Cindy Mitchell On Challenges & Opportunities For Social Entrepreneurs

Cindy is the Founding Chief Executive Officer of the Mill House Ventures, the Canberra region's first dedicated social enterprise business development consultancy. She previously worked as a venture capital investment manager and in senior management roles at large corporate organisations in Australia and the United States. She has also worked as a Policy Advisor and Senior Analyst in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Assistant Director in the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

An experienced facilitator, trainer, and networker, Cindy excels in connecting people and ideas to solve complex problems. In her current role, she is responsible for the development of a social enterprise support program for new social enterprises and aspiring social entrepreneurs in Canberra and the surrounding region. Cindy was the Founder and CEO of No Sweat Fashions, a not for profit social enterprise designed to create training, employment and work experience opportunities for migrant and refugees settling in Canberra.

She is a passionate advocate for civil society and the social enterprise and social impact investment movements globally. When Cindy is not crusading on behalf of social enterprise and teaching for-purpose professionals the ‘dark arts’ of capitalism, she is probably writing. She has recently received first-class honours for her thesis: #BlackMoneyMatters: Conceptualising African-American Entrepreneurship as Resistance to Racial Hegemony in America. She plans further study on the impact of race and gender in the development of hybrid businesses.

CINDY shares some of the key lessons learnt as an intermediary in the social enterprise sector, providing insights into some of the challenges and broader opportunities for the movement at large.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Mikey Leung] - I'm here with Cindy Mitchell. We're outdoors at the University of Canberra. There's some lovely bird sounds and some students milling by here, and it's a lovely setting to have this chat.

[Cindy Mitchell] - At the Bush capital!

Yes, as we call it, the Bush capital. I want you to take me back in time, Cindy, and tell me about the moment you discovered social enterprise. What's the origin of your engagement and your connection in the space, and what is it that you're bringing?

About 10 years ago now, I was a commercialisation Business Development Manager for a technology venture capital fund. And, I spent a lot of time working with early stage technologists in developing their pathways to commercialisation. And as part of that organisation, we managed a small grant called the ACT microcredit program for women on low incomes. So just for a bit of a lark, on occasion, I would take the consultations for this program, even though it was not my area. It was just really fun. So you can imagine working with early stage technology companies, it can take them 10 years to get to market.

Whereas if you give a woman $3,000. Next week, she'll be in front of her customers. One day, someone came and was representing a community of women from Burma and he was their community leader, an elder in that community. He was really frustrated by the fact that they were really struggling here in Canberra with finding jobs beyond domestic cleaning and that sort of thing. And yet he was explaining they had these amazing skills. Many of them had grown up in the refugee camps on the Thai Burma border, and that time they had these little micro businesses around making clothing and things like that. He started taking out this clothing and Mikey, the level of technical execution in these garments was just brilliant. But of course, I was still in venture capital mode, and I'm like, ‘nobody's gonna buy this stuff.’ And then he said, ‘okay, yeah, I guess.’ I gave him some feedback saying, ‘you know, they need to think about their market’ and all that sort of stuff. And he went away.

I could not stop thinking about this man. I kept thinking they had such beautiful technical skills, and someone should do something about that. Someone ought to do something. And then I realised one day that somebody was going to be me. And so, Hungsar was with his name and I ended up founding No Sweat Fashions, a social enterprise really based on the Social Studio model in Melbourne. That was my inspiration and that was my introduction to social enterprise. I call it my PhD in social enterprise, because it was five years of hard yakka.

So you founded one and, you went on that journey. How does that lead to where you are now at Mill House?

I think that was really opening the idea that all this stuff that I knew how to do, I knew about business. I knew about business plans, I knew about finance. I also was really fortunate in that I had incredible networks and then I realised that people who were trying to trade for a purpose didn't have any of this and that there was a gap. So that lived with me and for a time I just wasn't really sure what the opportunity was, but, just five years ago the University of Canberra was approached by a social impact investor from a cooperative bank and they wanted to support social enterprise. And at this time, I worked in the public service and I just got a call one day saying, "Hey, I hear you might know a little bit about what social enterprise is," and of course it was like, "Yes, how can I help? How can I be involved?"

