BSL Community Enterprise Development Initiative

A PWF reader has alerted us to the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s (BSL) Community Enterprise Conference 28 – 29 August, 2007 at the Melbourne Town Hall.

Community enterprise includes a variety of non-profit initiatives and ventures that combine business principles and practices with social objectives. For the not-for-profit sector, community or social enterprise can be a mechanism for innovation, financial sustainability or a vehicle for local development and employment creation.

The success of community enterprises in Australia and internationally, is based on their ability to meet a particular community need or social objective, such as creating local jobs and training, retaining a community asset or providing services for children, people with mental illness or a disability.

BSL says Community Enterprises are sprouting up all across Victoria – but there are few resources or forums to discuss these initiatives or to build on their success, so the two-day conference will provide relevant information, support, inspiration and a chance to network across sectors and among peers.

The conference will ask ‘What is community enterprise and how do you do it?’ and also address core issues faced when developing a community enterprise, such as:

• social procurement
• measuring social impact
• community ownership
• funding and finance.

The conference is for those both directly and indirectly engaged in community enterprise development:

• community enterprise managers
• community and/ or economic development workers
• local or state government workers
• individuals with an interest in community enterprise.

Keynote speakers include:

John Pearce (UK), author of ‘Social Enterprise in Anytown’
Jill Jordan (QLD), the driver behind the Maleny cooperative movement.

To take a look at the agenda and to register, you can visit www.communityenterprise.org.au.