Killara joins LikeWISE, a six-year pilot anchored at the Purpose Precinct at QVM

Published by STREAT:

We're excited to officially launch LikeWISE, a six-year pilot anchored at the Purpose Precinct at Queen Victoria Market, that asks: what happens if we invest in building stronger social enterprises.... can we improve employment outcomes for the people those businesses exist to serve?

Delivered by STREAT and supported by the Paul Ramsay Foundation , LikeWISE brings Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) together in a shared ecosystem designed to strengthen enterprise capability, grow trading revenue, create collaborative employment pathways and unlock the benefits of working together in one place.

Today, we also welcomed our inaugural participants: Purpose Precinct, Killara Foundation and WomenCAN Australia.

Over the next six years, LikeWISE will support up to nine WISE organisations through enterprise support, peer learning, shared infrastructure, collaborative trading opportunities and a matched-trading model. Kind of working like mushroom and mycelium - with interconnection mattering more than individualism, and system-scale achieved through strong networks (hence the mushrooms in the pics!).

Together, we'll generate practical insights into how stronger enterprise foundations, collaboration and place-based innovation can help create better employment outcomes for people facing barriers to work. We're proud to partner with the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Social Equity Institute, which will conduct research throughout the pilot to assess its impact and the potential to strengthen social enterprise ecosystems across Australia.