Things are really starting to move on the Co-working, Collaboration and Innovation space that SiiWA is building in collaboration with a growing list of partners at 45 St Georges Terrace now called Spacecubed. Read the full story

(Registration at bottom of page)

One of the key issues many of the Social Entrepreneurs we meet in WA are having is obtaining a clear understanding of what makes them investment ready and the needs of Philanthropists when investing in Social Enterprises, Social Ventures and Social Projects. Access to this early stage advice and feedback on your social enterprise can mean saving you time, effort and resources.

Philanthropist Office Hours provide both traditional Philanthropists and Venture Philanthropists the opportunity to provide this early stage feedback and advice to Social Entrepreneurs and Change Makers. It also introduces them to a range of startup social enterprises in Western Australia that are geared for high social impact.

For Social Entrepreneurs it provides insight and feedback on their project and allows them to bounce ideas off experienced people who have been investing in Social Projects, Ventures and Enterprises. This feedback will provide a solid platform for the Entrepreneur to move their project forward.

The format of Philanthropist Office Hours is -

• 10 minutes for the Entrepreneur to ask questions and test assumptions
• 10 minutes for the Philanthropist to provide feedback and ask questions of their own
• 10 minutes to discuss options, potential and future directions

Some of Western Australia’s leading Philanthropists have registered (as well as many who do not promote their giving publicly) and are willing to provide their time, expertise and knowledge to providing that crucial guidance and feedback to Social Entrepreneurs. We will be conducting the office hours out of the Hub Perth once completed in November but will start the program in early October.

Read the full story

Every night over 110,000 Australians sleep rough. The journey into homelessness is different for everyone but common themes indicate that a lack of affordable housing, increases in domestic violence and spikes in mental illness are the primary reason why more Australians than ever before are falling between the cracks.

This Friday (5^th August) you can make a difference and help raise funds for our local homeless residents. Head to one of the participating CafeSmart Cafes who will donate $1.00 for every coffee sold to CafeSmart. 100% of the money raised by CafeSmart in WA stays in WA and 100% of the collected funds are distributed to those who make it their mission to prevent and assist homelessness in Perth.

A full list of participating cafes can be found here .

Social innovation in Western Australia has partnered with StreetSmart to launch CafeSmart in the 1st week of August Read the full story

Canadian Centre for Social Innovation

One of the key enablers of Social Innovation is the space to create, collaborate and network to bring ideas to life. Read the full story

Small organisations, start-up entrepreneurs and visiting consultants and trainers are all screaming out for workspace in Geraldton that supports their success. The workspace will be : central, affordable, professional, and creative.

Pollinators Inc. are leading this partnership project that aims to have a co-working space operating in central Geraldton in mid-2011.

This space would be run as a ‘social enterprise’ (makes profit, only to re-invest in the mission) provide a full-service office at flexible rates, meeting and workshop facilities, enterprise incubation services, entrepreneurship programs and regular networking and learning sessions.

This space would become the ‘home’ for emerging entrepreneurs and the sort of diverse, sustainable businesses that will be essential to Geraldton’s vision for the future. Innovation will be welcome at the City Hive.

Features of the space

Design

• 50% working space: mostly ‘hot desks’ where you bring your laptop and plug in and with a couple of private offices forenterprises of 2-3 people
• 25% devoted to meeting and workshop spaces, small and large
• Flexible (e.g. movable desks, lighting, power) for events that may take over the whole space
• Stylish, creative, healthy for workers and sustainable. Examples of interiors are viewable online
• Private booths for phone calls
• Casual lounge for reading, dreaming and coffees
• Lockers and storage for your private and valuable gear while you are not at your desk

Facilities

• (soon) the fastest broadband in Australia, including wi-fi coverage for the whole space
• Printers, copiers and landline phone
• White-walls and black-walls (better than white-boards and black-boards!)
• Projector for presentations and movies
• Kitchenette, coffee machine
• Secure bicycle storage
• Toilets

You can find out more and keep track of progress on the City Hive website but there is also the opportunity to contribute to deciding the direction of the space through completing this survey.

Another support infrastructure component for Social Innovation that uses the principals of a technology incubator or social innovation incubator in this case is The Hub. The Hub combines both physical space with online community and in Australia we are getting our first Hub in Melbourne opening in February 2011.

More on The Hub -

We’re a social enterprise with the ambition to inspire and support imaginative and enterprising initiatives for a better world. The Hub is a global community of people from every profession, background and culture working at ‘new frontiers’ to tackle the world’s most pressing social, cultural and environmental challenges.

We believe that there is no absence of good ideas in the world.  The problem is a crisis of access, scale, resources and impact. So it felt vital to create places around the world for accessing space, resources, connections, knowledge, experience and investment.

We’ve been working across five continents and 23 cities to create places for people who change things. This is the ambition. We set out to create places that borrow from the best of a member’s club, an innovation agency, a serviced office and a think-tank to create a very different kind of innovation environment. Places with all the tools and trimmings needed to grow and develop new ventures. Places to access experience, knowledge, finance and markets. And above all, places for experience and encounter, full of diverse people doing amazing things. We call these places Hubs. In many ways we’re just getting started. And we’d like you to be part of it.

David Bagheri from Many Rivers Opportunities will be speaking on our panel about his experience over the last six months in Western Australia as State Manger. Many Rivers Opportunities is an operating microenterprise development organisation that exists to help marginalised Indigenous and other Australians to improve their circumstances through the provision of microenterprise development support, including microfinance.

David has an extensive history in grass roots community development and will be able to contribute his experiences to the event and how he sees Innovative Enterprises such as Many Rivers Opportunities can be supported in WA.

More on Many Rivers Opportunities -

Microenterprise development creates new and diverse job alternatives for people who are capable of running and owning a business, but who are unable to access the formal financial sector due to location, situation and/or circumstance. Microenterprise development benefits the individual and their family, the community and the nation by:

• Supporting and empowering individuals to create new and diverse businesses, thereby increasing household income and assets and providing greater certainty and stability for families;
• Enabling increased availability of locally provided goods and services, particularly in regional and remote locations, helping to build sustainable local economies; and
• Contributing to economic growth through supporting a reduced reliance on welfare and achievement of social improvements, such as health and education.

Hepburn Wind is Australia’s first community-owned wind energy business. Its 1300 members have contributed more than $8.2m towards its capital target. Hepburn Wind was recently profiled on ABC TV’s Inside Business as a model for socially responsible investment in community enterprises. You can watch the video or read the transcript here.

Hepburn Wind shows how organisational innovation drives social innovation. Here, the cooperative model of business allows a community to take real action now, to tackle climate change.

Follow these stories and more on Social Business Australia’s twitter feeds - http://twitter.com/sbanews. SBA exists to help grow the number of social businesses operating in the real economy. New website coming soon: www.socialbusiness.coop