Kylie Flament On People Finding Happiness Through The Social Enterprise Movement

Kylie Flament is a social enterprise leader and sustainability expert with a background in managing large teams and projects in the corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors. She managed the cardiac department at both children’s hospitals in Sydney before becoming the CEO of Green Connect, a social enterprise, for five years.

She currently holds multiple positions including CEO of the Social Enterprise Council of NSW & ACT, and an Expert in Residence at the University of Wollongong. As an expert in this field, she brings valuable knowledge and experience in promoting sustainable business practices and building strong communities through social enterprise.

Kylie discusses why people are joining the social enterprise movement to find fulfilment and holding traditional businesses to account for negatively impacting the planet.

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

[Tom Allen] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your passion in social enterprise?

[Kylie Flament] - I started in a corporate career and studied an MBA. Around the same time, I started working at a children's hospital, and the MBA was focused on how to maximise profits. They taught us the best marketing techniques to sell people stuff they didn't need at prices they couldn't refuse. They taught us the best HR techniques to maintain the most productive workforce. At the time, there was this amazing professor deeply embedded in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). She launched a social enterprise subject at my university, and it blew my mind. It was exactly what I'd been looking for; how do I use all these tools business has for good? That was the start; it lit a fire in me to realise you don't have to choose between doing business and doing good. You can combine them in social enterprise.

Would you agree this pathway of yours is one more and more people are taking?

Absolutely. Quite frankly, social enterprise is not a new idea. Aboriginal people have been trading and doing business sustainably and in a way that benefits people and the planet for tens of thousands of years. If you zoom out on human history, we are a part of a little blip where we accidentally took this thing which was supposed to be a tool (money), and instead of using it to exchange things, it became our goal. We turned it into a goal for 200- 250 years, and that is insane.

When you take a step back and look at history, GDP growth doesn't tell us whether we're better off or not as a country. My bank balance doesn't tell me how happy I am, and profits from a company don't tell you whether they've contributed anything to society.

Social enterprise is catching on because it's a return to what is normal and good for all of us.

It's exciting because Australia is currently doing a listening exercise. The Australian Government has launched a Measuring What Matters white paper, and so we are one of many countries around the world to say, "GDP doesn't measure wellbeing.” Instead, we need a Wellbeing Budget (as they call it in New Zealand) or a Gross National Happiness index (as they call it in Bhutan). It's not a new idea, but it's certainly gaining traction.

Natalia, Bella and Kylie at SEWF 2022 in Brisbane, Australia.

As CEO of SECNA (Social Enterprise Council of NSW & ACT), what are your observations of the social enterprise movement where you're operating?

The growth and interest in social enterprise is phenomenal. I started running a social enterprise called Green Connect in 2018. Every single person I met, I had to explain what a social enterprise was. It felt lonely. I would stumble across another social enterprise or social entrepreneur, and it was like meeting a kindred spirit. Then, there was this immediate spark, and it was so exciting. We were few and far between, so a few of us got together and formed SECNA. This was partly to find each other and be able to connect more easily, but partly to have a voice for this growing movement of social enterprise. What I've seen in the three years SECNA has been forming is we have a groundswell of people, organisations, and interest.

There are councils, state government bodies, corporates, and people saying, "I see the value in this movement; money is a tool, not the goal, and there are bigger goals for us to tackle." People want to be a part of social enterprise; more businesses are recognising this and returning to their purpose.

More charities are recognising that relying on grants and philanthropy is a scary existence. It's bumpy, so you get a bit of self-determination if you have a revenue or trade stream. It won't necessarily cover all your expenses, but it feels like both ends of the business to charity spectrum are turning towards social enterprise. We are all the better for it.

What changes have you observed in the social enterprise landscapes of Australia and further afield? Where are these opportunities to grow this movement and do more?

I've observed more and more people are interested in this movement, particularly post COVID. The pandemic was a real moment in time where we all did reassess our values and whether our lives matched them. A lot of people have been ditching their purely profit motivated corporate careers to do something that matters. People are realising they still need to make an income and feed their family, but they want to do it in a way that sits well with them. Social enterprise can use all those business tools but do good in the world. We're still at the really early stages of defining ourselves as a movement. There's a lot of ambiguity in what makes a social enterprise. Having a certifying body such as Social Traders that's been around for a long time is helpful to try to draw a circle around what is and isn't a social enterprise. It is ambiguous, because while it's easy to measure dollars which are cold hard facts, it's harder to measure social impact and good. It is more complex and important, so we should absolutely be measuring it. But it isn't black and white. As we are maturing, we are starting to understand what good practice and sustainability looks like.

Jacob and Kylie at Green Connect Farm in 2019.

I have observed a lot of people working in social enterprises who are passionate, driven, and willing to go the nth degree because they see the difference they're making. But levels of burnout are high.

We cannot (as one colleague told me when I was working at the registered charity Green Connect), be the charity for the charity. We're wrapping our heads around what long-term success looks like and making sure we are not burning out social entrepreneurs. But also, I often say to people who don't know what a social enterprise is, if a business and charity had a baby, that's a social enterprise. I can't claim that saying, that was coined by Callum Champagne one of my colleagues at Green Connect! Previously we have had this myth you can do all the good of a charity with only the revenue of a business. Particularly for work integrated social enterprises (organisations who exist to employ people who need jobs most) that's not true.

We need to stop saying a cafe or landscaping business can do all this training, support, and wraparound services with just the revenue from that business. These are low margin businesses anyway, so it's a fallacy we can do that.

