Building social enterprise through social procurement

• Social Traders

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29 March 2010Social Procurement involves organisations and individuals choosing to purchase a social outcome when they buy a good or service. Social Procurement is a key plank in the development of social enterprise because it recognises and places value on the benefits that social enterprises provide, in so doing it increases the amount of work available to social enterprises.

There are currently a small number of government bodies, corporates and not-for-profits that socially procure, but we see this as an enormous growth area as organisations become more interested in triple bottom line accounting. The really attractive thing about social procurement is that money that has to be spent on procurement anyway can now be spent in a way that will have lasting social outcomes such as job creation, community building or supporting fair trade in developing countries.

Social Traders will be undertaking significant work in the area of social procurement in the next 18 months including pilots and research projects. Brisbane City Council and the Victorian Department of Human Services have shown real leadership in this field.

This background paper aims to develop people’s understanding of social procurement and some of the barriers to social procurement in Australia. Social procurement is a powerful tool for developing social enterprise and it is in this context that the paper is framed.  Widespread social procurement in Australia would rapidly accelerate the growth of social enterprises. The paper outlines some of the barriers to social procurement and how to address these. 

Image: worldsurfer / flickr