Purchasing from a social enterprise has been identified as the biggest opportunity for social enterprise growth in Australia, according to national research recently released.

Purchasing from social enterprises was the highest priority arising from the Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector 2016 research – conducted by the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) Swinburne University in partnership with Social Traders.

Professor Jo Barraket Director of CSI Swinburne said, “Without question, social procurement was identified by research participants as the greatest opportunity for Australian social enterprises to grow their impacts.”

The research also revealed a lack of cohesive government policy as a major constraint to growth, with more than 80 per cent of respondents believing that supportive state and federal government policy would encourage new growth opportunities for social enterprise.

Other priority areas included the need for more accessible forms of appropriate finance, with 39 per cent of respondents indicating they had been unable to access the necessary finance to help them achieve their goals. Access to learning and development opportunities was also cited as a concern for practicing social enterprises, as was developing more accurate and comparable impact measurement tools to satisfy the expectations of a diversity of stakeholders.

Managing Director of Social Traders David Brookes said, “Social enterprise in Australia is on the rise and already contributes between 2 and 3 per cent of GDP and employs over 300,000 Australians. We are well on the way to seeing social enterprise as part of the mainstream, recognised for its contribution to providing innovative solutions for employment and access to services for disadvantaged Australians.”