the Westpac Foundation before I worked there.
Andrea: Right.
Sally: Yeah, and so Bread and Butter Project was born and yeah, they celebrated their 10th anniversary last year. just saw a linkedIn post from them this morning to say they'd celebrated, um, their hundredth trainee.
Saraya: That's great.
Sally: Um, yeah, it's interesting if we want to kind of reflect on some of the challenges of work integration, social enterprises. Cause I remember back when we were doing the business plan in you know, 2011, 2012, um, Um, we were going to be self sustaining in 18 months. They, I mean, they're very proudly, uh, are 90 percent self funded now, but yeah, it's taken 10 years. Um, but yeah, they're, they're definitely a fantastic social enterprise that are doing great work.
Andrea: And then, and then you started researching.
Sally: Yeah. So, I mean, that was sort of my own personal kind of passion, passion project for a long time. Um, and then, yeah, while I was working at Westpac foundation, supporting a portfolio of, you know, 50, 60 social enterprises, um, you know, you start to see patterns emerging and, um, you know, one of the, one of the things that I obvious patterns that we see, which we just touched on before was, um, just how challenging it, challenging it is to scale. Um, because of these impact costs at work integration, social enterprises have, which are the costs of all the wraparound support. Um, and so, yeah, you're thinking about scale a lot. And, um, I also think about collaboration a lot because sitting in a business environment, there's so much potential to work with social enterprise. And then government also holds the keys to some extent, which we can talk about to sort of unlocking a lot of value. And scale with social enterprise. So I wanted to do something around collaboration and to what extent collaboration supports work integration, social enterprises to scale. And so I started to talk to Dr. Joe Barraket who's on our board at Westpac foundation and who I'd done a master's program with 20 years earlier. said, you know, how would I pursue this? And she was like, Oh, you can do a PhD. I was like, Oh no, that sounds too intense. But then she sort of said, no, no, it's like you can do a practice based PhD. So you sort of can do it on your work while you're working. I thought, okay, yeah, that, that would be fantastic. Cause I can just work with enterprises that I'm already working with and sort of study them as we go. And so. the methodology She's
Andrea: So she's using us.
Saraya: Yeah.
Sally: No, no, no. I actually, uh, worked with three case studies. So, um, one was Jigsaw, which is a disability enterprise Streat who are hospitality enterprise in Victoria and white box enterprises who run a number of
Andrea: So you picked three little ones. Wow.
Sally: I was actually looking for, um, social enterprises that, um, Already engaging in collaboration and had a bit of a view around collaboration, not just to scale, but to create systems change, to change some of the. Blockages that are impeding social enterprises to scale around policy.
Saraya: Streat is great We actually visited the street when we went to Melbourne.
Sally: They're amazing.
Saraya: Yeah. I mean, the other two are too. Don't get me wrong.
Sally: Yeah, no, streets been, yeah, they're also over 10 years old.
Andrea: I just wonder whether there is any social enterprise out there that exists that Sally doesn't know.
Sally: Oh, I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are.
Saraya: I don't think so. You know every social enterprise.
Sally: I do try to get out and visit a lot of them though. That's, yeah, it's my hobby. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea: What have you learnt, or what are we going to learn from the PhDs?
Sally: Uh, I'm working on my draft, so yeah, I'm kind of towards the end now.
Andrea: So any sneak peek on the executive summary that we will get?
Sally: Yeah, look, I mean, I can give you a couple of high level insights if that's of interest. So I think what I've learnt, um, through this process is, um, we, when we think about scale, we're focusing a lot on Um, and when you think about, you know, supporting an individual social enterprise, uh, to solve a complex problem, as great as that will be, it will only get us so far. Um, and I'm more interested in, in. What's kind of referred to as ecosystem growth. So how we can reach scale, uh, and solve kind of complex problems by working together. Um, so I've been sort of playing around with those ideas and thinking, okay, well, when, uh, enterprises. work together and then work with other sectors, uh, we can really achieve that kind of ecosystem growth. Um, and yeah, I guess if, if we want to pick up on the Streat example, um, you know, I studied their collaborative practice over almost a three year period. Um, and you know, they, a very strategic in, in how they operate. Um, when I came in to do the research, they were working on their 2040 strategy and they,
Andrea: Then COVID, happened
Sally: Oh well COVID happened a bit before that, but they basically said, you know, we've worked for 10 years, we've changed thousands of lives, but we haven't changed the system yet. Um, so they sort of flip their model, um, from focusing primarily on organizational growth to more. system scaling or ecosystem growth and one of the, I guess, uh, key projects that they've pursued through that is, uh, the new Purpose Precinct in Melbourne. So they're bringing in social enterprises from all across Victoria. So I think they're hoping to have 80 different social enterprises retailing.
