Resource library

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.

Community Services Outcomes Tree

Platforms

The Community Services Outcomes Tree is a shared framework that helps community organisations describe and measure the outcomes of their work. It provides clear language and structure so services can show how their activities lead to meaningful change for individuals, families and communities.

Community Story Holding and Caretaking

Webinars

This webinar explores how ethical storytelling can empower rather than exploit, centring the voices of those with lived experience. The presenters share their experiences in co-developing the Transformational Ethical Story Telling (TEST) framework, designed to shift power in storytelling by embedding values-based, anti-oppressive practices into everyday communications, branding, and policy.

'Connecting Pathways to Employment with the Work Integration Social Enterprise (WISE) Model', Centre for Social Impact

Reports

This report by CSI Swinburne introduces the WISE-Ability model, a framework for transforming Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs) into more inclusive organisations. It supports employment pathways for people with disabilities, aligning with NDIS funding and fostering open employment opportunities.

Connecting Up

Platforms

Connecting Up helps Australian and New Zealand nonprofits strengthen their organisations through technology. This free platform, run by Infoxchange, offers discounted IT products, cloud services, hardware, software, and training by partnering with leading tech companies to empower social impact organisations.

Costs and benefits of tailored job support programs, Paul Ramsay Foundation

Reports

This research demonstrates the costs and benefits of tailored employment support programs for people facing complex barriers to work, providing evidence and tools to help funders and organisations make effective investments in job-seeker programs. This report from 2024 aims to collate and strengthen existing evidence of ’what works’ in which contexts, while establishing an evidence base for the type and level of resourcing needed to achieve more enduring outcomes for those facing complex barriers to work.

CSIRO Indigenous Seasonal and Cultural Calendars

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.

CSI Social Impact - Research for Social Impact

Podcasts

The Research for Social Impact Podcast from the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) Swinburne features researchers, practitioners and students discussing social entrepreneurship, finance, impact measurement, innovation and employment reform, offering deep insights into Australia’s social purpose ecosystem.

'Cultural Safety in Australia: Discussion Paper', Lowitja Institute

White papers

First Nations

Cultural safety is pivotal for achieving equity and inclusion in health and human services. This paper focuses on embedding cultural safety into systems for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, addressing systemic racism and power imbalances. While primarily health-focused, its insights are applicable across sectors like social enterprise, community development, and governance.

Design for Wellbeing: A Social Enterprise Story

Platforms

This resource showcases findings from Australian Research Council studies on Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE). It emphasises the role of social enterprises in enhancing individual and community wellbeing, particularly in disadvantaged and regional areas. The platform offers tools, insights, and strategies for social enterprises, policymakers, and ecosystem supporters to design workplaces and practices that integrate wellbeing principles, address systemic disadvantage, and foster resilience. Key focus areas include regional community wellbeing, youth health equity, and leveraging organisational design to influence positive social outcomes.

Dismantle case study (page 3)

Case studies

Governance breakdown, frozen funding pipelines, and a lost premises hit simultaneously. This work integration social enterprise (WISE) case study follows Dismantle's CEO and board as they navigated near-insolvency, and what they learned about financial capability, funder relationships, and leadership fatigue.

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.

Doing Business on Country

Webinars

The Land Back Foundation held an interactive webinar exploring First Nations’ worldviews on social enterprise and encouraging actors across the social enterprise sector to reflect on our own worldviews and what they mean for our relationships with community and Country.

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.

Doughnut Economics: Core Concepts of Doughnut Economics

Videos

This video introduces Doughnut Economics, a framework by economist Kate Raworth that balances human needs with planetary health. Challenging traditional growth-focused economics, it emphasises well-being within ecological limits. The concept offers a compelling perspective on sustainable development and highlights the role of social enterprises in the impact economy, engaging stakeholders effectively.

Do you know all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?

Videos

This article provides a concise overview of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, promoting prosperity while safeguarding the planet. These goals emphasise poverty eradication, economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection to address global challenges effectively.

Driving impact 2026 Unlocking the opportunity for corporate social impact investment in the United Kingdom

Reports

This report explores how companies can use social impact investment to support charities and social enterprises while creating lasting social value. It explains what corporate social impact investment is, why uptake remains low in the UK, and what organisations can do to overcome barriers and unlock impact-first funding models.

Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity

Reports

Earth4All’s two-year research investigates pathways to achieve global wellbeing within planetary boundaries by 2100. It examines two scenarios: ‘Too Little Too Late,’ continuing current economic policies, and ‘Giant Leap,’ requiring bold decisions and investments. The report identifies five critical turnarounds—poverty, inequality, women’s empowerment, food systems, and energy transformation—and calls for active governments, wellbeing economies, and urgent action this decade. Using system dynamics models, it highlights affordable economic shifts and proposes citizens’ assemblies to overcome political barriers.

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.

Expanding Concepts of Scale

Articles

People often ask if a social enterprise can be scaled. In this blog, Gord Tulloch challenges the idea that scale only means growing bigger or reaching more people. He explains five different ways to create impact, including changing rules, beliefs, social norms, and the conditions that help people take action.

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 Australians

Videos

First Nations

First Australians is a seven-part documentary series that tells the history of Australia from the perspective of its First Peoples, from 1788 to 1993. It gives voice to stories that have rarely been told on Australian television. It is relevant to anyone seeking to understand the foundations of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

First Nations Co-Design Platform (AIATSIS)

Platforms

First Nations

The AIATSIS First Nations Co-Design Platform supports culturally safe, community-led service design with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. It promotes Indigenous knowledge, participatory decision-making, and co-ownership to ensure services align with local needs and aspirations.

First Nations Governance, Finance, Land and the Climate Crisis

Webinars

First Nations

This open learning webinar, convened by First Nations Affairs, explores what climate leadership looks like when grounded in First Nations governance and worldviews. Speakers discuss co-design, equity, and cultural integrity - calling for stronger accountability, genuine partnerships, and decision-making that centres Country, community wellbeing, and justice.

First Nations Governance, First Nations Affairs

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 Principles for Social Enterprise Development

Webinars

Shifting Ground held an interactive webinar with agents of social change representing a cross-section of First Nations social enterprises and businesses. It explored the principle: "If you can get right what you do in relation to First Nations people, your work with all people and communities will benefit."

First Nations Social Enterprise Circle - Findings Report

Reports

First Nations

This report from the First Nations Social Enterprise Circle shares insights from organisations creating community impact, deeply grounded in values, while facing barriers rooted in colonisation. It invites power-holders across the social enterprise sector to respond with accountable actions and structural change that enables First Nations leadership and self-determination in the social enterprise space.

First Nations Startups Fact Sheets - Legal Guide Australia

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.

First Nations Systems Thinking – Common Ground

Articles

First Nations

This article explains systems thinking from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. It shows how First Nations approaches view the world as connected relationships between people, land, culture and community. The resource introduces key ideas from Indigenous knowledge systems and compares them with Western problem solving methods. It helps readers understand why Indigenous ways of thinking are valuable for addressing complex Australian challenges.

First Nations Worthwhile Ventures (FNWV) Business Portal

Platforms

First Nations

The Business Portal from First Nations Worthwhile Ventures (FNWV) is an online hub that supports First Nations businesses. It offers tools, advice, and opportunities to help people start and grow businesses, while strengthening culture, community, and economic self-determination through FNWV’s broader work in enterprise and capacity building.

Five Stages of Social Enterprise Development

Guides

This guide explains the five stages of social enterprise development, from early ideas to more established and growing enterprises. It gives social entrepreneurs and support organisations a shared way to understand progress, identify current needs, and plan the next steps in the journey.

'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.

Free to Feed case study (page 6)

Case studies

Ten years of culturally safe, trauma-informed employment for refugees ended in closure. Free to Feed's founder and board chair speak honestly about why, as a work integration social enterprise (WISE), impact costs and trade income are in permanent tension, and what that meant when funding fell short.

FRRR Community Data Tool

Other

The FRRR Community Data Tool is a free online resource that helps local community groups find reliable information about their area. By entering a location, users can quickly access population figures, socio-economic data and regional indicators to support planning, applications for grants and telling their community’s story with strong evidence.

Gari Yala 2 (Speak the Truth) Full Report: Centreing the Work Experiences of Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander Australians in 2025-2026

Reports

First Nations

Gari Yala 2 (Speak the Truth) is an Indigenous-led national survey report from the UTS Centre for Indigenous People and Work. It finds that racism and cultural unsafety remain widespread in Australian workplaces, with little improvement since 2020. It is essential reading for employers, HR professionals, and anyone working in diversity and inclusion.

