CEO ’ s Report
What a 12 months ...
We are very grateful for , and proud of our relationship with the Social Enterprise Academy in Scotland . Their continuing support of ACRE and the work we are doing is grounded in a shared philosophy that communities can thrive using social enterprise principles which actively consider people , the planet and where profit goes in every decision .
We recently concluded a 2-year pilot of the Social Enterprise Academy ’ s ‘ Social Enterprise in Schools ’ program with over 600 young people and 13 primary schools . As part of the pilot we also conducted an Independent Evaluation of the program with the results demonstrating outstanding outcomes for students .
We have bold expansion plans to be in 500 schools and working with over 30,000 students within the next 5 years . At the same time , we ’ re mobilising the collective resources of the business , community , government and education leaders in their local areas to build an enabling environment and ecosystem for rural entrepreneurship .
It ’ s humbling to see communities embrace the change social enterprise represents as a way of building social and economic capital simultaneously . Communities know that fewer people are relied upon to do more and more as rural communities fight for survival . They know they need to take a different approach to sustaining their valued local assets and activities , otherwise , they ’ re simply unsustainable .
In November 2016 , ACRE also led a group of local investors to purchase the Old Beechworth Gaol , an asset with national heritage significance . The local community were the first to step forward with support to fund its purchase . The philanthropic sector also played a critical role through the provision of grants and patient capital . It is great to see philanthropic trusts leveraging their corpus for scaling social impact .
ACRE sees the Old Beechworth Gaol as a valuable community asset that can be re-purposed as a thriving economic , social and cultural precinct , a demonstration site to inspire others in pursuit of rural entrepreneurship and of course , ACRE ’ s national headquarters .
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