Social Enterprises Panel
August 2025 GLC Monthly Learning Call Brief
We had really great presentations and shared learning on our Social Enterprises Monthly Learning Calls this month. Those who joined the calls expressed how valuable it was to hear GLC members present on their work and learning journeys. For the Secretariat it was really great to see the GLC in action as knowledge and experience from diverse contexts was shared and discussed.
Our reflections on both the calls’ presentations and discussions highlighted three overarching threads, we provide our reflections here first, followed by a brief overview of the presentations afterwards:
Business priority
Context
Learning
The first and possibly most clearly highlighted thread that came out of the calls is that business has to be business, regardless of the intentions of the organisation, for a social enterprise to be successful in achieving its goal of utilising business to support its work with survivors and communities. While there are different ways of designing a business and its operations, business requires a certain degree of specific knowledge and expertise for it to succeed. Our speakers on the calls certainly highlighted these differences, and that also, it doesn’t have to be a big business or be huge to be a successful enterprise and make a difference. Also, that ultimate success can certainly be built from a small beginning. But it is important to evaluate if a particular idea for a social enterprise is filling a void that exists - this is borrowing from ‘standard business’ strategy which looks for spaces or gaps in the market that present opportunities. And further to this, the quality of outputs, whether products or services, need to be of a high standard in order to compete, as is the case of any standard business. Good business is good business as the saying goes and for social enterprises this is the only way towards real sustainability. Good business is also especially necessary as social enterprises carry additional costs that standard businesses might avoid. A social enterprise is built on the ethical and values based business practices necessary to fulfil the aim of providing restorative working environments and trauma-informed direct support to survivors.
The second thread that became evident, was that there needs to be a deep understanding of the context, on all the necessary fronts - the context of the beneficiary communities being supported, that is their social, cultural, economic, educational and aspirational realities as well as support needs; the context as relates the business environment in which the social enterprise operates which includes political and regulatory realities; the context of the intended audience or market for the social enterprise’s outputs; and the context of the organisation starting the social enterprise, its mission, capacities and capabilities. Context is important because what works in one context will not necessarily work in another. History and economic and political structures matter and have to be understood. Any social enterprise is also tied into larger global political and economic realities which bring about additional challenges. An example of this is the current tariff related market turmoil, which presenters on the calls highlighted as having a direct negative impact and which they are needing to rapidly adjust to with creativity and learning. Having a full grasp of context can help an organisation make decisions about strategy and operational focus, such as, if as a products based business to engage in exporting to international markets with its many complications or not; or how best to design operational structures best suited to their beneficiary community with lived experience input.
Which brings us to the third thread we identified from the calls, that of ‘learning’, in that designing and building a successful social enterprise requires intentional and continual learning. The research process is incredibly important to this learning, one cannot jump into a social enterprise based on assumptions, which reiterates the importance of understanding context. The need to undertake market analysis cannot be overstated. It is essential to gain insight into whether or not the business idea has a chance of being successful, to grapple with what is actually needed versus what is thought is needed. However, learning may also come in the form of initial unsuccessful attempts, any great idea and clearly thought out plan may still take a few restarts to find the right footing. And alongside this, as shifts and changes occur in market contexts, businesses need to adapt, for social enterprises it might be that teaching survivors how to make products is only one step in the process, and that further training in services of various kinds needs to be added to their model. The presentations shared on the call illustrated this well and also illustrated the value of accepting at the start that a certain degree of resilience and tenacity will be required, in order to keep learning, problem solving and moving forward. From those who shared on the calls, a few pieces of ‘good advice’ stood out - seek input from others, listen to wise counsel, understand context and implement changes as necessary. The learning process for social enterprises really needs diverse minds to be involved, from those with key social work minds to those with the key business mind. But what the calls also showed is that the ‘business mind’ can be developed and acquired, and that the learning journey towards this, while bumpy and unpredictable, can eventually contribute to tangible and positive outcomes.
Implications for the GLC
We saw on the calls a great deal of interest in more learning, while also realising that there is so much knowledge within the community. Our lingering question for the community is how do we want to take this conversation forward? If any member has any thoughts please reach out to the Secretariat team
We also acknowledge that there are massive and deeply complex problems in the state of the global economy, and its vast imbalances and inequalities, which social enterprises cannot really change. We all know at the end of the day that there is no job in the world that will for example pay a Romanian girl with a Grade 10 education more money than prostitution. There remain many voids such as these, where creativity and diverse minds are needed for new workable ideas and solutions. But there will always be space for highly skilled service professionals and makers of beautiful high-end products for different markets. Is there simply greater need for more ethically business minded people to be brought into the fold of the movement. It might also be the case that the anti-trafficking sector could greatly benefit from more partnerships and cross sector collaborations to ignite new ideas. This world is a competitive place and the global economy is based on this competitive force, which implies winners and losers, expressly why this sector exists in the first place and what makes our work so difficult. But by doing the hard work incorporating diverse minds to create sustainable ethical values based businesses that uplift rather than exploit is a clear way to push back, and if we in this movement know this then how do we do this more and better?