And that was really the Genesis of the Mill House Ventures, which is an intermediary, and it's about supporting and developing a pipeline of investible social ventures. And so what I get to do now is basically provide the service that didn't exist when I started as a social entrepreneur in Canberra, which is really helping people who are interested in trading for purpose to really understand how they can make their propositions more attractive to social impact investors.

And why is that function so important to do that kind of work, that kind of support and scaffolding work that Mill House is doing?

What we're doing is really hard and at the end of the day it's two things. It's both a business, which in and of itself is difficult, but then there’s this impact narrative and the idea that you're trying to operate in a community where your intervention is probably novel and there might not be people who are very interested. You know, that you present a threat to the current way of doing things.

People who are attracted to this work, in my experience, are often people who don't come at it from a business background. They're often people who themselves have lived experience of the very disadvantage or an inequity that they're trying to address. And so by virtue of that, they can be marginalised and don't have access to the networks that they need to both successfully execute the business model, but also integrate whatever their intervention, their theory of change is into the established ecosystem.

And that's why I'm so passionate about our role as an intermediary, because I think that's what we do is we step into the breach with them and we help to make those connections between potential customers, potential investors, but also the community, the community sector where they're trying to do things.

Most of the listeners will be familiar with the why of doing social enterprise and the challenges of doing that. I'm here with Cindy because Cindy and I are working on the Social Enterprise Council for New South Wales and for Canberra. I've come down here because I'm also wanting to have a look into the Canberra social enterprise scene for my own knowledge, but also to share this with our Australian counterparts. And talk about what some of the unique features are here.

I'd like to invite you to tell me a little bit about some of your favourite social enterprises that are here with Mill House Ventures and some of the examples of the issues that people are working on here. And in between some of those stories, I'd love to hear what you think is unique about the Canberra social enterprise scene. I have questions about whether proximity to the federal government means something different for you here?

First of all, asking me what my favourite social enterprise is, is like asking me what my favourite child is. So no, you're not going to get that today, but I'll give you some examples of what's going on here.

I've been doing this intermediary role for going on five years. And what I've seen is quite an evolution. When I first started doing this work in Canberra, because of our proximity to government, I think there's a real strong resistance to this concept of social enterprise. And this might not be something that's in other places, but you have to understand that I'm in a community where most people work for the government and the community sector is highly reliant on government support. I know that's everywhere, but again, the proximity here; people were really afraid of this term. I think if anything for me constituted about that first year of my work, it was fear. I would go into community organisations that themselves were social enterprises but they would not use that language. They kept referring to themselves as charity because they were afraid that if they started to really emphasise their trading aspects, they would get less money, and I had to be the sort of bearer of bad news to say, look, this is going to happen anyway. The nature of public money is just more contested than it has ever been, and for you to be on the front foot and embrace this language of trade and talk about yourself as a social enterprise, that's actually what's going to help you in your relationship with government. Because I had spent time in the government and I understood what was happening on on the other side of the coin as well, and really in the second year that started to happen. So even our large community service providers, these are organisations that run accommodation facilities, childcare centres, they are significant social enterprises that generate most of their income from trade. They're now using that language. And that was really important for my work with early stage people who were coming out of the community sector. And then their willingness to say, "this idea that I have for working with women who've experienced domestic violence, or working with Indigenous communities, I'd actually like to put the trading aspect up front." And so that really then became, "where can I go to do that? Ah, there's this place called Mill House where I can do that."

So the first year it was almost all not-for-profits. And now I think the vast majority of people who are coming through to Mill House are for-profit social enterprises. So if you go to our website and see our participants, that's where all the children are. But the vast majority of those are for-profit social enterprises who are using companies limited by shares and in partnership, usually with a community organisation if they haven't founded one themselves as well. But they're really putting that trading aspect out front. And I think that to me has been the huge cultural shift here. And as a result, the composition of the social enterprises; we're seeing more trading style and also more B2B social enterprises. Which again, was something that when I started doing this work five years ago, I didn't expect here in Canberra. That's the Genesis of what's happening here.

How about government as a social enterprise itself and in a factor, at least one of the largest potential buyers of social enterprise services, because they have a mandate of doing public good as well?

Could you outline what that's like when you're sitting next to perhaps what might be some of the largest opportunities, or am I just making that up in my mind about what Canberra is?

