OUR SOCIAL MISSION
Societal Outcome Solutions (SOS) is a certified Social Enterprise, founded to build equitable, commercial, and social capability for all stakeholders with a mission to drive positive societal change.
Our social mission, is to identify, innovate and support the implementation of sustainable opportunities, for those who are most disadvantaged in the community.
We understand capability and scale can only be achieved through freely available education, mentoring, advocacy.
SOS supports social benefit suppliers and industry to build capability through commercial expertise, social innovation, and initiatives, delivered through socially equitable and commercially viable opportunities. SOS assists all social benefit suppliers by providing free support through the SOS global platform to promote their goods and services.
The SOS Platform scales our social mission by providing our social benefit supplier and clients with a simplified global tool that eliminates barriers and builds capability of both communities and Industry, addressing the needs of all stakeholders.
How does SOS deliver community benefit as a social enterprise?
Societal Outcome Solutions offers an array of social procurement and ESG services through advisory, renewable energy solutions and the SOS social procurement platform, delivering and contributing to societal triple bottom line outcomes.
- SOS returns 50% of profits for the delivery of community benefit in building capability of the social sector.
- SOS workforce is made up of 90% target priority group trainees and employees, which includes a majority female workforce and leadership.
- SOS innovates social procurement and renewable technology solutions, to support and benefit environmentally sustainable outcomes through the meaningful inclusion Indigenous inclusion.
Monitoring government funds and community outcomes
To support governance and accountability of government funds, the SOS platform was created to follow the dollar across all phases of the project’s lifecycle and across multiple stakeholders. Contributions to communities and supply chain procurement can be easily tracked monitored and measured on demand, helping to mitigate potential social and financial risk.
Transparency ensures the social procurement, Indigenous inclusion, local workforce participation, and environmental outcomes across major infrastructure projects, to deliver meaningful outcomes.
How do you define a social enterprise?
A social enterprise is a ‘for profit’ entity and must generate most of their income from the sale goods and services rather than charitable donations or grants.
It is critical that a social enterprise meet the following 3 criteria:
- Must have a defined primary social, cultural, or environmental purpose consistent with a public/community benefit.
- Must derive a substantial portion of their income from trade.
- Must invest efforts and resources into their purpose such that public/community benefit outweighs private benefit. They operate in all industry sectors of the economy, from facilities management, to catering and hospitality, to business administration to design.
There are three social enterprise impact models:
- Employment-generating — creates employment and training opportunities for marginalised people.
- Community needs — delivers accessible products and services to meet community needs not met by the market.
- Profit redistribution — donates at least 50% of profits or revenue to charity.
Indigenous Business
An Indigenous business is not required to be a social enterprise and does not need to follow the same social enterprise rules; however, the business must generate income from the sale of goods or services. Depending on the country, an Indigenous business must retain 50% or more ownership by someone who is verified as Indigenous to the specific country of origin.
How is a social enterprise different to B Corp?
B Corp is a different business structure to a social enterprise, as they generally operate a commercial business or a Not for Profit and don’t necessarily return 50% of their profits or more to the community from the sale of goods or services. However, a social enterprise may also be a B Corp.
A B Corp is not a compliant social procurement spend for government funded projects.
We are not however discounting the excellent contribution B Corp businesses provide to community, as their contributions still play an important role in supporting social and environmental outcomes.
Of key importance is their inclusion of social benefit providers, not for profits, sustainable and ethical goods and services in their supply chain or employment of priority workforce.
SOCIETAL OUTCOME SOLUTIONS Pty Ltd
Suite 1.02, 3 Bowen Cresent, Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia 3004
sos@socialoutcomesolutions.com
1800 SOS ESG (1800 767 374)
PRIVACY & SECURITY © 2024 SOS