Nicholas Verginis On The Growing Social Enterprise Movement In Victoria & Australia

Nicholas Verginis is the inaugural CEO of Social Enterprise Network Victoria (SENVIC), the statewide network of social enterprise practitioners that aims to build a thriving social enterprise community in Victoria.

Nick is an innovative, energetic and strategic executive with a proven track record of successfully leading and managing dynamic workforces across public, private and community sector in Victoria and the United Kingdom. Nick thrives in cross-sector collaborations and brings over 20 years experience in the independent arts sector, not-for-profits and small social enterprises. For the past seven years, Nick has served on the Board of Melbourne Fringe, the city’s most vibrant and culturally democratic 2.5 weeks of the year. He was Deputy Chair during a four-year period of extraordinary growth and expansion, including the establishment of a new social enterprise ‘Common Rooms’, at Trades Hall in Carlton. Nick describes Common Rooms as a space where uncommon people belong.

Nick holds a Master in Public Policy and Management and Bachelors of Law and Arts from the University of Melbourne, and in 2018 completed the Executive Fellows Program with the Australia and New Zealand School of Government.

Nick discusses the role of senvic and growth of the Australian social enterprise movement whilst providing insights into the necessity for a national social enterprise strategy and work being done both locally and nationally to further the sector.

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

[Tom Allen] - To kick things off, I'm really curious to hear a little bit more about your background and what led you to your passion in social enterprise?

[Nicholas Verginis] - I've been connected to social enterprise my whole life, and I feel very deeply it's where I belong. When I reflect on social enterprise, I connect immediately to the Greek community of Melbourne. It wouldn't have thrived in Australia without social enterprise. It created safe spaces for learning, belonging, culture and financial independence.

From there professionally I've always been values-driven and I'm comfortable with complexity, the very things that social enterprises love to tackle. I enjoy exploring ideas and love cross-sector collaborations.

For the past 10 years, I've run innovative projects in the Victorian State Government, and they've involved those tools that are common to social enterprise. Like many in the social enterprise community, I've always had a side hustle. I've been a musician, a composer, an actor, and I've been pretty active in the independent arts community in Melbourne.

I've been Deputy Chair of Melbourne Fringe Festival for many years, and it's a wonderful community that is very much aligned with social enterprise and the values that it embodies. Its creative community, micro to medium organisations put on over 400 events to an audience of over 250,000 [people] every year in Melbourne. It's all about cultural democracy, inclusion, innovation and creativity. That's been an important part of my life for the last seven years. It was exciting for us to launch the social enterprise ‘Common Rooms’ recently. That was my first real, closest contact to social enterprise in the form that usually captures people's imaginations. But I'm very much linked to those origins in terms of my Greek culture and understanding that community development is a really key part of what social enterprises do.

Last year was a real turning point for me, and that relates to Greta Thunberg in the sense that when I heard her speak, she was speaking for my children. I've got three kids that are younger than 10, and what she highlighted in that raw, childish way, that our economic thinking for the past 15 years has just had it wrong.

[The economy] has not valued things that really matter, like the finite natural resources we have on this planet, the fact that we have a circular economy and that the economic approach of the last 50 years has just permitted exploitation and destruction for short term profits.

Hearing Greta speak just chilled me in terms of what my kids will be saying about us as they grow up, as they take control of our community. A sense that if I don't do something, if we don't collectively start working together to redesign our world, we will have failed our kids. I think that certainly was a big motivation for me to look for something different. I was really fortunate SENVIC was emerging at that time.

I think you're absolutely right, and Greta has obviously made a huge impact with her work and activism. Then more recently as well, a lot of these points have been accentuated with COVID-19, when we look at the localisation of economies and the importance of that.

You play a really important role as CEO at the Social Enterprise Network of Victoria, so can you please tell us a little bit more about the history of SENVIC and what are the key aims?

SENVIC founders with Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade, Martin Pakula MP at the launch of SENVIC in August 2019.

