Resource library

A Beginner’s Friendly Guide On How To Conduct Market Research

Guides

This beginner-friendly guide explains how to conduct market research in a clear and practical way. It covers why market research matters, different types and methods you can use, and a simple step-by-step process to help you gather useful information before launching or improving a product or service.

Adaptive leadership: Your tool to lead from any seat

Guides

This guide introduces adaptive leadership, empowering individuals to lead without formal authority. It explores core principles, distinguishing adaptive challenges from technical problems, and practical steps like shifting perspectives, framing challenges, and fostering collaboration. Additional resources and free courses are included.

'A Guide to Outcomes Contracting and Social Impact Bonds', SVA

Guides

This guide by Social Ventures Australia (SVA) shares insights from over a decade of outcomes-based contracting and social impact bonds (SIBs) in Australia. It offers practical advice, key lessons, and policy implications for organisations exploring these funding models.

Amnesty Australia Reconciliation Toolkit

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

The Reconciliation Toolkit is a practical guide from Amnesty International Australia. It helps workplaces and community groups take meaningful steps toward reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The resource explains Australia’s history and the purpose of National Reconciliation Week. It supports users to reflect, learn and act. The Toolkit encourages respectful relationships, cultural understanding and everyday actions that promote fairness and inclusion.

An Introduction to: Community Wealth Building

Guides

This Ethical Fields guide explores community wealth building as a transformative approach to creating equitable, resilient local economies. It highlights principles like local ownership, democratic participation, and wealth redistribution, alongside practical strategies for stakeholders to implement this model in Australia.

Co-creating meaningful work for people with disability

Guides

This toolkit developed by Queensland University of Technology is designed for employers, managers and teams who want to create workplaces where people with disability can thrive, contribute their skills, and build meaningful careers.

Common Approach to Impact Measurement

Guides

This guide from Common Approach explains the basics of measuring social impact in a clear and practical way. It outlines five essential practices that form a minimum standard for impact measurement. The resource helps organisations build simple, consistent systems to track results and improve their work.

Communications Strategy 101

Guides

Learn how to create an effective communications strategy with this practical fact sheet for community organisations. Covering key topics such as audience identification, crafting messages, platform selection, and evaluation, it provides a step-by-step guide with exercises and tips to help community foundations implement and refine their communications efforts.

Community Investment for Australia Co-operatives

Guides

This handbook is a practical guide for communities and practitioners who want to set up a co-operative. It explains how co-operatives can meet local needs, raise funds from members, and build stronger local economies, while working within Australia’s national laws and regulations.

CSIRO Indigenous Seasonal and Cultural Calendars

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

This resource is a practical guide to Indigenous seasonal and cultural calendars across Australia. It explains how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities understand natural cycles, weather patterns, plants and animals on Country. The guide shows how these calendars differ by region and reflect local knowledge. It helps viewers learn about Indigenous ways of observing the environment and caring for land and sea.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) in the Workplace: A Strategic and Actionable Guide

Guides

This Diversity Australia resource provides practical guidance on integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into workplaces. It explores key concepts, outlines benefits like improved culture and business outcomes, and offers strategies for fostering inclusivity. Highlighting leadership's role and the need for ongoing training, it frames DEI as both a moral and strategic imperative, emphasising that building an inclusive workplace requires sustained commitment.

Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL)

Guides

This is a website and workshop tool for companies to engage with Doughnut Economics. It aims to help transform the deep design of a business e.g. ownership and governance, to ensure it can use the strategies, practices and business models needed to help humanity into the Doughnut.

Empathy Mapping Play

Guides

This guide explains how to run an Empathy Mapping exercise to better understand customers’ needs and experiences. It provides step-by-step instructions for preparing and running a session, using real customer data, and turning insights into practical actions to improve products and services.

Financial Management and Governance Guide for Not-for-Profit (NFP) Organisations

Guides

This guide from CPA Australia supports not-for-profit organisations, including social enterprises, to manage their finances effectively. It covers financial management, governance, risk, compliance, and tax. The resource helps organisations build strong systems and make informed decisions to support long-term sustainability.

First Nations Governance, First Nations Affairs

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

This guide explains why genuine Indigenous governance requires real decision-making authority, not just consultation with suggestions for how to embed it. It makes clear the difference between tokenistic advisory roles and legitimate power-sharing structures that respect First Nations authority over Country and culture.