I wish you weren't making it up in your mind. But at the same time, I think it's about where the focus is. Government tends to go into things with blinkers on. What is very important at the moment for particularly this government, is Indigenous procurement. Now hang on with me there. Because you're like, ‘what does it have to do with social enterprise?’ It's a start because part of this government's actual Indigenous advancement strategy is linked to its economic development strategy.

They understand this idea that if you support Indigenous business you are in effect, creating real measurable outcomes for Indigenous communities. That's the thing that we can use to start talking more broadly around social entrepreneurship and say, ‘well, actually there are other organisations that are trading to create public good.’ They have already done really great things. Look at what the Indigenous Procurement Strategy has done. Now let's look at, and you have no money to fund these things that these other social enterprises are doing as well. I think with government, oftentimes it can be two steps forward and three steps back. But I think if we can as a group latch on and really try to understand what they're trying to accomplish with Indigenous procurement and look at how it's applicable to what we're doing in social enterprise, I think that will help us. Certainly, for me personally, when I've had those conversations, that has helped policy officers and advocates to really be able to understand because we can say, ‘well look, this is an organisation that is actually trading for the purposes of supporting women who have experienced domestic violence, or they're working with young people who are at risk,’ whatever it is, and then you're able to say, ‘that represents a cost, that represents a challenge. Let's see how we, how we can support that.’

Would you offer any advice for those who are approaching government since it seems to be such a large theme here? Are there any learnings that you'd want to share that others should consider if they want to go on that journey?

I certainly don't want your take away to be that here in Canberra, we're all trying to sell to government because that's actually not what we're trying to do. I think the main thing for these businesses is to become good businesses in their own right, because the whole idea is about having the freedom that a business model gives you in the sense that you're not totally reliant on grants or philanthropy. Having government as a customer is not dissimilar to having them as a grant, as a donor. So that comes with its own challenges and issues. And so we're not trying to replace one sort of contract instrument with another sort of contract instrument. What we're trying to do is we're trying to build good businesses that have products and services that government also want to buy that they're buying anyway. So I think it's more the other way around.

Okay. I think my focus on it just has to do with the sense of place. Is there anything else about Canberra that would be unique that you'd want to highlight?

I think the smallness is actually of great benefit in terms of our social impact investment community. This has been led very strongly by the Snow Foundation. Georgina Byron is one of Australia's best social impact investors. They really get to this space and they really have quite a leadership role in terms of working with other corporates, other smaller family houses and and other philanthropies to really change the way philanthropy happens in this town.

Sometimes philanthropy can be the death of really good ideas and, and it was something that I saw a lot of when I first started this work.

And increasingly what I'm seeing, is it is a social impact sector lead by the Snow Foundation, with proper social impact investment in thinking of philanthropy as catalytic. How can I start, how can I work with a social entrepreneur to start something that can then sustain itself in the longterm? And I think the fact that we're neighbours, it's a small community, we get to know each other really well. If you're working with these group of social impact investors in one area; young people, for instance, then it's very likely that they're also interested in women. They're also interested in education. And so you start to build these relationships over time and I think that is something that is our secret weapon. Alright. Don't tell anybody.

Small is good and local is good, right?

One of my other questions is about reinforcing the importance of networks as we go on the journey together working in the Social Enterprise Council [of NSW & ACT]. For those who are considering bringing those networks together, do you have any advice or sage wisdom from your experience here in Canberra about how to go about that process?

Well, we're still pretty early on our journey, so I don't want to necessarily put myself out there to someone who's an expert on doing this. I think the main thing is just to understand what we're trying to do and just like we do in our social enterprises where we're always wearing two hats, we're thinking about our customers and we're thinking about our end users. We're thinking about the people that we're trying to help. I think that's the main thing with the network is just to really be clear on who we're trying to help, who are we speaking for? Who are we putting ourselves out there for? And just making sure that that mission is front and centre.

I think there's certain ingredients that the best social entrepreneurs have in terms of their thinking, their mindset, the way they are in the world, the way they relate. So I'm interested in knowing about what some of your personal advice is for that and advising others. And, I also just picked up on your LinkedIn profile, the commencement speech where you talked about the danger of passion versus a clarity of purpose. What would you say to others who are going on this journey of creating impact around them in their local communities?

