Courage, collaboration and community at the Social Impact Summit 2025
“Courage shone through over the last few days, giving us all hope to warrior on.” The 2025 Social Impact Summit brought together more than 300 leaders from across the public, private, and social sectors - all united by a commitment to creating a fair, just, and inclusive Australia.
For Benefolk Founder and CEO, Julia Keady, the event was an inspiring opportunity to connect with other passionate changemakers driving meaningful impact in their communities. Julia joined Matt Pfahlert, CEO of ACRE and Social Enterprise Academy Australia, and Paris Brooke from the Wilderness Collective Mallacoota, for a powerful discussion on enabling transformation in rural communities - and the pivotal role of “paying what it takes” to achieve lasting change.
The session explored the Wilderness Collective’s journey from recovery to renewal. Alongside a number of community-driven initiatives, the Wilderness Collective bought a building to start an enterprise hub in the main street of Mallacoota. The buy-back in a town of 1200 people was made possible by committed citizens and support along the way from the Benefolk network. The session highlighted the power of community-led entrepreneurship in finding creative ways of solving issues and creating new opportunities for education, housing, health, youth development, employment and new industries. It also rested upon the guiding principles of the Rural Manifesto for Social Enterprise: building trust first, empowering those closest to the issue, and co-developing metrics of success.
Reflecting on the summit, Julia said, “Courage shone through over the last few days, giving us all hope to warrior on.”
Benefolk’s wellbeing advocacy and support for rural social enterprise were also showcased across the Summit - reinforcing our commitment to strengthening community capacity and collaboration across Australia.
The Social Impact Summit is hosted annually by ImpactInstitute, convening national leaders to share insights, innovation, and strategies that accelerate social change across sectors.
