Building and Strengthening Rural Social Enterprise Networks

This webinar explores how rural social enterprises can strengthen their impact through network-building and co-design, including:

• Why place-based networks are vital for overcoming isolation, scale, and resource challenges.
• How the Local Leads model supports locally embedded leadership and peer connection.
• The importance of designing networks that reflect rural strengths, diversity, and lived experience.
• How collaboration, shared procurement, and trust-based funding can unlock regional potential.
• Opportunities to join the co-design of a national Rural Social Enterprise Network, led by ACRE, SENVIC and MAKE Studios.
• Practical tips for inclusive engagement, governance, and building trust in rural communities.

Show notes and quotes

Meg Allan: “Reframing metrics is always a great thing to do when you're working in rural communities. Another principle out of the Rural Social Enterprise Manifesto is to co-design the metrics of success with rural people so that it exists within their context.”

“... those barriers we face in rural communities do impact our ability to scale and be sustainable as enterprises, and then to create the impact that we want to. Through a networked and collaborative approach, you could carve out a niche and an area to exist within the broader market.”

“It seems to be a very common theme to keep your door open…and invite people through the whole conversation.”

Ishani Chattopadhyay: “We've always been a network of networks. We cannot be everywhere all at the same time, but it's important for us to listen, hear, learn from, curate and facilitate for all participating members across the state. And the Local Lead model was absolutely beneficial to doing that work.”

“I was aware that I needed to listen and I needed to dig deep into the data, the insights, the feedback, the qualitative, and the quantitative, to get a sense of what's actually happening regionally.”

“I think there's this tremendous shared vision, but in order to operationalise that, there are certain systems that need to exist so that everyone is moving forward. That system is not a replicative system.”

“So my advice, if any, is to have conversations, dig deep, and put all your assumptions to the side.”

Florence Davidson: “The big thing was to get people talking, to have people recognising that what they were doing was valued and valuable. The more we got together, the greater the voice, the greater we were able to amplify the mission and this vision for a more equitable community. We looked at disadvantage through a lens of capability and not a deficit mode.”

“We know that when there are place-based solutions, we get some traction within the community. We start to not only turn around the impact for the people who are participating in the social enterprises but also invite others to expand that network to come and be part of the solution.”

“Where I'd really like to get us to is being part of a collaborative collective voice that allows people to come together, to value-add and to amplify the skills, the qualities and the great product that social enterprises can produce.”

“How do we do business for good that's also good for our business?”

Belinda Morrissey:  “How we can enable the ecosystem to allow social enterprises to thrive. That fundamentally involves collaboration and networks because we see that as the ability to enable the voices of the sector to come to the fore.”

“It's also important to acknowledge that our interest in networks stems from a deep belief in how we understand power and how we in philanthropy, shift and share power. How we show up matters, and how we meet people where they're at matters.”

“Understanding that if we are really to move the dial on social issues, it takes everybody to have a seat at the table, but the social sector has to be supported to have that seat at the table.”

“My role is often to shut up, listen and learn because I don't necessarily have the answers. How is it that we in philanthropy can bring all of our resources and join the dots and act in that really privileged position of network weaver”

Fiona Smith: “Most importantly, we know that the people who have those answers are in the communities themselves. So we're looking at training them and providing them with the tools and resources to work in a way that suits their community.”

“The idea is that it's an emergent process. It's designed for community collaboration, participation and ownership. That's super important because you can have all the great ideas in the world, but unless people who are actually bringing it to life feel like it's theirs and believe in it, things won't work.”

“We're looking at committing to an emergent process, not a specific outcome. This sort of ambiguity can be uncomfortable for some people, and I think it's important to say we're committing to a process that we know works. The fact that we don't say this is exactly how it's going to be at the end is part of the strength of that process. It's not a weakness of it.”

“For co-design to truly work, we need to ask people what they need. We need to listen when they tell us, and we need to be open to being surprised when it doesn't match what we might have thought when we were going in.”

Explore more

• Session slides
• ACRE - call for the co-design of a Rural Social Enterprise Network for Australia
• ACRE - Rural Gathering Manifesto
• SENVIC Local Lead Program
• GrowAbility Nursery
• Murrup
• Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF)
• Global Rural Social Enterprise Network
• Social Enterprise National Strategy
• Department of Employment Workplace Relations (DEWR) Local Jobs Program
• Unlocking Social Procurement Opportunities: Two-part workshop series:
• • Workshop 1
  • Workshop 2