SENVIC began as an alliance between its founding members. It formed in early 2018 and it brought together nine leaders from Victoria's longest standing and influential social enterprises. We're talking about the Australian Centre of Rural Entrepreneurship, ACRE. We've got CERES, Community Grocer, GAME Traffic and Contracting, Good Cycles, Green Collect, 100 Story Building, Streat and Social Traders. Really it's the who's who of some of the great success stories from the social enterprise community in Victoria. These pioneers could see that the experience from overseas, [to have a] successful, thriving social enterprise community, [it must] have a really powerful network that brings people together so they can learn from each other.

You can build a collective knowledge and wisdom, and through that a voice, advocacy, [and] an influential voice for the sector. We can take those important next steps in terms of the wider economy and community.

They got together in mid-2018. It was not until just last year that the Victorian Government got behind it, to really accelerate that role that the network wants to play. The Victorian Government has showed leadership not only in supporting the network, but also with the social enterprise strategy that was developed in 2017, and a Social Procurement Framework. So really, SENVIC is part of that process of kick-starting the community down here in Victoria. It's been thrilling. I started in January this year. I had a good six weeks before coronavirus came along where I was getting out and meeting lots of people. It was always exciting to see what great passionate, intelligent, and brilliant people are out there doing wonderful things for the wider community and using social enterprise to create a better future.

How have you seen social enterprises in Victoria react to this rapidly changing world that's responding to COVID-19? You're in quite a unique viewpoint that you speak to a lot of different social enterprises down there. What sort of support do you believe that social enterprises critically need right now, and moving into the future, to create some sort of systemic change?

It's a great question. The answer is not static. I suppose there's been two speeds in terms of what social enterprises have experienced. There are those that are accelerating because of those pre-existing products or services. There are also those that have pivoted or have been able to catch the new demand that has come from the new social isolation. For example, The Social Studio in Collingwood has gone from making original ethical clothing to mass production of healthcare scrubs, which has been absolutely fantastic.

The other tier of the sector is those that have slipped down in a few gears, or who had to lose many good people and are moving at a slower pace. Perhaps they're sustained by JobKeeper and other government supports for now. But there is certainly a lot of pain and tears in the community, those that are struggling as many other small businesses are.

So in terms of support, the point to make is that the market didn't wait. The contraction of market activity was swift, and businesses were scaling down and making big decisions that impacted many people faster than government support was being designed.

There now is welcomed support in place, but the scramble highlighted a lack of vision and understanding of social enterprise in Australia. It highlighted the intellectual gap when you don't have a national social enterprise strategy.

Philanthropy and some mainstream businesses are now supporting professional development and capacity building, and this is certainly vital and it's welcomed. But there are some basics that are still lacking. I've mentioned the strategy, expansion of diversity of financial tools, more favourable options for social enterprise to recognise that they return social and environmental dividends.

There's much more sophistication that's needed in how we value social enterprise so that we can break the dependence on philanthropy and government that many experience when they're starting off.

So right now it's not static and there is much uncertainty. I think the question right now is what's going to happen after September when JobKeeper ends, and other supports are spent? Is that when Centrelink queues are going to return? What's the long term plan? This is where we need to think differently and this is where social enterprise should be vocal.

Paul Romer was the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and he says that, "economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking". That creativity, the new ideas of social enterprise and that value we generate is the pathway forward. The new recipes we need.

We should be role modelling the way the new economy should be built.

The way that we collaborate, the way that we form alliances across sectors, the way we build communities, being inclusive, having values that are about enabling people to find employment, and the way we harness volunteers. That's the future.

Those should be the settings that should be shaping the future economy. It's all turmoil and a mess right now. We've had bush fires over the summer, we've got the virus now. There are so many negative forces that play on our mental health and well-being. So with all that, there is still that shining light that we are in the right community.

