Social Traders awarded $50,000 worth of expert branding work

Boutique Melbourne-based brand agency, Taylor & Grace has announced that Social Traders are the winner of their 50for50 competition – receiving $50,000 worth of expert branding work to help them increase their value and impact.

Social Traders connects social enterprises with social procurement opportunities and supports social enterprise to successfully deliver on the contracts they win.

The 50for50 competition was open to all Australian organisations and invited them to respond in 50 words to the question ‘What value does your brand bring to the world?’.

Having rebranded themselves to better reflect who they are as a business, the team at Taylor & Grace understand the importance of brands embracing change to ensure they re-emerge as meaningful and valuable post COVID-19, and wanted to help another do the same.

Taylor & Grace Managing Director and Head of Strategy, Darren Taylor advised “After a long and gruelling decision making process, we chose Social Traders as they have made a profound impact on establishing the important social enterprise and social procurement space in Australia and have plans to dramatically expand the eco-system over the next 10 years.

“Social Traders is uniquely positioned to make important systemic change in Australia by promoting new business models that both generate economic activity and solve social and environmental problems. The US and UK are more advanced in their adoption of social enterprise, and we hope our work with Social Traders will – in some way - accelerate the growth and impact of the sector in Australia.”

In the past two years, the Social Traders marketplace has facilitated $105 million worth of deals between social enterprises and private and Government buyers. This spend has supported more than 700 jobs for disadvantaged Australians and provided many other community benefits. The organisation has set itself a big goal of growing the Australian social procurement marketplace to $1 billion per annum by 2030.

Business Victoria describes Social Enterprises as “businesses that trade to intentionally tackle social problems, improve communities, provide people access to employment and training, or help the environment.”

The Victorian Government in 2017, commissioned the Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University’s Map for Impact research report – which detailed the influence that the social enterprise sector is having on Victoria’s economy and society. Key findings from the report identified there were over 3,500 social enterprises in Victoria, employing 1.8 % of the workforce and contributing over $5.2 billion to the economy.

An earlier 2010 report - Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector (FASES) -  a joint initiative of Social Traders and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology identified that participating social enterprises operated in all industries based on Australian and New Zealand industry classifications and that Education and training (41.6%) and arts and recreation services (31.7%) were the two most frequently cited categories within which participating social enterprises operated.

FASES also noted that a number of reports outlined industries or sub-sectors of organisations broadly consistent with the definition of social enterprise which included community clubs and surf life-saving clubs.

Social Traders is delighted to be the recipient of this prize and cannot wait to begin working with the Taylor & Grace team to help them rebrand and grow as an organisation.

Social Traders Head of Marketing, Tara Anderson enthused “we were excited to be selected as winners of the 50for50 competition. A clear, consistent and engaging brand is important for our growth plans as well as raising the profile of the social enterprise sector. Social enterprises are a crucial part of our economy, and to see more of them growing, we need more businesses and governments to buy from them. A strong brand that captures and explains why social enterprise is so exciting is crucial. We’re looking forward to working with the talented Taylor & Grace team to take our brand to the next level.”

Taylor & Grace is a foundation member of The Xfactor Collective, an Australian-first community with a mission to help social changemakers achieve their social mission.

The Xfactor Collective Chief Executive and Founder, Julia Keady notes “Social Traders has played such a long-standing pivotal role in the advancement of social enterprise in Australia, and we are thrilled to see them chosen as the winner of this generous brand makeover. Social enterprise and social procurement is the game-changer that will advance our society further, and it has never been a more important time in history to get behind the social enterprise leaders. We are very proud to see one of our Specialist Members working closely with Social Traders, which will certainly help supercharge this movement further.”

Taylor & Grace works with a wide range of clients from small startups, to medium-sized Not-for-Profits, to large multinationals. Last year Taylor & Grace along with specialist consultants from The Xfactor Collective, helped in the rebranding of the Australian Sports Foundation.

For more information on Taylor & Grace, visit www.taylorandgrace.com.au