Andrea: That's in the markets, right?
Sally: Yeah, from one hub, um, out of the Queen Victoria markets. Um, and by doing that, they're building the capability of these smaller regional social enterprises. They're giving them that market opportunity. They're creating so much visibility around social enterprise in Victoria. They're engaging the public in, you know, conscious consumerism. Um, they're doing some amazing, amazing things in the markets around circular economy and reducing waste. So these kinds of projects that bring in a whole range of social enterprises and partner across. Business and government, um, you know, really exciting. So yeah, that's, I guess one of the things that I've been looking at.
Andrea: So, yeah. So street is very much that sort of hub, um, sort of enabler in Victoria, probably the equivalent in Queensland is white box. I suppose, even though it doesn't work nationally. And is Jigsaw doing a similar thing in New South Wales or probably they've added?
Sally: Yeah. So, I mean, if I can just mention the white box. So I looked at. They're different kind of system scaling approaches. And with Whitebox, the project I focused on was what they call their PBO, which is short for payment by outcomes. And so that's quite a game changing initiative when you think about what they're trying to do there, which is to partner with government. To get payments to social enterprises for the outcomes that they creating. Cause that's the key problem with scale for social enterprises. They're helping as in the case with Hotel Etico. People with disabilities, uh, to then go on and get that employment, but if they went through a job service provider or dis, you know, disability service provider, they would get a payment for that placement, but social, but social enterprises are not, um, so they're saving the government a lot and they're not actually getting recognised for all that value. And so the outcomes trial that Whitebox ran was, um, to trial. Um, payments to social enterprises at different milestones, um, and then they overlaid that with an impact study to look at, well, what's the comparative difference between, um, a social enterprise approach compared to a traditional disability service provider approach. And the statistics are pretty impressive, like they were getting 70 percent of people with disability, um, you know, staying in work after 52 weeks compared to like 26%. Yeah. Yeah. And so they're building the evidence base. For social enterprise and for systemic change,
Andrea: we tried to be involved in the sort of second round.
Saraya: Our model is a bit different.
Andrea: Our model is, is too complicated to fit into any government um, regulated sort of thing.
Sally: Yeah, but I mean, that's, that's one trial. There'll be other models and I'm really hoping that they'll be Different models develop.
Andrea: The great sort of, um, uh, validating thing is that by looking at the statistics that were published, um, we are matching them if not exceeding them.
Sally: Yeah. Well, that's great to have a benchmark, isn't it?
Andrea: That's right. Even without being part of that. Obviously
Saraya: the, the government payments would be great though.
Andrea: Yeah, that's right. The difference with us, the difference with us that sort of affected the participation in the program was the living component. Because it's work. Focused. Mm-Hmm. Um, the fact that we provide that, um,
Saraya: independent living,
Andrea: living, independent living component meant that a lot of our efforts don't go and just don't go, just don't just go into the work bit, but into the living. Which then affects positively the work. And so the results are achieved despite, say, the number of hours that our trainees work less than what the minimum was required in that program. And so we're achieving in a different way. So I know that there's other researchers coming out.
Sally: You can just have your own. outcomes trial when you get a bit bigger.
Andrea: Yeah, no, the problem, yeah, the problem is convincing, convincing, uh, government to pay us. But I think, you know, so it would be great to sort of put it forward as a, as an alternative, you know, there's, there's many different ways of doing it. And in addition to the.
Saraya: There's no one solution fits all either.