Global Footprint Network: Measuring Humanity’s Impact on the Planet

Platforms

The Global Footprint Network is an international nonprofit organisation focused on measuring and tracking ecological footprints. By providing tools and data, it supports governments, businesses, and individuals in making informed decisions that promote sustainability and help live within Earth's ecological limits. The organisation works on ecological footprint accounting, policy support, and public education, offering resources to guide sustainable living and ecological resilience.

Green Collect case study (page 9)

Case studies

Covering 93% of costs through trade, this work integration social enterprise (WISE) looked close to financial independence, then a new venture failed badly. Green Collect's case study explores what happens when growth projections don't meet reality, and how the organisation rebuilt with greater clarity and resilience.

Greening Australia: Large-Scale Environmental Restoration

Platforms

Greening Australia addresses key environmental challenges through reforestation, habitat restoration, and climate resilience projects. By combining scientific research, community engagement, and innovative solutions, it works to restore degraded ecosystems. Its efforts include reforestation, carbon sequestration, waterway protection, and collaboration with local communities and Traditional Owners, strengthening environmental resilience and restoring Australia’s natural habitats on a national scale.

Growing With Integrity - Reflections for the First Nations Creative and Cultural Sector

Reports

First Nations

This resource from Cox Inall Ridgeway captures themes from conversations with First Nations creatives, arts organisations and social enterprises about growth, partnerships and impact. It reinforces that First Nations creative and cultural organisations are not simply arts businesses or service providers. They are vehicles for cultural continuity, storytelling, representation, economic independence and intergenerational knowledge sharing.

Growing with Purpose

Webinars

This webinar explores how social enterprises can scale their impact without losing sight of their purpose. Drawing on Umbo’s experience delivering allied health services to regional and remote Australia, the session shares practical lessons on growth, governance, culture, impact measurement and navigating the tension between mission and sustainability.

Having Better Conversations about Data: Tips for Social Enterprises

Webinars

The Data Conversation led a practical webinar exploring how social enterprises can feel more confident and capable when working with data. With tips, tools and analogies to ease data anxiety, the session offered a friendly entry point to building a data-informed culture, regardless of organisational size, experience or starting point.

Health Justice Australia

Platforms

Health Justice Australia integrates legal services into healthcare to address social factors affecting health. Through partnerships, resources, and training, it supports healthcare and legal professionals in delivering holistic care, particularly for vulnerable communities.

Health promoting features of WISE employment for people with psychosocial disability

Journals

This journal article examines how work integration social enterprises (WISEs) affect the health and wellbeing of employees with psychosocial disability, meaning people whose mental health conditions interact with social barriers to limit their participation in work and life. Drawing on a six-year Australian case study, it finds that workplace culture matters as much as the job itself. Relevant to WISE practitioners, funders and policymakers.

'How Communities Awaken', Vivian Hutchinson

E-books

“How Communities Awaken” by Vivian Hutchinson explores active citizenship, community development, and Māori cultural wisdom. Based on the Taranaki Masterclass and Community Conversations, these essays provide insights on fostering connection, creativity, and social change.

How Legal Structures Shape Impact Investing

Webinars

This resource is currently being developed. If you would like to be notified when it is published, please email team@understorey.org.au.

How Social Entrepreneurs Make Change Happen

Articles

This article by Sally Osberg and Roger Martin examines how social entrepreneurs drive systemic change, highlighting Andrea and Barry Coleman’s Riders for Health. By addressing transportation gaps in African healthcare, the Colemans exemplify how leveraging expertise and engaging stakeholders can create sustainable impact. The authors argue that successful social entrepreneurs focus on specific needs while aligning broader ecosystems, enabling transformative change that goes beyond business-driven outcomes.

How to Be a Super Board Chair

Articles

This Stanford article shares nine practical strategies for strong board leadership in social enterprises. It explains how board chairs can build a positive culture, clarify roles, support executive leaders, plan for succession, recruit the right members, and address underperformance to create a respectful and effective board.

How To Have Challenging Conversations. Tips From Organisational Science

Articles

This resource, adapted from the teaching profession, provides social enterprise leaders with strategies for navigating challenging management conversations. It highlights the ineffectiveness of "hard sell" or "soft sell" approaches in driving change and maintaining relationships. Instead, it introduces the "Open to Learning" framework, emphasising validity, respect, and commitment. Leaders are guided to approach conversations with shared decision-making and an open mindset, offering a practical tool for addressing performance issues and implementing change in dynamic work environments.