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Message from Peter Shergold
I am delighted at the level of media attention given to the survey on Managing the Downturn late last month. The story was reported on TV stations across the country, often with long interviews. The Australian, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age all provided substantive print articles.
Perhaps even more satisfying than the blanket coverage was the genuine interest shown by reporters on the impact the economic downturn was having on the not-for-profit sector: virtually all had their own personal stories of the challenges facing community enterprises.
The survey was the outcome of a rewarding partnership between PricewaterhouseCoopers (Rick Millen), Fundraising Institute Australia (Chris McMillan) and CSI. A more qualitative assessment of the survey, prepared by Sue-Anne Wallace, together with the background tables, will soon appear on the CSI website. Look out for it. Rick, Chris and I are now examining a follow-up survey later in the year. Meanwhile I looked up from my breakfast Weeties on 22 July to watch Cheryl Kernot talking on ABC TV2 Breakfast about her presentation to the Fabian society on social ventures.
Meetings of the Advisory Council were held in Melbourne and Sydney on 16 and 20 July. The occasions were an opportunity for Megan Etheridge (Suited for Work), Jennifer Evans (The Infants’ Home Child and Family Services) and Rebecca Scott (STREAT) to discuss their entrepreneurial challenges with a supportive group. As always I presented a ‘provocation’, this time on the role of business schools in contributing to the global financial crisis: I worry about how easy, and how enjoyable, I find it to provoke robust discussion! I’m particularly looking forward to the first Advisory Council in Perth on 17 September.
Finally I’m delighted to announce that the partner universities of CSI have been granted Associate Membership in the US-based nonprofit Academic Centers Council. We will automatically become a Full Member once the Graduate Certificate in Social Impact is offered for the first time at the beginning of 2010.
Please keep your feedback coming. All of the team at CSI find it extraordinarily valuable.
Peter Shergold,
Macquarie Group Foundation Professor
www.csi.edu.au
India-bound
A passion for community development has propelled Keya Saha-Chaudhury to wide-ranging adventures, now to include eight weeks in India. The ANU Arts-Law graduate and Australian Youth Ambassador is the winner of the CSI/Chain Reaction scholarship to attend the PRIA International Internship Program.
Read more ...
Follow the GuideStar
We are delighted to welcome Les Hems to Australia from the UK. He is a world expert on measuring impact in the not-for-profit sector; the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Economics has recommended that the GuideStar system, which he helped develop, be investigated for use in Australia. He will be speaking in conjunction with Pro Bono Australia in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane later this month.
Read more on these and other events.
Doing the sums
Our popular Financial Management of Social Enterprises course is offered in Sydney this week. The course presented by senior lecturer Kevin Clarke from the Australian School of Business at UNSW focuses on best practice reporting in the not-for-profit sector and has been brought back for a third time by popular demand. Register your interest in the next course by emailing us at csi@unsw.edu.au. Registrations are also open for Paul ‘t Hart’s Collaborative Leadership in a Shared Power World in Sydney in November, focused on overcoming barriers between the government, not-for-profit and corporate sectors to achieve greater social impact.
New research Chair at Swinburne
ANZ Trustees and Swinburne University of Technology have announced the establishment of the Truby and Florence Williams Chair of Social Investment and Philanthropy. This exciting development has been brought about in collaboration with CSI. A successful event in Melbourne this month kicked off the worldwide search to fill the position which will be a conjoint role between our partner Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy at Swinburne and CSI.
Provocative conversation
Dick Estens from the Aboriginal Employment Service established in Moree enthralled the audience with his story of challenge and change in getting Aborigines into mainstream work in the latest instalment of our dinner series Yakety Yak hosted by PricewaterhouseCoopers. View the video of his provocative conversation with Peter Thompson, which people were still talking about in the following days.
Our orators
Kylie Charlton will present the Heloise Waislitz Oration in Melbourne on September 2 and Sydney on September 10. At this event, held in conjunction with CSI and hosted by the Westpac Foundation, Kylie will speak on how the profit dynamic might support social progress in our region, a subject on which she is highly qualified as a founding team member of Unitus Capital, a firm which specialises in arranging capital for microfinance institutions.
Professor Michael Liffman recently delivered a paper on “Mobilising Corporate Social Responsibility for Strategic Philanthropy” in Kuala Lumpur. The conference, “Enhancing the Role of Philanthropy in Challenging Times”, believed to be one of the first of its kind held in Malaysia, attracted speakers from all over the region, the US and the UK.
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