One of White Box's first employees, Angharad Lubbock, reflects on the evolution of the Payment By Outcomes Trial and her journey with the organisation. 

From little things, big things grow! Today I celebrate the close of my four year chapter at White Box Enterprises.

I joined in mid-2019 at a time when much of the world was in damage control, we were dreaming of what was possible as the fallout from the pandemic was unfolding.

There were, and still are, many people not feeling secure or supported at work. We knew that building social enterprises would be part of the solution to addressing employment insecurity post-covid, but we also knew that true scalable impact would mean addressing the barriers for all social entrepreneurs to confidently build social enterprises everywhere.

To that end, I spent the next three years supporting the development and launch of Australia’s first social enterprise Payment by Outcomes (PBO) funding mechanism. This mechanism is showing that what we knew from experience is also backed by data. Social enterprise is extremely effective at creating jobs that generate prosperity and wellbeing for both the employer and employee.

It has been a hugely complex cross-sector collaboration (and negotiation) with the Commonwealth Department of Social Services. We’re now 12 months post launch (one-third of the way into the 3.5 year timeline) and the early results are strong. Really strong.

Join White Box Enterprises on Wednesday 2 August to hear more on these early results and hear from social enterprise employers in the PBO Trial changing lives.

This work is important because the social enterprise model offers a paradigm shift in disability employment away from compensation towards investment. Under with the current model, employers are offered a wage subsidy to offset the cost of employing someone with different abilities - by contrast, social enterprise invests in the resources it needs to ensure everyone who wants to work, can, for mutual value. Listen to Kaleb tell his story which brings this to life.