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Commercial creative work with social impact built in

6 October 2026

Sector News Best practice

Joanne Barrow
Head of Marketing & Digital

How a marketing budget can deliver results for your brand and your community.

Photo: Just Gold

Marketing and communications teams buy design, video, campaigns, events and websites every week. When you buy them from a certified social enterprise, that spend delivers commercial results and positive social impact. Just Gold, certified by Social Traders since 2019, shows what this looks like in practice.

Many organisations still see buying from social enterprise as an act of generosity and expect the work to be less commercial than mainstream suppliers. Just Gold's track record shows otherwise.

A first for the Commonwealth

The Department of Social Services has released four video case studies that Just Gold produced for its Social Enterprise Development Initiative. It is the first time a Commonwealth department has bought professional communications services from a certified social enterprise. Just Gold subtitled the films in six languages.

Just Gold is a profit-for-purpose management consultancy and creative agency, autistic owned and led by Kyriakos Gold. It incorporated in December 2018 and became a certified social enterprise in January 2019. Today it works nationally, including directly with the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland Governments on research, consulting, learning and creative projects. It spent four years on the Level Crossing Removal Project and more than three years with Spark on Victoria's North-East Link.

Just Gold won work based on capability and delivered it against commercial expectations. And most of those clients came back for more.

Business for good

Social enterprises are businesses that exist to create public or community benefit. Internationally there are five five key features, and Social Traders recognises:

Purpose: their reason for being is to solve a social or environmental problem.
Operations: they prioritise purpose, people and planet over profit in day-to-day decisions.
Revenue: they operate with a self-sustaining revenue model.
Use of surplus: they reinvest the majority of any surplus towards their mission.
Structure: their legal and financial structures protect and lock in purpose for the long term

Like other certified social enterprises, Just Gold competes for contracts, employs people, carries commercial risk, pays wages and tax, and answers to clients who expect value for money. The difference is in the design: the way it trades creates social impact. Just Gold reinvests more than half its profit into public impact initiatives and has created more than 30 paid roles and leadership pathways.

Merriwa Park Lane Nursery

What the work looks like

In Queensland, QLeave, the statutory authority that administers portable long service leave for eligible workers in specific industries, engaged Just Gold to refresh its brand. The Settlement Council of Australia, a repeat client, trusted Just Gold with the National Settlement Conference, where Just Gold delivered strategy, a new brand, social media, programs, digital coverage and advertising.

Just Gold also supports other social enterprises through pro bono and low bono work. It built Sheforce’s brand five years ago, has helped it scale since, and is now launching its new website.

Alongside strategic communications and complex marketing projects, Just Gold delivers graphic design, web design, annual reports, brochures, social media and campaigns. These are the briefs already on most marketing teams' desks.

“Coming from corporate marketing, I had no idea social enterprises could handle marketing, communications, media and advertising, let alone merchandise and printing. More than 100 certified social enterprises now work in these categories," said Joanne Barrow, Head of Marketing at Social Traders.
"At Social Traders, we work with Just Gold. Their service and quality match those of large commercial suppliers, and they're more nimble and flexible too. Every dollar we spend with them creates positive impact for people and communities."

More than half of Just Gold's profit goes back into public impact initiatives, and it has created more than 30 paid roles and leadership pathways. It leads the Autistic Pride Day Global Initiative, now active in 22 countries, and the national Think Autism conferences, and has delivered impact projects with the City of Sydney, the City of Melbourne and the City of Adelaide.

Owned and led by lived experience

Marketing and communications teams spend heavily trying to understand audiences they do not represent internally, through research, focus groups, personas and consultation. Lived experience adds knowledge that those methods can miss, and Just Gold starts with it.

Lived experience sits in Just Gold's ownership, in its strategy and in who signs off the work. It leads the conversation on autistic entrepreneurship in Australia. Its team brings lived experience of gender, youth, disability, migration and cultural diversity. For LGBTQ+ organisations in Victoria, Just Gold provides pro bono consulting that strengthens their organisations and supports their sustainability.

That sits alongside research and professional skill. It catches language that reads well in a boardroom and lands badly in a community, and tests assumptions before they become an expensive campaign.

Certification that opens doors

Just Gold's relationship with Social Traders started almost immediately. When it incorporated, it adopted a constitution written for a social enterprise and was certified within weeks.

“Certification moved the conversation from ‘are you really a social enterprise?’ to ‘what can you deliver?’,” said Kyriakos Gold.
“It also gave us a route into buyers, supplier development and a sector we could not have built alone.”

Just Gold has since helped build the platforms the sector gathers around. It has partnered with Social Traders on conferences and during COVID-19, when the sector could not meet in person, it produced the Social Traders digital awards. Just Gold also took part in the Social Traders and Mirvac Supplier Development Program and is now a Mirvac supplier.

Why marketing and communications teams are making the switch

Your existing budget goes further. You don't need new money to create impact. Every $1 million spent with certified social enterprises creates 36 job pathways, eight full-time equivalent jobs and 2,800 training hours.

You help strengthen your organisation's social performance. Marketing spend can contribute to your organisation's social procurement commitments and gives you tangible outcomes to report to your board, investors and community.

You get insight you can't buy through research alone. Teams with lived experience help you reach audiences your organisation doesn't represent internally. Work directly with them in producing the work.

Where to start

For marketing, communications and procurement leaders, the first step to engagement is simple. Look at the product or services you currently buy and look for certified social enterprises that could deliver to it. Social Enterprise Finder is great way to start, the national directory of certified social enterprises. Start small, then build from there. The incremental changes you make will add up.

You’ll be joining a growing market. Business and government members of Social Traders have spent a record $304 million with certified social enterprises in FY25, up 18% on the previous year. Bringing the cumulative total in the past eight years to more than $1.4 billion.

Buyer members that purchased from certified social enterprises two years in a row spent 47% more in the second year, valuing the service provided and impact created.

Creating social value through business

Convene 2026 brings social entrepreneurs and business and government leaders together to change the way business is done and create more social value. We're delighted to partner with Just Gold at this year's conference.

Convene 2026 will see the sector come together for two days of ideas, energy and action, where Australia's social impact community gathers not just to talk change, but to design it.

There are only 50 tickets left. Learn more and get your ticket today.

This piece was written in collaboration with Just Gold ahead of Convene 2026.