Stages of social enterprise development

A group of social enterprise intermediaries and service providers have come together to form a group called the Council of Australian Social Enterprise Intermediaries (CASEI) and have published this useful framework that shows the five stages of social enterprise development:

Previously, funders and service providers have used their own frameworks. We are hopeful that this one will be a useful and consistent tool for social enterprises to understand where they are at in their organisational development journey, and for funders to use to set clear expectations for grants, debt and equity.

For example, we have previously seen grants available for social enterprises that are ready to scale up. This framework could be used to set expectations for what they need to have in place before they can be eligible for such a grant (rather than the criteria changing between funders).

A very big thank you to the organisations that contributed to building this. The three page report including this diagram can be found here.

Published 2 December 2024