Andrea: No, in addition to the independence that come from the work, um, uh, side of things is the independent living skills that people with disability, especially, uh, struggling.
Sally: That's such a critical piece in your impact model.
Saraya: Yeah, it is. And, and I think where
Andrea: it's hard to measure, but
Saraya: it's, we're a lot, I think, or know that we're a lot more successful because we have that live in program, like we're so invested in our trainees. Um, that we, like. Even the model in Italy, for example, their program runs over three, four years. Yeah. Because they, um,
Andrea: they don't have the NDIS that has allowed them to support.
Saraya: There's not as much wrap wraparound support in Italy. Um, so like our. Yeah, so the one year for us, um, although we've had people that probably won't even need a year and some that need longer. So we're very individualized in that way, which is very hard to measure, although we've got quite a lot of reports.
Andrea: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we couldn't have made it more complicated to be honest, because we've just, we basically put everything in. Right. There's nothing missing.
Saraya: But the success and the outcomes that we have. Uh, pretty amazing. What are we? 82 percent this week?
Andrea: Yes. Yes. Uh, obviously in terms of the 52 weeks, I mean, some of them have just come out. Yeah,
Sally: 82 percent of your graduates transition.
Saraya: Yes, but that includes.
Andrea: That, so that includes those that started it, um, in the first year and we are in intake right now. So we've had three intakes that graduated. Um, so the ones that just graduated was like two months ago. So, but the first six have maintained their jobs or changed to another job and all the other 11 in the first group, most of them have got jobs. So yeah. Yeah.
Sally: That's actually quite similar to Jigsaw as well. They have, I think it's about 80, 85%.
Andrea: Yeah.
Saraya: Jigsaw, we've got, um, One of our trainees came from Jigsaw. We, we refer both ways to Jigsaw.
Andrea: Jigsaw's been critical to our, to our birth as well. Like, uh, um, Laura helped us register for the NDIS. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't know, we didn't know what we were doing. So, uh.
Sally: And, and yeah, they're doing really interesting things in the scale sense as well. Cause we've been supporting them pretty much since they set up. Um, and they had a goal to have five hubs, um, um. I think they've supported like a thousand trainees now. Um, but then, um, I think when it came to scale, they thought, well, we could create more hubs, but that's actually a lot of risk for the organization. What if we were to partner with other disability service organizations and basically share our model?
Saraya: Yeah.
Sally: Which for me is fascinating when you think about the commercial world. Like sharing your IP comes at a cost, right? but they're basically handing over their IP to these other organizations,
Saraya: which is amazing.
Sally: You know, there's a, uh, sort of a management fee to cover Jigsaw's time to sort of. Um, share the model and they, they get very involved in supporting these organizations, training the staff, um, giving them all the policies and processes, uh, but then, yeah, it's really up to that organization to then develop. And so they've got two, um, they call them kind of partner hubs now. Um,
Saraya: I will say this in the disability space to have that is amazing. Because when I worked, um, for a big organization, a disability organization, um, there was no sharing of anything. Like it was just so closed off. Like, you know, You go to one, one organization,
Sally: they're all competing,
Saraya: they're all competing. They're starting to really shift now that it's all about collaboration. So for Jigsaw to do that and to partner with the right organizations, it's really amazing.
Andrea: Yeah. But I think Jigsaw is a bit of an outlier. Um, I know that we all talk about collaboration, but it is a very competitive space and competing for funding, competing for airspace, competing for the limelight. It's very competitive.
Sally: And that's how, that's kind of at the root of.
Andrea: Yeah.
Sally: The issue, isn't it? Yeah. How do you sort of shift that? And so I think about that from a funding perspective. How do you break that down so organizations aren't in competition, feel like they're in competition with each other and kind of can collaborate and work together because we, There's no way we're going to be able to solve inclusion of people with disability, unless we all work together. So that's sort of,
Saraya: we work really, really closely with all things equal in Melbourne. So, um,
Sally: They are one of our partners too.
Saraya: Yeah.
Andrea: Um, see, I think, I know maybe I'm dreaming, but I actually think that we will get to the point ourselves where we won't need any support. So the, the business that we're in will generate sufficient money to be its own funder.