This social enterprise community is the one that if we activate our creativity, if we collaborate, we can show the way through this dark period and help to build a stronger, wiser community. I believe that deeply.

I certainly agree with you on that Nick. You had some fantastic insights there. You've pointed to a range of different areas that we lack or should explore further as a nation such as a national social enterprise strategy. Certainly that aligns very strongly with the work that Impact Boom has been seeking to achieve over the last few years.

Where do you see these strong opportunities for the social enterprise sector in Australia, and what do you believe is needed to build on the current momentum? We are seeing the formation of these different state-based networks, we have over the last 12 months. We're seeing work towards an Alliance. I’m keen to hear your thoughts.

I think this is great. We're seeing some really great trends recently.

The Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks Australia.

The challenge is to help that wave get bigger, and to consolidate that momentum so that we can take some giant steps. I certainly want to use my role to do that as much as possible. I think in terms of strong opportunities, we are seeing greater engagement by government in creating clear platforms to support the growth, and open new markets for social enterprise.

There is much more that can, and should be done of course. The emergence of the National Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks has been widely celebrated, and for very good reason. It's very exciting to be part of that group. They're fantastic people. I love every time we get together, which has been very regular recently. In fact, we're meeting fortnightly at the moment, and there are sub-groups meeting in between them, because there are many projects and things that we want to start progressing. We've seen The Goodness Gap campaign, which was in response to the coronavirus. And now we're talking about designing a consumer campaign to harness favourable consumer trends and expand social enterprise markets. I'm keen to use the National Alliance to advocate for a national social enterprise strategy, to get better data on the impact that we make, which will help us individually and collectively seek favourable government support, but also finance and philanthropic support.

Data is so important right now, and part of that also is doing a proper social enterprise census. Then we can identify who we are, and we can show how important we are to the wider economy and community.

Another trend that is clear to me, and that I've observed, is I've seen a growing awareness that social enterprise has been a very white conversation to date.

In our tri-cultural nation, we are held back when we don't harness our diversity. New immigrants have used social enterprise for generations to settle in Australia, to empower family and friends, refugees and other new arrivals, to build thriving communities here.

Our first peoples have been practicing self determination through social enterprise for thousands of years. We can look at local community run organisations, or back to the Gunditjmara people, of Lake Condah in Western Victoria, who used to farm eels, and trade with local, neighbouring communities.

We have a long history here in Australia. There's a story still to be told about that, and I think telling that story will only empower us to get the recognition we ought to get from those who designed policy settings and investment opportunities. In this way, social enterprise has an important role in a much bigger conversation about shaping the economy and our national identity.

Absolutely. You mentioned policy, and the Victorian State Government has what would be considered globally as quite a strong social procurement framework, that was released roughly two years ago now. So, how do you believe government might best support impact-led businesses in general Nick?

We're really fortunate in Victoria, we've had some great leadership from the Victorian Government. It has been three years since the Social Enterprise Strategy was put out by the Victorian government, and I'm keen this year to engage our community to discuss what might be a revised social enterprise strategy. Perhaps a 10-year plan. Something that is breaking open the sky in terms of possibilities of what will create a thriving social enterprise sector. That includes looking at the social procurement framework for sure, and saying "what's the next step? How do we get local governments engaged with it more fully?”

How do we actually use local government to connect with local businesses, and role model best practice when it comes to revising supply chains, and including ethical and environmental outcomes as part of decision making for social procurement? I think we have to start local.

That's where we can make the biggest difference quickly, and indeed that can showcase at the national level how social enterprise can make a difference. Government has got enormous strengths in terms of its buying power. There is that sense of renewal this year in Victoria, a year of renewal and consolidation and setting up a new vision for the next few years.

What's also important this year, and this is partly what I am taking to the National Alliance of Social Enterprise Networks, is that we have a national campaign to improve the evidence framework so that we've got consistent impact measurement nationally. We have metrics and methodology that will increase government, business, investor confidence and improve understanding of the value generated by social enterprise. I mentioned data earlier, that's a key element. If we can create consistent approaches to valuing the impact that social enterprises make, that's a foundation really for success in terms of growing new markets, investment, and wider support and recognition of the sector.

