Skip to main content
Pathway through tress

Published Jun 2025

Deep experience

Deep experience learning communities bring together people with specialist knowledge and experience around shared social enterprise challenges. Participants learn from each other, work through problems and develop practical knowledge and resources that can benefit the wider sector.

Introduction to deep experience

Deep experience communities create opportunities for people with knowledge and experience in a particular area to explore challenges, strengthen practice and develop solutions together.

They bring together different perspectives and expertise, with a shared commitment to learning, collaboration and improving how things are done. These communities often involve regular discussions, agreed ways of working and activities between meetings.

Deep experience activities:

  • Focus on a shared area of social enterprise practice or challenge.
  • Bring together people with different perspectives, knowledge and specialist experience.
  • Build trust and relationships that support open discussion and knowledge sharing.
  • Explore problems, exchange ideas and learn from each other's experiences.
  • Work together to develop practical guidance, tools, resources and new approaches.
  • Share insights and learning to strengthen practice across the wider sector.
  • Contribute knowledge and perspectives that can inform broader sector conversations and decisions.

Global examples

Deep experience communities exist in different forms around the world. Examples include the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, Settlement Engagement and Transition Support Community of Practice (SETSCoP), and National Disability Services Community of Practice.

Deep experience learning communities

  • A group of people gathered by a riverside in a city park, listening to a seated speaker with buildings and a bridge in the background.

    BlackCard: Understanding and respecting cultural protocols

    First Nations

    BlackCard brought together First Nations leaders, Elders, and guides from across the Continent to share challenges and insights on strengthening relationships between First Nations peoples/communities and the Australian social enterprise sector.

    Learn more
  • Illustration of people of different ages and abilities collaboratively building and framing structures, highlighting teamwork, creativity, and inclusion in a shared space.

    morgan&co: Ethical storytelling for social change

    This learning community brought together ethical storytelling practitioners and social enterprises from different spaces and places across the country, who are doing good work in the margins. The purpose was to convene a space of solidarity to share learnings and lived experiences, develop good practice together, and co-develop resources for broader sharing to build the capability of the Australian social enterprise sector.

    Learn more
  • A choir of older adults stands in a garden, singing from sheet music while a conductor leads the group in an outdoor performance or rehearsal.

    Linkwest: Staying in place

    This learning community brought together neighbourhood and community resource centres leading a place-based, community-led social enterprise response to meeting the needs of older residents in regional Western Australian communities. The ‘staying in place’ social enterprise approach is running well in several locations. These organisations are well-placed to share their journeys with other organisations seeking to make a similar social enterprise transition.

    Learn more
  • Students sit at round tables in a classroom, smiling and engaged in discussion during a collaborative learning or workshop session.

    Future Minds Network: Youth engagement and pathways

    This learning community was for social enterprises that wanted to support young people to grow, lead, and thrive. Together, participants connected, developed, and shared practical strategies to meaningfully engage youth - from onboarding, training, feedback, shaping ideas, and building real pathways for change.

    Learn more
  • An adult emu walks through a dry, golden field followed by a group of chicks, with trees lining the horizon in the background.

    Sefa Partnerships: Rural and remote funding landscape

    This learning community brought together a group of rural and remote leaders working to deliver social impact; and a group of funders wanting to support social impact in rural and remote Australia. From experiences of frustration, it looked for opportunities to increase the flow of funding across Australia’s diverse geographies.

    Learn more
  • A wooden A-frame sign with a black chalkboard circle displaying the handwritten message "WORKING TOWARDS A CIRCULAR ECONOMY," placed on a sidewalk near a black tiled wall.

    Green Collect: Circular economy

    This learning community was for social enterprises working in the circular economy. It was a space to connect, learn and lead a fair and inclusive transition. It explored shared challenges, grew our collective understanding, and strengthened the sector’s voice in shaping circular solutions.

    Learn more
  • Colourful abstract illustration of a circular landscape with buildings, nature, people, and rivers, symbolising interconnected communities, growth, and regenera

    PermaQueer: Orienting Futures

    Orienting Futures was a learning community for people working in social enterprise who wanted to explore new and better ways of doing things. It looked at how to care for people and the planet, understand power and systems, and learnt how to make real, lasting change — all while supporting emerging culturally and ecologically responsive practice in the social enterprise sector.

    Learn more
Two circular portraits on a light grey background with abstract curved shapes and teal arrows. Christina Chun, Chief Product Officer, is pictured smiling at the top left against a coral background. Kate Kutty, Engagement Lead, is pictured at the bottom right against a cream background with an orange circular border.

We’d love to hear from you!

Understorey is shaped by the people and organisations across Australia. Have suggestions, ideas or resources to share? Get in touch and help us make Understorey more useful, relevant and accessible for everyone.

Get in touch