Saraya: It's the scale that comes with that.
Andrea: So even the gap of, of funding for the wraparound support, I can see, I can see that, uh,
Saraya: Well, you've seen it.
Andrea: Two 80 room hotels generates sufficient money. I mean, look at, look at Song Hotel, right? right? John Ackary one of our directors, general manager of Song Hotel. Song Hotel is a social enterprise hotel that is owned by the YWCA. They generate, I think, 5 million a year for the YWCA. Now, they don't provide wraparound support.
Sally: I wonder how many beneficiary employees they have in them.
Andrea: They don't.
Sally: Oh, okay.
Andrea: They don't. Not in the hotel. Not in the hotel. It's a different business model. It's a different business model. Ah, okay.
Sally: It's not a WISE
Andrea: It's not a WISE it's just a profit center for YWCA, right? So of course they've got maximum productivity. We have a lesser productivity built into our model. But between zero and five million dollars, there's a lot of gap. There's a lot of space. I truly believe that it is possible.
Saraya: It's about the business model
Andrea: It's about the getting there that it needs a lot of support.
Sally: Yeah, and that's what I was saying with the bread and butter project. It can take 10 years. It can take a while. I mean, there's some models that, you know, are scaling quicker depending on the market that they're in. Um, yeah. So, but hospitality is tough.
Andrea: Um, yeah, hospitality in itself, but hotels is a different thing. Accommodation is different. It's not F& B, F& B, forget about it, F& B by itself, forget about it. Um, but accommodation, it's actually a very attractive business. Um, so, and something that will always be needed.
Saraya: Yeah, wherever you go. So why can't there be a hotel Etico everywhere?
Andrea: I'm very. Hopeful that, um, not just hopeful. I'm very clear on the fact that
Saraya: But you've seen it. You saw it in Spain when you went over
Andrea: Spain, the Ilunion hotels. Um, I mean, they're 85 years old, but, um, they just, they make like 1. 3 billion a year.
Sally: Yeah. The social enterprises in Europe,
Andrea: but they run. The Spanish Lotto, they've got the license from the government, which they apparently inherited from the Franco regime. So a bit questionable, uh, but you know, historical. They run the lotto, so it's the Ilunion Lotto, or no, actually the Once Lotto. Once is even above Ilunion which is the, um, oh, okay. And it's an organization, it's a charity that was born to support people with vision impairment.
Saraya: What what were their statistics when you walked in?
Andrea: It was, uh, 80%, 80%. Some of the hotels, 80 percent of their staff have a disability. Overall, I think about 40%, but they employ like 40, 000 people across Spain. It's just insane.
Saraya: It's unbelievable.
Andrea: It's insane. Uh, they don't do the training. I mean, they do training as in you train your employees, but they, they don't have that living component of training. It's, it's a very different thing. It's a big business.
Saraya: Different model.
Andrea: But, um, and I don't know that we necessarily want to do that. be that, but that it is possible. So, um, we just need to run the lotto, not win the lotto. the lot.
Saraya: But Winning winning the lotto might also help. I've been playing. I'm not getting anywhere.
Andrea: For us or for yourself? You can start one of those foundations like, um, like the Westpac guy.
Saraya: Depends how much money I win, I might be retired.
Andrea: It's my dream actually.
Sally: Yeah, well you could create a Hotel Etico foundation.
Andrea: Yes, it needs money. Um, so you talked about the finding, findings, um, what does the future look like for Wise? Do you think it's, it's a good model or, I mean,
Sally: I think it's a challenging model, um, as it currently stands, but there's a lot of positive signs, I believe. So for those that aren't kind of in the social enterprise bubble, um, there was some really positive signs from the federal government in the last couple of budgets. And so there's some funding flowing into the sector, um, in the form of capacity building grants and potentially more outcomes. Funding. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, we're going to chip away and I think it's all about building that evidence base, um, to show how effective social enterprises are, um, so that we can get access to some form of government funding. It's hard to be too prescriptive about that because it's, it's quite complicated how social enterprises could kind of plug into the employment services system. Um, and then there's, yeah, a lot of, um, potential with business. And consumers as well as we build these brands and people are just drawn to supporting things that have, have an impact in society. I think the next generation is really looking for those opportunities. So I think, yeah, I think, I think we're on a really positive track, but we do need to work together to kind of, um, share Yeah. Best practice and, um, get involved in projects where we can show government, um,
Andrea: And lots of failures as well, that, that it will happen, you know, people will trip over, things will fall like, yeah, I mean, like any business, I suppose, right? Not every business goes for 200 years. Like,
Sally: no, yeah. And I think it's also being clever about where the future of work's headed. Um, and what industries are going to be well suited to the people that we're looking to sort of get into work and, um, positioning social enterprises in that, that sweet spot.