Some great insights there Nick, and it'll be great to see some of those initiatives move forward, and for us to get stronger measurement nationally. We have previously seen some great work done there primarily with Jo Barraket and others in the space. It’s great to see that work move forward now.

What inspiring projects have you come across recently which you believe are creating some great positive social change?

I love hearing about Moving Feast. It's a wonderful food system project that has been driven by one of our founders and the CEO of Streat, Bec Scott. She has brought a wonderful coalition with the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Kinfolk, the Common Ground Project, the Melbourne Food Hub, Fruit To Work and the Whittlesey Food Collective to name a few. It's a wonderful alliance, and it's providing meals to vulnerable communities who are isolated during the pandemic.

Moving Feast is an exciting project that is really showing the success of social enterprise to collaborate across sectors, and have different ways of thinking about food, and the way that it's distributed and accessed.

‘The Social Studio’ in Collingwood has been making scrubs for healthcare, and it's their first major contract. They've pivoted in just the past month to respond to that need. I think they've produced over 160 sets of scrubs in the last month. They have harnessed sowers that are dispersed throughout Melbourne, who manufacture these scrubs for healthcare workers and are responding to that urgent, increased need. It's a fantastic response to the current bizarre time that we're in, but they have harnessed that, they've identified that demand, and responded quickly. From what I understand, they're still keeping their toe in the local designer area, fast-tracking an online store that they had under development already. They're really showing how nimble and innovative social enterprise can be.

The last one I'll mention is ‘The Torch’. They run a program for Indigenous people who are in Victorian prisons or recently released. The program connects them to culture and country, and trains them to create artistic work and experience financial independence through their art.

Nick with Kent Morris, CEO of The Torch.

Kent Morris, from The Torch, spoke at our first networking drinks in February. They are due to have their annual three-week exhibition starting in May, and they've had to flip that into a virtual gallery, which is really exciting and I hope that your listeners check it out. It's these things, it's the adapting to this current environment, but still following through with the outcomes that they are wanting to make and the impact, which is just really impressive and is always inspiring.

A few great projects there!

To finish off then Nick, what books would you recommend to our listeners?

Who needs fiction in times like these? It's been a while since I've got to a bookstore, so I've been looking at old ones on the bookshelf. 2020 has been a year of immense trauma. Really, we've collectively experienced seismic events this past year. The summer’s bush fires made the imminent threat of climate change [clear], a visceral experience for me and for my kids. Then to follow with an apocalyptic virus that forces households into lock down! 2020 could be a year that we remember for generations. While I could recommend books to inspire and showcase new localism or environmental innovation, what's actually helped me keep balance is what I think was one of the best books of 2018. It's Sarah Krasnostein's The Trauma Cleaner. It's a very personal book about finding personal truth, deep healing and profound hope and love. It follows a very unique, Australian character. It's a true story full of empathy and gratitude and resilience, so it's very much a book for now.

If I have to link it to social enterprise, it's an extraordinary person who runs a very unique cleaning service. It's a story about the entrepreneurial spirit in this country, and how our work not only feeds and shelters us, [but] our best work helps others to realise their best selves and to enable us individually to resolve past traumas or pain. [It helps] to find resolution in the routines and personal connections we find at our work and the value we give to others. It's a powerful story that I highly recommend, and I know it was a personal journey for the author, but I can't wait to see Sarah's next work.

There's one other book I'd recommend, and this is for those who are homeschooling with young kids, I recommend Marcia Langton's Welcome To Country - The kid's edition, which we have on our shelf and we refer to a lot. It's accessible, has rich information, and is a great conversation starter for your young ones. I think those big conversations are really important to have while you're at home, because they'll help us regain balance once we emerge in the spring.