First Nations Startups Fact Sheets - Legal Guide Australia

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

The First Nations Startups Fact Sheets are practical legal guides from HopgoodGanim Lawyers. They help Indigenous entrepreneurs understand key issues when starting and growing a business. The resource explains topics such as business structures, contracts, intellectual property, funding and risk management. It supports First Nations founders to make informed decisions and to access clear, plain language legal information.

'Food Relief Good Practice Guide', Centre for Social Impact

Guides

This guide, developed by the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) Flinders, provides food relief organisations with strategies to move beyond emergency provision by integrating dignity, choice, and community connections. It offers practical approaches to improving service delivery, emphasising people-centered practices, community engagement, and collaboration. By focusing on long-term solutions, the guide helps address the root causes of food insecurity and fosters sustainable change within communities.

Impact Investing Hub Playbook

Guides

This self-guided Playbook supports Australia’s impact investing ecosystem. It offers practical modules on impact investing, impact measurement, and revenue diversification. Designed for investors, advisors, and organisations seeking funding, it helps users understand how impact capital works and how to prepare for investment.

Inclusive Business Playbook, Acumen-EY

Guides

This playbook by Acumen and EY provides a framework and case studies for building inclusive businesses that benefit low-income and marginalised communities while remaining financially sustainable. It offers practical guidance on strategy, governance, workforce inclusion, and impact measurement.

Indigenous Protocols Bundle

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

The Indigenous Protocols Bundle is a practical resource created to help people engage respectfully with Indigenous communities and knowledge systems. It offers guidance for non-Indigenous organisations, researchers and practitioners who want to build ethical working relationships. The Bundle explains key protocols for communication, decision making and collaboration. It emphasises Indigenous authority over Indigenous knowledge and encourages users to approach cross-cultural work with care, patience and openness.

'Investing in your community: A guide to managing community funds', Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Guides

This guide, supported by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, helps communities manage funds from renewable energy projects and other sources. It covers fund management models, practical steps for distribution, case studies, governance, and long-term sustainability. By providing best practices and real-world examples, it equips communities with the tools to reinvest in local initiatives, ensuring transparency, resilience, and long-term benefits.

'Is Your Program Suitable for the Outcomes Fund?', SVA

Guides

This guide by Social Ventures Australia (SVA) helps organisations assess program suitability for the Australian Government’s $100 million Outcomes Fund. It outlines key funding criteria, evaluation methods, and practical guidance for securing outcomes-based contracts and social impact bonds (SIBs).

Learning Towards Zero - Learning in + from Practice in Systems Innovation

Guides

This Learnbook covers systems innovation. It shows how to shift from small improvements to deeper transformation. It explains how fixing problems in existing systems differs from redesigning those systems. You’ll find practical tools and examples to help achieve long-term, meaningful change.

Managing volunteers

Guides

This Justice Connect guide outlines the key legal obligations organisations have towards volunteers. It provides practical examples, templates, and tips to help organisations navigate crucial areas, including the legal differences between volunteers, employees, and contractors; managing volunteer relationships; ensuring volunteer safety; addressing unlawful workplace behaviour; and handling intellectual property, privacy, and record-keeping issues.

Nature on the board - an open source guide

Guides

This guide shares, in plain English, how Faith in Nature recognised the legal Rights of Nature within its organisational structures. Based in the UK, It sets out how they went about it and the changes made to their ‘Articles of Association’.

Our Community Development Framework – a First Nations Approach

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

This resource is a practical guide from Community First Development that explains their First Nations approach to community development. It outlines a strengths-based framework shaped by culture, relationships and self-determination. The guide shows how communities can lead decisions, design local solutions and measure progress in ways that respect First Nations knowledge and value

Our Knowledge, Our Way – Indigenous Knowledge Guidelines

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

Our Knowledge, Our Way is a set of Indigenous-led best practice guidelines that show how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples strengthen and share their knowledge to care for land and sea Country. The resource highlights respectful ways of working with Indigenous knowledge and building partnerships that support cultural leadership, land management and collaborative decision-making across research and practice.

Outcomes funds: Explained

Guides

This guide explains what an outcomes fund is and how it works. An outcomes fund brings together funding from different sources and pays organisations based on the results they achieve. The guide outlines who is involved and how these funds are set up and managed.

Problem Framing Canvas Workbook

Guides

This handbook helps you clearly understand the problem your social enterprise or project is trying to solve. When you understand the real problem, it is easier to find better solutions. The canvas and guide include simple tools to help you define the problem, see different types of problems, and identify practical actions you can take.

Regen 101

Guides

Learn more about what regenerative agriculture is and how we can grow food in a way that gives back to people and the planet.