Andrea: You also work with Australian Special Analytics. Yes.
Sally: Yeah. So, I mean, they're probably an example of someone that's positioned themselves really well for scale because, um, they picked a cohort to work with, uh, who have superpowers in, uh, Data analytics and pattern recognition. Um, so that's young people with neurodiversity and then they've built a business around geospatial mapping and have been able to then attract really significant contracts with government and business. So they've grown really quickly.
Andrea: Geoff the CEO just won the Queensland Australian of the year. So congratulations.
Sally: Yes, congratulations. Jeff.
Andrea: Um, fantastic young, you know,
Saraya: there's some, there are really, really great leaders.
Sally: There are, he's amazing. Yeah.
Saraya: They're, they're very good to learn from. I, when I, I did the Westpac, um, management leadership coaching.
Sally: Oh yes. Our peer coaching course.
Saraya: That was really, really good. Um, and there's some great leaders that I still catch up with all the time. Yeah, in that space. That's what we love to do is actually. We don't need to. Give you leadership content. We just need to connect you in the same room with a good facilitator and help you just share and build that sort of social capital across.
Andrea: I'm very proud of how far Saraya has come since she started. I mean, she didn't know what a social enterprise was when she started.
Saraya: No, I had to Google it before my interview.
Andrea: So the first. It's, uh, just, you know, a year or so. She came around with me to meetings and stuff. You need to know this, you need to know this person. This is what it is. Now she knows more than me. She knows more people than me, she's very well connected
Sally: Go Saraya.
Andrea: No true, honestly. Who were talking about it in the car yesterday said, If I was to completely drop out of the,
Saraya: which will not happen, please,
Andrea: um, would you be able to run? I think you would. I think you would be ready to run the place,
Sally: People would help her wherever she felt she needed help. So yeah, you don't have to be perfect at everything,
Saraya: but it's not going to happen. No, I am perfect is what you're trying to say. No, that's not going to happen.
Andrea: Watch my back now.
Saraya: No, no, no, no, no.
Andrea: I think the, the, the reason why.
Sally: It's a super good point. Succession planning and social enterprises.
Andrea: Yeah, I think we're pretty much there in terms of your ability to take over. And as we scale, we need that, you know, like as well.
Saraya: I did feel a very good walking into the room the other day. Cause I, I, when we were talking about it in the car the other day, I was like, Like, I was so nervous when I walked into the social enterprise space only when I, like you literally, I went to everything to learn and yeah, but the other day when I walked in, I was very confident. I knew most of the room, 60 percent of the room and stuff. So I was talking to everybody and yeah,
Andrea: not only, not only social enterprise, but philanthropy as well and now corporates as well. So yeah. Yeah,
Saraya: you're very good at grant writing though. So you've got to stick around for that one. Cause grant writing is not my thing.
Andrea: I need to keep up the
Saraya: credit, the
Andrea: grant getting. Yeah, but yeah, pretty pretty good. Uh, and what's in store for you? Coming up
Sally: short term and long term, well, as yeah, we discussed the PHD kind of hopefully in the final few months, max six months. Um, and so
Andrea: PHD times, so stretched
Sally: well, it's just, I, I'm really not sure what to expect depends how many changes I need to make, but, um, yeah, so. I will have a little capacity then to think about other things, you know, other than work.
Saraya: And children, you do also have a family.