Government is recognising very quickly and deeply it's great value for money. We can offer all these wraparound services, training and pay for most of it through trade income. They only need to pay for the support component and all this good can happen. That's a real shift which needs to happen and we're pushing for. Government recognises the value of social enterprises. There were huge announcements in the recent federal budget for $111.6 million of spending to made on social enterprise, which is amazing.

But how do we ensure the way funding is designed and accessed doesn't take away from the agility social enterprises have? They treat their people as humans in all their complexity. Also, they do what that person needs, not just what one of the ticked boxes says could be possible. Government knows it works, we know it works, but how we marry government funding (which is much needed) with the way that social enterprises create this impact is going to be another challenge.

On a global scale how might we mainstream this business for good movement?

I've been saying to people since I took on this role six months ago my aim is to put myself out of a job, because business for good should be the only way of doing business! If you go back to basic economic principles, it's all about externalities. In business, you know there are negative and positive externalities. Basically, the things you do are creating bad and good things in the world. Now, business isn't held to account for those things. You can make billions of bottles of water by pulling water out of aquifers which would otherwise be going to towns. You can run these aquifers dry, pack your water in plastic and ship them around the world. You're not responsible for whether that town has water or not after you've taken your share out of the aquifer. You're not responsible for the plastic waste or pollution from transporting all this water around the world. Those are negative externalities which are not seen as the responsibility of that company. There are a bunch of positive externalities to be created, and social enterprises do these in droves.

When we employ someone who needs a job most, it's more than just a job. It's confidence, purpose and financial independence, and there's this ripple effect out into the community.

That however is also not recognised as being the responsibility of a business. There's nothing which flows back to the organisation because of that positive impact.

As we mature as a society, we are hopefully going to start recognising those externalities, make them an organisation's responsibility and stop saying responsibility ends when you sell your product onto someone.

What advice would you give to people looking to start or grow their enterprise? Where have you observed common pitfalls, entrepreneurs fall into?

My advice would be find your tribe.

Every single event I go to for SECNA (and we're holding more and more of them), someone will come rushing up to me and say, "this is the first time I've feel like I've found my people.” They will continue saying, “this sector is exhausting; sometimes I feel like I'm beating the drum of social enterprise by myself. I feel like I'm trying to do business for good and it's exhausting; but I've filled my cup tonight. This is incredible." You feel like you're understood and supported. The phenomenal thing is social enterprises share everything. At Green Connect, when we decided to start a gardening and landscaping business, I rang three social enterprises around Australia who did that work already and asked for advice. They sent me everything. They sent me price guides, terms and conditions, equipment lists, and even a 52-page work and safety manual for supporting staff. That would never happen in the corporate or even public sector, but there's this willingness to help. My number one piece of advice would be to find your tribe.

Kylie Flament on a road trip with other social entrepreneurs during SEWF, 2022.

One of the common pitfalls is failing to recognise the two sides of the equation.

A social enterprise is both a business and a charity, but only a charity in the sense you're doing good. You must walk that tight rope every day; you have to be commercially savvy while deeply committed to doing good.

At Green Connect, whenever we considered if we should do something or not, we would ask ourselves three questions. These were:

Is it good for people?
Is it good for the planet?
Is it financially viable?

There were amazing business units and projects we could do that were good for people and the planet, but we could not figure out how to fund them. They sat on a list waiting for the day the funding landscape changed. After two or three years of us constantly doing new things and it being so exciting, I added to my list of questions "do we have the capacity, skills, time and energy to do this right now?" If we all ask ourselves those questions each time, it might help to develop this go/don’t go moment. It feels good to chase after something amazing, but you don't want to burn out and have a project come crashing down. Making sure you're doing social impact in a measured and sustainable way is crucial.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently which are doing great work?

I love my job because I get to meet incredible social enterprises. The organisations I'm deeply in love with start with Two Good Co., which is employing women coming out of refuges. The Bread & Butter Project is employing refugees and asylum seekers to bake bread. BackTrack is employing young aboriginal people to do farming. Hotel Etico is up and coming and going gangbusters now. They employ people with disabilities to run hotels.

Newer projects that have come across my desk lately include The Reconnect Project, which is taking old devices (laptops and phones), repairing them, and while some are sold, others are given to people who would otherwise be locked out of the digital space. The Groundswell Project is allowing people to have conversations about death and dying to break down misunderstandings and taboos so we can all have a better end of life journey. If you paint a room, you usually end up with half a can leftover; Circle Paints will take that paint and sell it on. If you just need half a can, you can go and buy paint from them so you're not putting paint in bins. Youngster is training young people to teach older people how to use computers and phones. Chocolate On Purpose, which is run by two phenomenal women (including one Aboriginal woman who is really committed to native ingredients and bush foods), is making sure every community is benefiting. There are so many initiatives I could go on and on. It's amazing every time I meet someone tackling a social, environmental, or cultural challenge with a business model behind it.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to the listeners?

This is classic, but you can't go past Doughnut Economics. I understood the concept, and so I used to think I don't really need to read the book. But one day I found myself with a bit of time after I finished up at Green Connect last year, so I finally read it. It was the best book after having gone through a business undergraduate and MBA degree. I was taught all these old economic models, but Kate Raworth (the author) flipped these models and shows how they were broken. Then, she says, "here are better versions, here is how we can have a social floor to make sure everyone has enough and an environmental ceiling so we're not taking from the environment and future generations." Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics is fantastic. Now I'm reading another book which has been around for a while, but I just haven't got to until now. This book is called A World of Three Zeros. I think the author missed out on another zero; zero waste, but it is a very accessible reading.