SECNA Social Enterprise Council Festival

Some key highlights from the day were meeting some fabulous social entrepreneurs who I’ve connected with over the last few years and finally got to meet IRL! Karen Hedley is one of those fabulous entrepreneurs doing great work. I also met some wonderful new entrepreneurs and yes – I did have a buy up in the social enterprise trade area – think chocolate and drinks! Yum!

It was also wonderful to reconnect with organisations we’ve worked with before, like Transport for New South Wales, and even meet new contacts from Newcastle Permanent who had read my book. People who attended our City of Sydney workshops in the past also stopped by (and so loved hearing that one person had won a lot of grants for their scout group from attending the session!! So fabulous).

It was such a buzz to hear direct feedback months later about the tangible difference our learning and resources have made – whether it’s helping them write successful grants or using content from the book to review their grant systems.

I also had the privilege of delivering a face-to-face session on proven grant and tender writing strategies. The audience was a great mix, from beginners to experienced grant and tender writers. Everyone was actively engaged, taking notes, laughing, and the feedback has been fabulous. People shared how valuable the session was and how it shifted their thinking, especially with the tools we provided.

My biggest personal highlight was just hearing the difference grant writing training makes to people when you support and build the capacity of one person, they can go on to ultimately win grants that benefit our communities. That’s the impact we are working to create. We know it happens, but we don’t often have people reaching out to share it with us – so this was a bit of a buzz.