Sally: I'm sort of, um, thinking about my parents and how I can help them with their business. So they had the wholesale nursery and then, um, I feel like it's 15 or 20 years ago they bought a rural property near Toowoomba. It was a dairy farm and they've converted it into a beautiful tree farm. They grow advanced. Uh, native trees, um, they grow them up to like seven meters and then they dig them up with these huge tree spades and send them around. And, um, they're like, it's a great business. Like I set them up as a B Corp a few years ago. So cause mom's very passionate about. Sustainability. Um, so yeah, they're now in their eighties.
Andrea: So, okay. So you're going to, be a tree farmer
Sally: I'm going to go up and give them a hand every now and then. and then. Um, yeah, I've
Saraya: just avoided in summer.
Sally: Yeah. Oh, it's actually quite cool where they are. They're in the ranges. Uh, yeah. Um, so yeah, I think I'm just at that acknowledging that I'm at that stage now and my kids can kind of. You know, fend for themselves to some extent, um, and I can maybe do a bit more visiting to my parents.
Saraya: A bit more traveling?
Sally: Yeah, it's been a bit hard to, to visit them with a PhD every weekend for the last however many years.
Saraya: How many years has it, have you been doing it?
Sally: Uh, well, because I've been doing it part time, when I finish next year will have been six years. Wow. So, yeah. That's a long time. It's been a long journey. Yeah,
Andrea: wow.
Sally: Yeah.
Saraya: I was, Andrea and I had a conversation about it yesterday. Cause I was looking up a master's and I was like three, three and a half years for part time, that's a long time.
Sally: They can vary a lot. And yeah.
Andrea: Sally is the right person to talk to.
Saraya: Yeah, I should. I'll talk to you about it afterward.
Andrea: Off microphone. Yeah, let's not talk about it.
Sally: But yeah, so I think helping out mom and dad and yeah, just seeing what else I can get involved in from a social enterprise perspective. Um, yeah. Cause bread and butter, that was a purely volunteer thing I did for, I don't know, like a long time, five years.
Saraya: So if you're in Sydney, Bread and Butter, need to look it up now.
Andrea: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So great.
Saraya: And also her outfit, social outfit. Social outfit.
Sally: Yes. Yeah. So maybe I'll do a bit more volunteering. We'll see.
Andrea: You're still on, are you on the board?
Sally: I'm um, a co founder, a founding member. But no, I'm not on the board. Yeah.
Andrea: And Camilla's still there, right?
Sally: Oh, sorry, social outfit. You're asking not Bread and Butter. Uh, yeah, Camilla stepped in for a little bit. Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah. Stepped out and then stepped, or wanted to step out, but she's really still there.
Sally: Stepped back in for a little bit. Yeah, no social outfit. I'm not, um, involved in the social outfit. You just thought you were talking about that.
Saraya: Support them about buying a jacket. Okay. Okay. Do you want to explain what a social outfit does?
Sally: Uh, absolutely. Um, cause they're one of my, um, Um, personal kind of favorites, um, because they work in the, well, I think I've just, they've also been around for 10 years and an old work colleague when I was at the school for social entrepreneurs, set it up. Um, and yeah, as Jackie Ruddick set it up. Um, and yeah, so I kind of have been a big supporter for 10 years, but they work with migrant and refugee women. Um, in a fashion retail social enterprise. But the cool thing is. The fashion is all made from sort of donated fabrics, uh, from some of the top fashion houses, like, um, Bianca Spender is one of their supporters, um, but they're quite quirky, their clothes, which I love, um, like my sort of green glitter bomber jacket.
Saraya: I'm a big fan. I'm a huge fan of them.
Sally: Um, yeah. And so they really kind of got that dual message around the fashion. Supporting women into employment because, yeah, pretty much all of the women that come in to work as retail trainees or as sewers, um, have not had a job in Australia and we all know that for, for refugee women. You know, you can get unemployed for a long time if you don't get that first bit of, um, local work experience.
Andrea: And are they a pathway themselves? So they find jobs?
