Social enterprises are essentially businesses for good. They are unique because they exist to create impact through trade.
Purpose is at the heart of the social enterprise model, but it can be hard to quantify or explain. Social Traders Certification provides confidence that the social enterprise model really does create social or environmental impact through trade.
Cultivate is a purpose-driven social enterprise that exists to provide opportunities for people experiencing barriers to employment. It operates as commercial business that manufactures high quality food products whilst scaling social impact.
Social Traders define a social enterprise as:
- Purpose-driven: there is a defined primary social, cultural or environmental purpose consistent with a public or community benefit.
- A substantial portion of revenue comes from trade (for Cultivate, this is selling food products or contract food manufacturing services), and
- The efforts and resources invested into their purpose, outweighs private benefit.
Cultivate is backed by the Bedford Group which has a strong history of offering employment to people with disability for over 75 years. Bedford Social Enterprises was established in response to the lack of meaningful jobs opportunities for people with disability in the open market.
These businesses offer open employment which leads to more career pathways and an opportunity to earn a full award wage. Not only does Cultivate offer more choice to people with disability but we’re also being part of the solution when it comes to reducing pressures on the NDIS budget, by reducing the number of participants. Transitioning participants into open employment supports them to become truly economically independent.
According to Social Traders' Pace 2023 report, certified social enterprises are growing and delivering impact in spades.
