Sally McGeoch: CSI Swinburne PhD Candidate

Sally McGeoch is pursuing a PhD by Practice with CSI Swinburne, focusing on how cross-sector collaboration can enable Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE) to scale their impact.

With nearly 17 years of experience working at the intersection of philanthropy, business, and social enterprise, Sally brings a real depth of practical experience to her academic research. In addition to her PhD research, Sally is a senior advisor at the Westpac Foundation , where she is responsible for the design and delivery of grant and capacity building programs that support community organisations and social enterprises to create jobs and employment opportunities for Australians facing complex barriers to work.

As part of her research, Sally has developed three Work Integrated Social Enterprise (WISE) case studies using action research as her approach. Working alongside three organisations, STREAT , White Box Enterprise , and Jigsaw , Sally observed their collaborative practice in workshops and meetings as well as conducting interviews with key stakeholders.

“All organisations were so generous letting me be in “insider researcher”, says Sally. "They were the experts and I was just there to document and share what I was observing and then we made sense of it all together.”