04/08/2026
SELF-DETERMINATION: the right to decide your own future, on your own terms.
Why are we still having surface-level conversations about economic empowerment and self-determination?
Every year, funding is allocated to organisations to “deliver workshops” for Aboriginal businesses. Reports get written.
Outcomes get reported.
Boxes get ticked.
But where’s the follow-through?
Where’s the capital that helps a business actually scale?
Hire someone?
Survive past year one?
Grow into something that changes the trajectory of a family, a community?
We don’t need more workshops explaining how to write a business plan.
We need funders willing to invest directly in the businesses already doing the work!
Invest into the sole traders, the small businesses, the ones on the ground, in community, having an impact that doesn’t always show up in a case study.
These are real people overcoming real challenges to make a real impact!
They are the entrepreneurs who are also caregivers; for their kids, their Elders, their communities.
They’ve had to be resourceful, adaptive, and deeply attuned to what their community actually needs, often with next to no resources behind them.
That’s not a soft skill. That’s entrepreneurship forged out of necessity, and it deserves more than good intentions.
It deserves real investment.
To the social impact investors, philanthropists, and corporate sponsors reading this: look beyond the recognisable names and established structures. Look at the businesses already delivering impact in community, often off their own backs.
Fund the people doing the work, not just the paperwork proving it happened.
It’s time we moved past the easy conversations and started having the hard ones.
If you’ve want to see impact from your money, that’s where you start, invest in the ones who will do the work and pay themselves last. When you invest in them, you invest into a whole community!
If you’ve got a fresh pool of funding and you’re looking for a meaningful place to invest it, let’s talk.
There are more capable, driven entrepreneurs out there than people realise. They just need someone to believe in them as much as they already believe in themselves.
