The Social Deck’s 2020 annual snapshot is out.
Despite the year of turmoil that was, we’re proud to have had such a positive impact again over the past 12 months.
The importance of this impact has never been more important.
In the next few weeks The Social Deck will submit our B-Corp accreditation for the third time. Having now been a B-Corp for more than 5 years we’re reconciling and reflecting more on what this means.
In 2020, it may have seemed like social change initiatives took a back seat to the immediate health crisis and response to COVID-19 and the building back of the economy.
In fact, in 2020 we probably saw businesses all around the world, and in Australia, doing more to help people and make a positive difference than ever before. From offering support to frontline workers, to free meals and housing homeless, many business have been at the forefront of social change during the pandemic.
In Australia, tens of thousands of employers also learnt more about the lives of their employees than they ever knew before. Between managing jobkeeper payments, work from home arrangements and homeschooling, the “typical” business-to-employee relationship changed, and so did relationships with their communities.
Buy Local, fundraising, grants and other support initiatives all became a core part of supporting the business community. As a result, communities and businesses exist in partnership more than ever before.
For The Social Deck, 2020 caused us to be more honest about what genuine engagement looked like. In many ways, people, business and government became more aligned, perhaps because there was a stronger common purpose—a drive to maintain or rebuild (where needed) our way of life.
But this also caused an even greater expectation in the community that “people” should more genuinely be engaged as part of the solutions to social and environmental change.
So in 2020 we had our biggest impact yet.
The stats in our Annual Snapshot show how much we did, but one of our biggest achievements is that we didn’t shy away from the harder and more complex issues that really needed our help! Over the past 12 months we’ve helped with:
- making sure people and communities in bushfire affected areas throughout Australia were getting the information and support they needed
- understanding and addressing barriers still impacting people with disability when it comes to community attitudes, employment and support for children
- raising awareness of domestic and family violence against people with disability in Queensland
- tackling the public health risks of mosquito borne disease in the Northern Rivers region of NSW
- creating positive change for students with disability to better access and participate in education
- evaluating programs, including a campaign for at-risk youth in Queensland
- developing strategic plans for community organisations—including one addressing youth mental health and for Guide Dogs Victoria.
Proudly, we also maintained our awesome team throughout COVID and learnt more from each other than ever before.
Business as a force for good is more important than ever.
.jpg)
