Happy B Corp Month!

We are thrilled to advise that last month, Greatest Good became a Certified B Corporation™ (or B Corp for short). I would like to publicly express my gratitude to  Kathy Joyce  from Good 4 Business. Not only has Kathy committed significant time and insights as an advisory board member on both the strategic and marketing & business development advisory boards, she has been a wise sage as a B Consultant in helping us obtain our B Corp certification, in addition to obtaining her own certification in January. Last week we spent 3 days in regional Victoria at Assembly 2024, with 300 other Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand B Corps.

Since we submitted our application last year and subsequently announced our B Corp certification on socials, we have received lots of questions. So Kathy and I have decided to run a B Corp workshop -  Navigating the path to B Corp Certification.  Whether you are B curious, considering certification, keen to understand the alignment with ESG principles, or just want to learn from practical examples, please register for this  free event.

We have also arranged a email marketing event (see events section, below), with dates for several other events being arranged, so will keep you updated on those as we lock them in.

With some of the advisory board members stepping down at the end of last year, we have been recruiting for replacements and greater diversity across the advisory boards, so we look forward to introducing the new advisory board members over the coming months.

In the meantime, why not check out our  Australian Mother's Day Gift Guide,  which went live last week. Keep an eye our for our socials during March, celebrating B Corp Month, International Women's Day and much more. As always, we always welcome your feedback, so please  reach out to us  if you'd like to share your thoughts on how we can improve (or anything you love about what we do).

Jenni - Founder/Managing Director

Inspiration from our members

• A huge congrats to  Avodah Global,  who has also become a Certified B Corporation™
• The crew at  JAM the label  are celebrating their 5th birthday
• Learn, Grow, Become  have opened their Learn2Learn Lite program up to all students for free
• The team at  Mosaik Experiences  has been selected as one of the 229 firms globally to participate in U-lab 2x 2024
• Pancare Foundation, the parent company of social enterprise  SHOPE - Soap for Hope  has announced their United for Hope walks in May to October 2024

News and updates

For-purpose sector news

Following the Treasurer's Investment Roundtable session on social impact investing in early December, the  Final Report of the Australian Social Impact Investing Taskforce  has been released.

The Federal Government released the  2023 Closing the Gap report  where the Productivity Commission warned that policies meant to improve life for First Nations people will fail without fundamental government changes.

South Pole releases its  Net Zero Report,  finding the majority of companies are actively decreasing their climate communications, known as greenhushing....

Andrew and Nicola Forrest have made their largest donation yet, with a massive $150m donated to a gender equality charity by Minderoo Foundation.

Social Ventures Australia has released their  Impact at Scale  report.

Other news

The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has released a  mental health in the workplace guide  to assist employers to create and maintain a mentally healthy workplace.

AICD/Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre/Ashurst have partnered together to release a  cyber crisis guide  for directors.

Regulatory updates

(the sometimes boring, but always important stuff)

Legislative changes

• Treasury has released its final consultation on the implementation of mandatory climate-related financial disclosures in Australia
• Various  legislative changes  commenced in mid December as part of the Closing Loopholes workplace legislation
• NSW industrial manslaughter laws to be introduced
• The Australian Government released its Interim Response to the 2023 “Safe and Responsible AI in Australia” Consultation
• Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) final report was released recommending changes to both Corporations Act and financial services laws

You can more on these items and other regulatory updates in our monthly regulatory updates and other updates posted on the  Blog Pages  (use the Regulatory Updates filter). We can't provide legal advice but you can find proposed and upcoming legislative changes to discuss with your legal advisers.

Grants and funding

Grants  We are adding grants almost daily to our grants database! Community Engagement and Marketplace members can  log in  to access the grants directory and use the 60+ filters to find relevant grants in seconds. We are updating these regularly so that you always have the latest active grants at hand.

Opportunities to support for-purpose organisations

Events/Courses

We have a few Greatest Good events scheduled, as well as a range of for-purpose events from members and the broader purpose-driven community:

• Navigating the path to B Corp Certification (registrations close 14th March)
• Connecting with your audience using email marketing
• Guided tour of the Greatest Good ecosystem

If there are any topics you'd like to learn more about in 2024, please  contact us  and let us know.

Collaborations - asking for help and offering assistance

Support and free resources

We continue to add free resources on our Collaborate pages. Whether you are an individual looking for information or an purpose-driven organisations seeking free support and resources - we've got you!

So check out the  Collaborate  section of the ecosystem for support and resources to help you or your organisation.