YWCA creates profit-for-purpose café

Women’s support charity YWCA NSW has partnered with Mirvac to open a social enterprise café at Mirvac’s newly completed headquarters.

Known as the ‘The Song Kitchen’, the profit-for-purpose café is one of the first ventures of its kind in Australia. It will provide premium catering services to the Mirvac team and their guests, with 100 per cent of the profits going to fund YWCA NSW services for women and children experiencing domestic violence.

“YWCA NSW is undergoing a transition from a broad-based organisation to an organisation that is the voice of women – expanding our domestic violence services ensuring women and children are safe, with the ultimate goal to put an end to domestic violence. As part of the restructure, we are committed to extending our innovative profit-for-purpose operations beyond our two Sydney hotels and Mirvac have proved the ideal partner to work alongside us to achieve this goal,” said YWCA NSW CEO Anna Bligh.

“The Song Kitchen at Mirvac is the first time the YWCA NSW has entered into a long-term partnership with a private sector partner. Our aim for the café is to; not only bring to life a high quality commercial offering that will deliver a premium service to Mirvac staff, but also to fund services that help and protect women and children threatened with domestic violence across the state.”

Mirvac’s CEO and Managing Director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said, “At Mirvac we are committed to acting in a sustainable way and thinking creatively about how we invest in our communities to create social impact. Our new headquarters provide an opportunity for the team to do things differently and make a real difference at the same time.

“Mirvac is proud to pilot this exciting concept and we are confident the model will be quickly adopted by other Australian companies as a commercially viable way of incorporating a social enterprise into a complex supply chain,” said Lloyd-Hurwitz.

Since 1984, the YWCA NSW has pioneered the ‘profit for purpose’ fundraising model with its Y Hotel in Sydney.