Sally: Yeah, yeah. So they actually transition. They are small, but yeah, they, they're, they're mighty. They do a lot of work in transitioning. I think they've had, yeah, I think they got to a thousand trainees and a hundred jobs this year. Um, yeah. Yeah. And then the sustainability thing is a strong focus. So, uh, the, they're, they actually advocate a lot on importance of sustainable fashion and, um, you know, cause there's a big problem with fashion waste globally.
Saraya: I, um, donated a lot on the weekend. I went through my wardrobe.
Andrea: And you probably bought just as much.
Saraya: I don't know what you're talking about. There's a reason I do, but yeah, I, um, there is a lot of, yeah, a lot, like I donated five.
Andrea: Five what?
Saraya: Giant bags.
Andrea: Oh my goodness.
Saraya: And yeah,
Andrea: but you, but you buy a lot from op shop. So
Saraya: I'm a, I'm a circular economy. I only buy new if it's something like I desperately need. And then I, yeah. And it, but like, The girls here, like we all share.
Andrea: Instead, I buy something and just wear it for 15 years.
Sally: You could have a costume up here one weekend.
Saraya: We, the girls and I do. So I accidentally the other day bought two of something accidentally. Um, so Soph and I now have matching and then the girls, whenever we go to events or anything like we, we do, it's,
Andrea: we've had Thread together, um, last year, um, and give away clothes. From, um, Tommy Hilfiger to the disability community trainees and so on. So yeah, it was something.
Saraya: So to buy the social outfit online or they have a storefront?
Sally: Both.
Saraya: Both.
Sally: Yeah. So the storefront is in King street, Newtown. Yep. And yeah, obviously available online.
Andrea: And I've told you that I've studied with Camilla, right?
Sally: Yes.
Andrea: That was a special year, obviously, you know, great vintage. The CEO of social. Outfit In Italy,
Saraya: you studied.
Andrea: We found out after we studied, but we didn't know each other. We found out here in Australia through LinkedIn that we actually did the same course, same time graduated on the same day. In Italy graduation's a little bit different.
Saraya: And then you both moved here and started social enterprise as leaders.
Andrea: And we both thought she went through Africa, but yeah, uh, and then started social enterprise as leaders.
Saraya: Now you are both Amazing.
Andrea: Yeah. I know. Right. What a vintage. What a vintage. That's for the year. Alright, all right. I think we'll probably wrap it up. Anything else from you, Sally, to add?
Sally: Just that I'm excited to be here for my third night and I'm looking forward to the live music. live music. Alright.
Saraya: Another special treat for you is that Andrea and I are both working the floor. So you'll see Andrea
waiting.
Sally: I'll ask Justin to order a complicated cocktail.
Saraya: No, no, no. I'm behind the bar. Don't do that. Andrea can't do that.
Sally: He loves playing guitar. So we might want to answer. jump up.
Saraya: We're excited to have you. Uh, no, no. Lona told me before.
Andrea: Okay.
Saraya: It's a great band. Great band.
Andrea: We got on the dance floor the last couple of weeks. So yeah, when I was, if it's danceable I'll definitely do it. I need some exercise today. To get my energies out. Sally, it's been a great, great pleasure and honour.
Sally: Oh no.
Andrea: You are the goddess of social enterprises in Australia.
Sally: I think I've just been around a long time.
Andrea: But yeah, which means you are like a repository of huge information of social enterprises. So, and you're doing a lot, you're enabling a lot of people.
Saraya: The Westpac Foundation does a lot.
Andrea: Westpac in general, but Sally in particular.
Saraya: Yeah, both.
Andrea: Yes.
Saraya: But yes, Sally in particular.
Andrea: Until the next Westpac person sits here and then we've said the same. No, you, you guys, you're an amazing team. Amazing, amazing team. So thank you. Very grateful personally. Very grateful as, as, as Hotel Etico. We're very grateful as Room for All. Thanks for coming. Enjoy the rest of the night, the, the, this weekend and see you online.
Sally: Thanks guys. Any more doors to paint this weekend?
Saraya: Yes, actually there's a list. I can get you the maintenance list. Don't you worry. I'll get it for you.
Sally: Before I check out.
Andrea: And as for us, let's keep making room for all.
Saraya: And keep fighting for inclusion.
