As central connectors, our role stretches far beyond capital. We’re also here to build capability, offer a second brain and be the critical friend that walks alongside social enterprises on their journey. To create partnerships and close collaborations that help shape a robust sector that focuses investing in impact. So that social enterprises can scale that impact and thrive.

 Over the past 20 (combined) years of Sefa and Sefa Partnerships, we’ve learned a lot. We know the pathway to sustainability isn’t straightforward. Things can – and often do – change quickly, and setting entrepreneurs up so they can pivot quickly is a critical part of what we do. We also know we can’t achieve our goals alone. We need to work with likeminded partners to extend our reach, plug skills or knowledge gaps and help more social enterprises along the way. Because together we can create a bolder, more impactful sector.

As we become more intentional about our approach, it’s important to reflect on the impact we’ve already had. Direct impact can take time to flourish, so we’re revisiting some of our clients we have worked with over the years below to highlight what impact looks like.

Setting Adelaide’s free coding school up for success

After the success of her social enterprise KIK Innovation, founder and CEO Louise Nobes wanted to find a way to impact more disadvantaged young people and give them higher-value skill sets.

In 2019, she came across 42 – the world’s only free, globally-expanding coding school – she knew she wanted to bring its offering to Australia.

But setting up a multimillion-dollar free coding school from scratch requires a lot of capital. Louise is the first non-millionaire to embark on building a 42 school. And while she was able to raise enough funds to buy 150 iMacs and open the doors, Louise wanted a way to repay the partner loan as soon as possible to ensure relationships were maintained.

That’s when Sefa stepped in. We worked closely with Louise  to understand 42’s business model, goals and purpose and modelled various financial options for different funding pathways. After a four-month due diligence process, we offered 42 Adelaide a loan under the Federal Government’s SME Recovery Loan Scheme that gave the social enterprise the time to raise extra funds and keep the doors open.

“This school is a multimillion-dollar fit-out that had to match the look of every other campus around the world,” says Louise. “Without Sefa, we wouldn't have 42 today. It’s as simple that. I would never have had the runway to find all that extra money so quickly.”

But the for-purpose path is rarely straightforward, and Louise had to pivot to make sure 42 Adelaide is sustainable. Over the past three years, she has built a sponsorship model, where tech companies sponsor the school and get access to an exciting pool of talent. Today, 42 schools around the world are looking to Louise’s sponsorship model to see how they can expand their reach and impact.

Louise says having Sefa’s support throughout the journey has been invaluable.

“Sefa is led by an incredible CEO, and you know the team can see your vision – which makes you feel like they’ve always got your back.”

With Sefa’s support, Louise also explored and implemented new, diverse entry points for various students to make sure anyone who wants to learn coding can access the right education. And now, we’re working together to explore how Louise and her team can expand their reach and replicate the 42 model across Australia.

Improving patient experience in regional NSW

Dealing with health issues or concerns is stressful. But for Australians living in rural and regional communities, distance from health facilities can make things even more challenging.

To improve patient experience, Macquarie Home Stay in Dubbo has been providing low-cost, short-term accommodation for people before, during and after treatment since 2019. Over the past four years, it has welcomed more than 4,300 patients from regional New South Wales. But the accommodation provider can’t keep up with demand, having to turn three patients away every day.

With a clear need to expand, Managing Director Rod Crowfoot needed the capital to build three additional accommodation precincts. To do that, he needed to prove Macquarie Home Stay’s impact beyond the accommodation it provides.

“We wanted to put a framework around the role we play within the ecosystem of health and patient experience – and get a richer sense of clarity for what we do and our impact on our western and northern communities,” Rod shares.

Sefa stepped in to create the organisation’s Theory of Change and develop a way to measure and articulate its impact to make it more attractive to potential investors and funding partners. We also set out to help the team explore different capital pathways, including loans options that Rod and his team were initially focusing on.

But once we developed a clear purpose, a robust Theory of Change and evidence of its critical role within the Western NSW health ecosystem, Macquarie Home Stay became more attractive to government. And it successfully secured a grant from the government in 2023 that contributed to the funding requirements for stage two of Macquarie Home Stay’s funding requirements for stage two. This grant will allow the organisation to expand on its masterplan – building stage two accommodation precincts, which will support and additional 26 patients at any given time.

“Without us, our visitors’ quality of life would be very different. Sefa’s work in developing our Theory of Change solidified how important we are to our patients in the eyes of the New South Wales Government and helped us secure that grant.” - Rod Crowfoot

Partnering for a brave new sector

The Macquarie Group Foundation – which drives social impact for Macquarie Group – helps strengthen communities through financial support, volunteering and skills sharing.  

The Foundation has a longstanding connection to Sefa. Former head Julie White joined Sefa’s board of directors in 2011, helping shape our capability building pillar. Since then, the two organisations have formed a close partnership focusing on nurturing early-stage social enterprises through specialised programs. 

One of those is Kickstarter, a 12-week business building program that matches social entrepreneurs with Macquarie Group mentors to develop a business plan and test their business models. Sefa Partnerships’ facilitation of Kickstarter started as a two-year pilot grant and evolved into a long-running signature program thanks to positive feedback from both supported enterprises and the Macquarie mentors. 

Anna Le Masurier, Macquarie Group Foundation’s Regional Head for Australia and New Zealand, says Sefa Partnerships was the perfect collaborator to facilitate the program. 

“Sefa is a pioneer in looking at financing and building capability of for-purpose businesses outside of mainstream capital in this market,” Anna says. “Its understanding of Macquarie’s perspective and its links to the social enterprise sector make it a balanced intermediary that can bring the two cohorts together. The team understand what social entrepreneurs need and can pair them with the right Macquarie mentor.”

Over the years, we also ran several of the Foundation’s Future Skills programs, in which Macquarie staff collaborate with social enterprises on real-world challenges, as well as hosted several ‘hackathons’, connecting social enterprise leaders with Macquarie Group’s workforce to support different ways of questioning and learning.

“We’ve developed a better understanding of the value of working with the right intermediaries to drive the capacity and capability of the social enterprise sector. We’ve also learned the importance of appropriate capital to develop for-purpose businesses according to their maturity and particular market opportunity – and the need for a broader ecosystem of support for social enterprises,” says Anna.