Additional Resourcing can be found at:
Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) www.bestalliance.org
Freedom Business Alliance (FBA) www.freedombusinessalliance.com
Overview of Call Presentations
On the Eastern call our presenters included:
Ida from House of Diamonds, Indonesia: A social enterprise that provides women from disadvantaged communities in Indonesia the opportunity to rise above their circumstances through meaningful employment as textile-artists, offering the freedom to work in a safe, loving environment for good wages. Ida shared about their challenges, their necessary learning with the additional support of a business minded friend and their relaunch, to get the project to where it is today. She also shared interesting and valuable insights into their strategy as per their particular context - their size and capacity - as well as their chosen market. By focusing on small-scale but exceptionally high quality production, they prioritise selling in higher-end stores in Indonesia, thereby greatly diminishing demands on their small team to manage international exports. She also shared that as they’ve stabilised they are now able to think about developing further into direct online sales. Excellent insights for those perhaps grappling with starting a social enterprise.
Nathanael Arrowsmith (Naffy) from Starfish Project in Asia: Naffy shared about the novel approach of Starfish Project, of not only being a jewellery, accessories and home decor social enterprise that provides wrap around support for beneficiaries but which goes beyond this to harness all areas of the business and its associated activities to support beneficiaries’ development and ultimate independence. Whether that’s in HR, product development or marketing, a core feature of Starfish Project’s Survivor Business Leadership Model in which beneficiaries are professionals in the whole business. Nathanael is passionate about seeing social enterprises equipped and elevated to function effectively in the market alongside regular businesses, to ensure continuous sustainability.
Toos Heemskerk-Schep and Elisabeth de Wit from Dignita and its sister project Fair Administration, Netherlands: Toos and Elisabeth have many years of deep experience in developing survivor supporting social enterprise projects in the context of the Netherlands. They shared valuable insights not only of the context of legalised prostitution and its unique implications and complexities but also of the challenges they’ve been confronted with over the years and what they’ve learned along the way. Dignita is a social enterprise in the food, beverages and hospitality industry that offers skills development and employment, while Fair Administration developed in response to the additional exploitation by unscrupulous actors in regards to the taxation and bookkeeping requirements which all sex workers need to comply with under law, as registered self-employed persons.
And on the Western call we had:
Lucy Turay from Domestic Workers Advocacy Network (DoWAN), Sierra Leone: Lucy is a survivor of trafficking and exploitation under the Kafala system (The Kafala (Sponsorship) System, emerged in the 1950’s, as a legal structure to monitor migrant domestic workers implemented in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and a few Arab states). Her work with DoWAN is towards collective change within the community, by empowering women to be able to sustain their livelihoods and their communities so that they do not fall subject to human trafficking. Their model includes vocational skills training in relevant activities for their local context, and their project ‘Seeding Solidarity’ which supports women by training and equipping them in agriculture which was identified as a community need. The work of DoWAN really shows how contextualisation is necessary in developing social enterprises, and how specific needs within communities can the social enterprise is targeted towards solving.
Ryan Berg, Aruna Project, India & USA: Ryan shared a comprehensive presentation of the work of Aruna, which combines the best of nonprofit services and business solutions to create lifelong freedom through employment supported by holistic care for survivors. Aruna’s business model reflects their comprehensive understanding of the various contexts, which their freedom business straddles - a USA based premium athleisure company with a comprehensive support model that offers exit pathways, safe and supportive training, employability, and trauma informed direct services for survivors of sex trafficking. Ryan’s presentation excellently communicated the importance of the ‘business mind’ and ‘social work mind’ partnership, the ‘business priority’ aspect necessary for the project’s success, as well as the agility and continual learning to overcome challenges presented by uncontrollable market forces.
Matthew Fairfax, Justice and Soul Foundation, Cambodia & USA: Matthew shared the story of the project’s beginnings in Cambodia all the way through to their current expansion in the USA. His insights of their earlier learning and wise counsel listened to and implemented at the beginning, illuminated the importance of seeking input from others and the value of understanding context. With an eventual highly successful high end salon in Cambodia which trained and provided employment to survivors, he moved back to the USA and has for a number of years been in the throes of new learning and new trial and error as they have been trying to figure out the best model for their work in the USA where the cost of opening their own salon is prohibitive. A valuable journey to learn from for anyone starting out or walking through necessary change in their own project.