Our approach
We are committed to supporting early-stage job-focused community and organisations and social enterprise to strengthen and scale their impact to collectively build a more inclusive economy.
- We provide multi-year core funding to build business sustainability and impact to transition our partners to more diverse funding opportunities beyond our grants.
- We take a holistic approach to developing both the enterprise and their leaders, leveraging the skills, resources and networks of Westpac Group and our partners.
- We work collaboratively, partner and build networks as we believe that no one organisation can solve the issue of labour market exclusion.
- We advocate and help build the evidence base to attract private and public investment in social enterprise.
- Our social enterprise partners are our customers and their needs and aspirations guide our approach.
Why we focus on employment:
A job means more than just money, it's a sense of purpose, it's a social network and it empowers people - it also increases independence, supports health and wellbeing, and builds resilient communities. Yet many people across the nation face complex barriers to employment in the mainstream job market where skills and talent can be overlooked.
For example:
- The employment rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues to significantly lag that of non-Indigenous people, and the gap has not closed notably over the past 30 years.
- The employment rate for people with disability has been consistently lower than for those with no reported disability and has shown no improvement over 20 years.
- Young people aged 15 to 24 years face an unemployment rate twice the unemployment rate for all Australians.
Our focus is informed by research we commissions in 2019, Social Enterprise: A people-centred approach to employment services (PDF 4MB). The report examines employment as a pathway out of disadvantage, and helps to identify where the gaps are and what is needed to help employment-focused social enterprises scale to create greater long-term sustainable change.