Relationships

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

This resource from the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute (AIGI) examines the significance of relationships in First Nations governance. It covers cultural, community, and environmental connections, balancing roles, building trust, and fostering effective partnerships. The guide also explores allyship, network expansion, and practical strategies for creating balanced, respectful collaborations within Indigenous communities and beyond.

Roadmap to Social Impact - CSI

Guides

This thorough resource from Centre for Social Impact is a step by step guide to support you and your organisation through the process of outcomes measurement and evaluation.

Self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

Self-determination is vital to the governance and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, enabling them to lead decision-making, exercise sovereignty, and build community-driven governance systems. This toolkit section outlines principles, pathways, and practical steps toward self-determination, including nation building, treaty processes, and sustainable development.

Social enterprise guide

Guides

This guide from Justice Connect helps social enterprises understand their legal responsibilities. It covers choosing a legal structure, setting up governance, meeting compliance requirements, and managing day-to-day operations. The guide supports organisations at different stages of development to make informed legal decisions.

Social Investment Explained

Guides

Social Investment Explained is a practical guide that helps community groups and social enterprises understand different types of investment. Produced by the Big Lottery Fund, Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) and Social Spider, it explains funding options, investment readiness, and key questions to consider when preparing to seek investment.

Start Your Social Enterprise

Guides

While not specifically about pitching, this comprehensive guide serves as an excellent resource for preparing a social enterprise pitch. Use it as a valuable checklist and preparation tool, to help organise your thoughts and information in a way that resonates with investors, partners or supporters.

T.E.S.T = Transformational Ethical Story Telling

Guides

Discover T.E.S.T., an anti-oppressive framework for ethical storytelling that prioritises the rights and needs of all individuals. T.E.S.T. empowers Story Holders to control their narratives while providing Story Caretakers with principles to ensure safe, ethical storytelling. Explore related resources, including guides and an ethical storytelling video, to deepen your understanding.

The Best Startup Investor Pitch Deck & How to Present to Angels & Venture Capitalist

Guides

This is a useful guide and template for creating effective investor presentations. It combines crowd-sourced input from top industry experts and the author’s personal experience. It also shares examples, practical design tips and strategies for addressing investor concerns.

The DIY Toolkit

Guides

Nesta is an independent charity in the United Kingdom that supports new and better ways of solving problems. They created this toolkit to help people develop, adapt, or improve ideas that create positive impact. The toolkit includes 30 simple and practical tools that are easy to use and apply in real situations.

The Governance of Social Enterprises: Managing your Organisation for Success

Guides

This guidebook, made by and for social entrepreneurs, covers building effective boards to balance social mission with financial goals. It includes advice on governance structures, board composition, recruitment, roles, and managing conflicts, highlighting how governance needs evolve as social enterprises grow.

The Illustrated Guide to Participatory City

Guides

This guide introduces the Participatory City model, designed to create vibrant, inclusive neighbourhoods through active resident engagement in practical projects. It offers principles, methods, and insights for addressing social challenges and building community resilience, serving as a valuable resource for policymakers, community leaders, and organisations.

The Story Canvas

Guides

Discover the Story Canvas—a practical tool to craft impactful, strategic stories tailored to your needs. Designed by Digital Storytellers, this downloadable canvas simplifies storytelling for nonprofits, social enterprises, and impact organisations. With step-by-step guidance and resources, it helps you create engaging stories that inspire action and advance your cause effectively.

Truth-Telling Resource Hub

First Nations

Guides

First Nations

This resource page from Reconciliation Australia shares learning materials about truth-telling in Australia. It includes guides, reports and videos that explain what truth-telling is and why it matters for reconciliation with First Nations peoples.

Using the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise Design

Guides

This booklet looks beyond the Business Model Canvas as a general tool. It explains how Ingrid Burkett, an Australian social entrepreneur, adapts the Canvas for social enterprises. The booklet guides you step by step on how to use the Canvas to suit social purpose work.

Ventures at the Helm

Guides

This report is a practical guide to impact measurement and management. It explains how enterprises can build strong impact strategies and shows that different approaches are needed at different stages of growth. Rather than using one model for everyone, it encourages flexible, stage-based impact practices.

Wellbeing Matters Guide

Guides

The "Wellbeing Matters Guide" offers insights from social enterprise leaders, particularly in regional, rural, and remote areas. It provides resources to support leaders in enhancing their wellbeing and effectiveness by sharing real-life experiences.