Welcome to the inaugural Greatest Good newsletter!!
Welcome to the first official Greatest Good newsletter. Thanks for being patient with us while we focussed on getting the Greatest Good ecosystem right for you.
We will be sharing our thoughts, news, inspiration, regulatory updates and highlights from the events/courses, paid and volunteer roles and collaboration opportunities with you.
We would love your feedback on what you like, don't like, want to see more of, and anything else you want to tell us, so feel free to reply to this email and let us know your thoughts. As many of you know, the Greatest Good platform was co-designed with input from a range of consumers, for-purpose organisations and service providers to the for-purpose sector. Their input, feedback, comments and suggestions helped to guide the platform functionality. We hope to continue that process by listening to your feedback and making continued progress and improvements in all that we do.
We look forward to helping you to do the greatest good!
Thoughts
We now have many for-purpose organisations on the Greatest Good platform. They are a combination of charities, community groups, for-profit and not-for-profit social enterprises and B Corps.
You may have noticed that you can find more of these organisations by using the Impact Area filters, than by using the UN SDG (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) filters. The reason for this is simple: we want you to be able to rely on us to know there is no impact washing on the platform, so we've raised the bar when doing our due diligence. Unless organisations can prove to us that they are actively monitoring and managing their impact to the underlying UN SDGs targets/sub goals, we won't let them use these filters. That doesn't mean that aren't doing amazing things and creating a better world, it simply means that they aren't actively contributing to the specific targets set by the UN. You can learn more about the UN SDGs here and read more about our approach in this short article.
We plan to work with the for-purpose organisations to help them understand our expectations and to provide some education and insights. Over time, you can expect to see more orgnisations using these filters, but in the meantime, feel free to use the Impact Areas if you would like to find a larger variety of organisations tackling the social and environment issues you care about.
News and updates
Other social sector news
- The Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) was held in Brisbane in late September. If you missed it, or just want a recap, check out this excellent summary from White Box Enterprises
- UBS launches its independent philanthropic arm UBS Optimus Foundation in Australia
- Fundraising laws are under review
- Social Enterprise Australia has launched a marketing playbook to collectively raise the profile of organisations and the entire social enterprise sector. You can find out more about it here. They also have an event on next week discussing the size and economic contribution of social enterprise make (see the Events/Courses section below)
- The ACNC Annual Report has been released
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And, in case you missed it, Patagonia has restructured so that 98% of its stock will be used as a non-profit focussed on the environment, with the remaining 2% used to oversee the company's mission and values
Inspiration from our members
- SisterWorks opened their Crafted Culture cafe at 104 Bridge Road, Richmond and have added a range of yummy food products to the products available on the Greatest Good platform
- Be Hers Founding CEO Melody Towns was interviewed by ABC Breakfast Radio
- Checklist Legal owner Verity celebrated her first full time year running her B Corp certified business and shared her learnings
- Christie Centre received $50,000 in funding from Westpac Foundation.
- Greatest Good (that's us!) has appointed 3 new members to it's advisory board and also appointed a second advisory board focussed solely on marketing and business development to help raise your profiles and showcase the good you are doing. Meet the team
- It's award central at Hotel Etico. They've won Australian Disability Service Award - Most Innovative Employment Program, been chosen as a finalist for the Local Business Awards in the category "Most Outstanding new Business" and their CEO/co-founder, Andrea Comastri has been name as one of the 20 Tomorrow Makers by the AMP Foundation. A huge congratulations!
- Mosaik Experiences had SBS highlight their wellbeing program "Connecting Communities"
- The Dolphin Research Institute is having its final fundraising auction for the year, starting this Saturday 19th and running through until Tuesday 22nd November
Regulatory updates (the sometimes boring, but always important stuff)
It's important to make sure that your organisation stays up to date with both proposed legislative changes, as well as those that have recently been enacted. We can't provide legal advice, but we can give you an overview of some of the things impacting the social sector for you to consider and discuss with your legal advisors.
Director IDs
Deadline to apply: 30 November 2022
More info:
ACCC challenging sustainability and environmental claims
Read more
Other regulatory updates
Greatest Good is a social enterprise that connects conscious consumers with for-purpose organisations.
We are a directory, community and marketplace that helps consumers to find, engage with and support social enterprises, B Corps, charities and other not-for-profit organisations.
