Leadership, courage and social responsibility creates meaningful change
Craig Foster AM shares a compelling message of advocacy and community action to drive collective impact.
Social value through business, is there any other kind?
At Convene 2026, Craig Foster AM came to congratulate the room and stretch our thinking a little. Here's what his message on trust and community means for Australia.
What stood out instantly in Craig's address was that he didn't gloss over the challenges facing our country right now. He believes that for a range of reasons, we are living through a widespread deficit of community trust. The solution? He sees 'business for good' at the forefront of rebuilding that trust.
He mentions how he used the word "trust" deliberately over "cohesion" in his planning for Convene. Cohesion can imply 'just be quiet, we don't want to hear from you.' Trust asks for more.
"Trust means we can disagree, but we know that we're operating on an equal level."
Social enterprises, he said, are businesses that put people 'in positions where they can feel equal.' That is why he sees the sector as the most important part of this work. Sitting at the grassroots of the economy, it is where people meet, learn and come to understand each other. In his words,
"Community is where we build the next Australia, or we rebuild Australia, we might say."
When proximity counts
When social enterprises partner with big business, they bring people from different communities and backgrounds to work alongside staff at every level, something that doesn't happen in many workplaces. Craig believes this is where attitudes change.
"Proximity counts... people have to meet someone else and speak to them and get to know them before they'll genuinely understand that there is no barrier and there is no difference."
Sport taught him this lesson. On the field, you stand shoulder to shoulder, win or lose together, and learn that you're equal. Then you walk off and see that equality disappear. He asks: "How can it be different on there and different out here?".
Why should business be any different?
Craig put the same question to business;
"Why should business be different to social value? Business should be social value and only social value."
He hopes the rest of the country catches up, and is hopeful that we are at the front of "a very considerable wave that's coming." He sees the next generation as part of that wave. Someone earlier that day had shared that when young people come in for job interviews now, the first thing they ask about is social impact, before pay or super. He acknowledged however that for the people in the room, it has been "a push" and "at times a bit of a slog." Times are hard, which is why he believes everyone needs to work together.
Craig Foster, former Socceroos, addresses the audience at Convene 2026
Act as a collective
Craig's ask of the room was to come together more, because he doesn't see enough collective action. When organisations bring their capability together and agree on what matters most, the message changes. It stops being "this is what I believe" or "this is good for my employees" and becomes "this is what Australia should be."
His practical advice for social enterprises was to learn how to tell your story, put great voices behind it, and pool funding to make sure it's heard. Leaving a conference inspired is good, he said, and leaving having learned something is even better. But leaving with the understanding that "all of us in this room as a collective are going to be much more effective, going to be much more powerful... that's something very, very different indeed."
Will you spend your own social capital?
Craig asked each of us to consider our own social capital, which he described as "what society thinks about us, gives to us and will allow us to do."
"...we should spend that social capital for the people who don't have it."
He shared the moment that tested this for him. In late 2018, Hakeem al-Araibi, a former Bahrain national team player living in Melbourne as a refugee, was wrongly detained in Thailand on his honeymoon and faced being sent back to Bahrain. Craig was sending tweets with calls out to help when Hakeem's wife stopped him: "No, I'm asking you, are you going to go and save my husband?".
Craig took the fight to FIFA, the sport's governing body, arguing it had a duty to protect a national player. He gave FIFA 48 hours' notice that he was flying to Zurich, invited the world's media, and promised a press conference if they wouldn't meet. A meeting set for 30 minutes ran for three and a half hours, and FIFA publicly called on Thailand and Bahrain to act. Hakeem was home soon after, 77 days after he was first detained.
The cost was Craig's own place in the game. He knew he would never be invited to a FIFA event again.
"Sometimes it's so important, you don't need the accoutrements, you don't need the first class flights, you just need to do what's right."
What does this mean for business?
"You guys are already doing unbelievable work. But sometimes in life we all get asked that question, are we going to go across that line or are we not?"
Most of us won't face a question with stakes that high. But every organisation has social capital of its own, in its buying power, its reputation and its networks. For business and government, spending it can start with a simple question. Who do you buy from, and who does that spend lift up?
At the very beginning of his session, Craig pointed to the Convene 2026 theme, "social value through business". His reflection:
"I can't work out why there's any other kind and neither can this room. That's why I need you to win," he said.
Many of the people social enterprises employ are people he works with and counts as friends. As he put it, the sector is giving them "not just opportunity, but a life."
This article was written by Humans of Purpose in partnership with Social Traders.
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