Social Finance Innovation 101: Workshops for Senior Managers

The social sector is undergoing a period of rapid change and increased pressure.

Traditional sources of funding are becoming increasingly constrained and the social needs in our community show no sign of abating. New models for funding and implementing social outcomes are now emerging that the sector can capitalise on.

If you’ve heard terms like ‘social impact bonds’ and ‘impact investing’ but you’re not really sure what they mean or you have started thinking about how to bring in new sources of revenue for your organisation, this course is for you.

The course will be delivered in two half-day modules on Thursday 12 March and Thursday 19 March, 9am - 12.30pm. It will:

• guide you through the terminology
• help you explore the different options for conceptualising and financing social outcomes, and
• provide an opportunity for you to practice the concepts with case scenarios, including your own project ideas.

Lead by Vanessa Lesnie from Social Outcomes it will be a practical and interactive workshop targeting senior executives of NCOSS member organisations who are exploring new ways of doing business.

Registrations close at 5pm, Friday, 6 March 2015. Book now - numbers are limited!

About Vanessa Lesnie

Vanessa Lesnie is a social change practitioner and strategist with 20 years experience working with the community, government and corporate sectors. Vanessa has run several national human rights inquiries and has significant expertise in social finance; social project design, management and evaluation; organisational and cultural change; and stakeholder engagement and empowerment. She is an experienced facilitator, public speaker and writer and serves on a number of boards and committees.

Over her 20-year career Vanessa Lesnie has worked both in Australia and internationally, across the community, government, university and corporate sectors, applying her broad range of skills to tackle complex social issues. Vanessa worked at the United Nations in Geneva and then for a New York-based human rights NGO – Human Rights First – where she led a range of global human rights projects, including the creation of a corporate-community-government partnership developed to improve labor conditions in Cambodian factories supplying garments to major US clothing retailer, Gap Inc. In 2002 Vanessa was appointed to run the Australian Human Rights Commission’s National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. She then went on to run several other major projects at the Commission over the next 10 years including leading the Commission’s strategic change process over several years. Vanessa led Impact Investing Australia’s stakeholder consultation process designed to inform a breakthrough strategy for building Australia’s impact investing market. She also became Impact Investing Australia’s Partner Relationship Manager, Company Secretary and a founding Director on its Board.

About Social Outcomes

Social Outcomes was established in July 2014 in response to the rapid changes in the impact investing market in Australia and our region, as well as a global move to focusing on outcomes. Capital pools are building, and yet the projects and enterprises to invest that capital into, are not growing with the same speed. At the same time, government, the social sector, and business, are looking to educate themselves on how to use these new approaches and make them work in practice.

Social Outcomes is a social business that facilitates the creation of tailored working models to showcase social and financial innovation through:

• completing feasibility studies to test the business case of a new approach;
• assisting to determine which tools will best create impact in a given situation;
• providing capacity building around using social and financial innovation tools;
• identifying the right partners and brokering the building of those relationships;
• supporting the internal culture changes; and
• providing specialist expertise to fund and implement successfully.