Shifting Ground: First Nations Social Enterprise Circle

About the learning community

First Nations Social Enterprise Circle is a learning and strategy space grounded in, and elevating, custodianship principles of responsibility to community, Country and future generations. It will connect First Nations social enterprise leaders over two days to exchange knowledge, critically examine the challenges confronting their communities and organisations, and collaboratively develop strategies to transform the social enterprise sector by embedding First Nations values and practices.

First Nations Social Enterprise Circle:

• pushes back against systems that have long excluded First Nations voices from the social enterprise space. 
• works to centre First Nations voices in social enterprise and create more opportunities for community-led solutions to thrive. 
• responds to urgent gaps identified in the sector by exploring challenges faced by First Nations enterprises, both profit-for-purpose and non-profit, and the innovative, culturally grounded solutions emerging from their practice and communities.

This initiative aims to develop a Values Framework that embeds First Nations ways of being, doing, and knowing into the wider social enterprise ecosystem. This framework supports long-term structural change that promotes recognition of First Nations solutions and centres economic justice and self-determination.

The work will culminate in the creation of a First Nations Values Map, offering accessible best practice guidance for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations committed to ethical collaboration, economic justice, and community-led change. Together, these tools will help empower First Nations communities to establish and sustain enterprises aligned with their cultural values.

About the convenor

Developed by Dr Lilly Brown (Gumbaynggirr) and Genevieve Grieves (Worimi), Shifting Ground is an Aboriginal-owned and women-led enterprise that supports organisations and individuals from diverse communities, including First Nations peoples, to foster meaningful conversations that connect people’s lived experiences with the broader systems that shape them.

These conversations create safe spaces to develop a critical language and understanding around decolonisation, race, privilege, power and whiteness, cultural safety and intercultural collaboration. They are designed to shape how you think, work, and lead, both personally and professionally, in relation to First Nations people and our shared colonial history and present. By cultivating conscious awareness of power and relationships, Shifting Ground strengthens your capacity to act with purpose on, and navigate the complexities of, issues of culture and race.

How will this learning community work?

First Nations Social Enterprise Circle will be a two-day in-person lab for up to 8 First Nations enterprises, identified through outreach and selected through an EOI process, to share the experiences, challenges, and to share the experiences, challenges, and solutions from their communities and sectors. 

Yarning Circles will form the core of the in-person two-day lab, encouraging deep dialogue and knowledge exchange. 

Shifting ground will also present two online Yarning Circles, bringing together convenors of First Nations learning communities involved in the Social Enterprise Development Initiative. These gathering will foster the exchange of experiences and surface insights from across the participating communities, while exploring the value of peer learning.

Key issues and questions surfaced during these Yarning Circles will inform the development of a First Nations Values Map and detailed report for the sector. 

The Map and the findings reflected in the report will explore the broader implications for the sector and be shared with the social enterprise community.

How to get involved

Shifting Ground will be doing a call out for participant applications in the second half of 2025.

To register your interest to hear more about this learning community please fill in this form or contact info@shiftingground.com.au.