For me it's about the fact that passion is something that actually scares me as a term because, it is important to have passion. So let me get that out there. But passion is not enough to sustain how incredibly difficult this work is and how important and how high the stakes are. So for me, working with entrepreneurs that are really clear about their purpose, are committed very early in their journeys to having a strong connection to the people that they want to help; if I see that I almost know straightaway as an intermediary and somebody who's been doing this now for a long time, that that's somebody that is going to be coachable. I'm going to be able to help to find the investment that they need and that they're probably going to be able to have some runs on the board.

I think oftentimes, for some people, passion blinds them and it makes them less humble than they need to be.

So this work is really hard because yes, you are putting yourself out there. Most of us who are doing this work could be getting paid a lot more money doing something else and so sometimes, it's difficult to put yourself to the side and really say, ‘no, I'm here on behalf of this purpose.’ Those are the things I can spot after my first meeting with an entrepreneur. And it's something that in terms of Mill House, I work really hard to make sure that each cohort has people who are like that, because that at the end of the day, whether their business model itself is successful, sometimes they don't work out.

I know that that person has such a strong clarity of purpose that they're going to figure out how to make it happen. It might be the next business, or it might be when they do go take a role somewhere in government or as an entrepreneur inside of another organisation.

As an intermediary, that's what I'm passionate about seeing happen.

You're wearing really beautiful earrings here today that have the colours of the Aboriginal flag; black, yellow, and red. You've mentioned supporting Indigenous enterprise. I'm a honorary Australian. I'm from Canada, and I believe you're from America. And as a black woman from America working in an Indigenous context here, what's your perspective on that been like, for you?

To me, I think it's all about purpose. When I speak to Indigenous entrepreneurs, you know, I call us cousins. You don't have to be Indigenous to be a social entrepreneur and vice versa. I think that increasingly within Indigenous entrepreneurship, which is something that I'm really passionate and excited about, there is an increasing clarity of purpose. And as I'm seeing that movement happen within the black business community, I can't help but be excited for it because obviously it's been with people with us in the social entrepreneurial space for a while now. So I see our movements as coming together and that's something that I'm really passionate about. I love the fact that our cohorts here at Mill House; we work really closely with a number of Indigenous businesses intentionally. In terms of the work that we do, we're constantly thinking about, ‘well, how are we including Indigenous voices in those?’ Because, it's important and we should. We have more in common, I think, than not in terms of our movements.

You've mentioned a few women-focused social enterprises that you're working with here as well. And it's been a personal observation of mine that there's something closer to gender parity in the social enterprise space, but sometimes not. So I'm just interested in your perspective, if you wanted to share anything around that?

It's something that I'm really fascinated about, and it's part of why I'm doing a PhD in hybrid businesses and gendered use of business models. One of the things that I see in my clients is such a beautiful growth. We do a four month accelerator program, and I've had so many women say "you've given me the language of entrepreneurship." You've told me I can be a business person. And I just think that that's amazing.

The more I think about it, there's sort of this expectation, a cultural expectation in this country that if you're a woman and you're passionate about something, or even if you have a community or environmental purpose that you want to achieve, that you will do that as a poor person, that you'll be a charity, and that somehow you'll be a martyr. [It’s like] you can't do that as a successful business woman who draws a living wage and is also generating wealth to employ other people.

I find that fascinating because part of what I see with my clients, especially my female clients, is this struggle about, "Is it okay for me to make money doing this?" And I'm like, "Hell yeah!"

So over and over again, this keeps coming up and I don't have all the answers. I'm really just literally on the front lines of this movement with these entrepreneurs and seeing something interesting happen with women. And for some reason, maybe it's how I approach things, they are attracted to Mill House and are attracted to working with me. We've got a mostly female team at Mill House, not intentionally. It's just how it's worked out. But really creating a safe and welcoming place particularly for women in a cohort. We do better in a cohort, to be able to tease some of these things out.

I want to unpack that one a little later with you, Cindy, at another time. Because it's another kind of conversation.

I think as a movement we're there. You know, 10 years ago we were still arguing about what is social enterprise. I think now it's about the equity and inclusion of our movement. I think it's now about, okay, look, we're constantly having to re-examine ourselves because we are playing with something that traditionally has been quite dangerous capitalism, right? And investment, right? And in these sort of movements, there's just something about these things, they just create whole swathes of white men, like they just clear cut, fell forest and just white men pop up. So we need to make sure that that doesn't happen and our movement, not that I have a problem with white men.