The Social Enterprise World Forum held in Brisbane in September brought together practitioners, thought leaders and members of the ecosystem from around the world. After years of little face to face contact, the atmosphere was buzzing. As one colleague remarked, it felt like Schoolies Week for the purpose sector!
One of the main sessions featured UK economist and Oxford academic, Kate Raworth, talking about Doughnut Economics. It was a chance to get right up on the balcony of our economic system, and think about the link between the work we do in the social purpose sector, including the thriving and growing domain of social enterprises, and how to conceptualise this in one holistic framework. It combines the other big topics that dominated the Forum – our ecological and environmental crisis, poverty and inequality, First Nations climate justice, and rural and regional renewal.
If you’re looking for a big picture injection into your thinking, or you’ve heard the term but never really explored it, this book is highly recommended. It’s an accessible and engaging read about our systemic potential and one that can practically inform everything from your strategy development to organisational values. As Kate says, this is a compass for our century. Full of highlighter-worthy quotes – both her own and others – it articulates and provides a deep understanding of how we got to ‘growth’ as our sole metric of success, and how ‘advancing the richness of human life’, can replace it.
