The Impact World This Week: 27 March 2025

Australia: Australian businesses and public bodies are increasingly buying social, according to a report from social enterprise representative body Social Traders. Businesses and government spent a record AU$257m with social enterprises in the 2024 financial year, bringing the total spent through social procurement since 2018 to AU$1.1bn. The annual amount has grown by an average of 41% per year since 2018, when businesses and public bodies bought just AU$37m worth of goods and services from social enterprises. The number of certified social enterprises in the country has also steadily increased, by an average of 20% per year since 2018.

Global: The winners of this year’s Skoll Awards for Social Innovation have been revealed. They are Apis & Heritage Capital Partners, which helps low- and middle-income employees become owners of their businesses when owners retire; Community Health Impact Coalition, an organisation that supports the work of community health workers around the world through research, advocacy and connections; EarthEnable, which improves the living conditions of rural families across East Africa by replacing dirt floors with healthier and sustainable building materials; Healthy Learners, which expands access to healthcare for young children in Zambia by training teachers as school health workers; and Pacto pela Democracia, which coordinates pro-democracy, non-partisan movements in Brazil. Each winner receives US$2m in unrestricted funding to scale their work and increase their impact; the awards ceremony will take place on 3 April in Oxford during the Skoll World Forum.

UK: A pioneering “neighbourhood powered by social enterprise” reveals the secrets to its success in a new report to mark its 40th anniversary. Since 1984, social enterprise Coin Street has redeveloped a derelict area along the south bank of the river Thames in London into a thriving community-led neighbourhood, now home to housing co-operatives, arts organisations, children’s centres and small businesses. The report, How We Might Live: A Model for Future Neighbourhoods, aims to help other places to learn from Coin Street’s experience and apply its principles more widely.The publication highlights the importance of asset ownership – the social enterprise owns the land – and of governance, with the local community having a say in decision-making across the entities managing the neighbourhood.

New Zealand: Social enterprise Ākina, which represents and advocates for social entrepreneurs and impact investing in New Zealand, will close its doors at the end of April. The host of the Social Enterprise World Forum in 2017, Ākina said the current economic and political environment had been “extremely challenging” and that it “would not be responsible, nor ethical” to continue to trade. Over its 17 years of existence, the organisation supported the development of social enterprise, impact investing and social procurement in New Zealand, including establishing the country’s first domestically-focused impact investing fund, developing a social enterprise certification programme and delivering a number of training and support schemes for social businesses.

• Read more: SEWF 2017 launches with a celebration of Maori culture

US: Impact investing pioneer Lisa Hall died on 15 March after a three-decade career in impact. A senior policy adviser in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, she helped design legislation that encouraged investment in underserved neighbourhoods; she then held several senior roles in impact investing firms, notably as CEO of Calvert Impact Capital, where she launched the Women Investing in Women Initiative. She sat on a number of boards and was considered a thought-leader in the sector. IIX founder Durreen Shanaz wrote on Linkedin: “The world has lost a true visionary, a quiet force of change, and a woman who embodied the spirit of defiant optimism… Lisa never shouted to be heard, but when she spoke, the world listened. She led with purpose and walked the talk.”

Figure of the week: £6.1m is the amount social enterprise Belu Water has donated to WaterAid, a charity that provides clean water and sanitation for millions of people around the world. The two organisations have been in partnership since 2011, and the money donated has supported an estimated 410,938 people with access to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene, according to Belu.