Don’t know how to take your social business to the next level? This might help.

A free guide shares tips and tricks to help Queensland social entrepreneurs grow and secure impact investing funds

With the number of profit-for-purpose businesses steadily on the rise, a Queensland intermediary has released a comprehensive guide to grow the impact economy across the state and the rest of the country. 

Launched virtually on Tuesday, ImpaQt Qld’s playbook looks at the basics of impact investing, how to navigate the Queensland impact investing sector as a social entrepreneur, how to raise impact capital from a variety of streams, and reflections from impact organisations throughout the state. 

Lisa Siganto, ImpaQt Qld’s executive director, told Pro Bono News that while the impact economy was heading in the right direction, many social entrepreneurs trying to start their own profit-for-purpose ventures still struggled to identify and secure funding streams. 

“The biggest issue entrepreneurs face is how to prepare for and access the right type of growth capital at the right time,” Siganto said.  

“This [playbook] will hopefully help the profits of these businesses grow, as well as increase impact investment into these businesses because they will more likely be investment ready for funders.” 

She said that while entrepreneurs were getting by with initial, smaller amounts of funding from friends, family and grants, taking it to the next step was proving to be difficult. 

“Going one by one to different investors is very time consuming, and it’s hard to find the right investor,” she said. 

“So while this won’t give you all the answers, it’s a good place to start to get an idea of where you need to go and how to go about it.” 

Siganto added that with the current social, economic and environmental challenges the world was facing, there was never a better time to support the growth of the impact economy.  

“Governments can’t afford to address all the social and environmental problems that we have, so business has got to take that challenge on and do something about it,” she said. 

“As well as that, people, and especially younger people, are demanding this. They want to have for-purpose businesses to buy from, to work with, and to be able to create themselves.”  

While the insights shared in the playbook are Queensland focused, she said the information was transferable to entrepreneurs across the rest of the country. 

“We want this to be distributed as far and wide as possible,” she said. 

See a full copy of the playbook here.