The social enterprise sector is large and continues to grow rapidly, with over 10,000 social enterprises working to deliver social and environmental impact in Australia. The fast pace of growth and varied business and funding models for the social enterprise has seen these organisations expand, and there is a strong need for measurement, evaluation, and reporting demonstrating financial and social impact. However, some social enterprises are grappling with fragmented data collection and evaluation, whether due to size, the pace of change, or focusing activities on delivering the impact itself.

The opportunity for a free, comprehensive data collection, evaluation and reporting tool was identified by the Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University, and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne, who have deep expertise in social enterprise.

Pollen was engaged to work with these partners to design a free, all-in-one social enterprise evaluation and data platform that can help social enterprises measure, track, report, and communicate their financial performance and social impact.

Seedkit needed to be an intuitive, scalable solution that could integrate multiple data sources and meet the needs of a range of social enterprises of different sizes across different sectors with different capabilities and reporting needs. A tricky brief.

Furthermore, Seedkit is also a valuable source of information about the social enterprise sector. The project partners can analyse data and, with the findings, help funders, governments, policymakers, researchers, and businesses understand more about the social enterprise sector in Australia.

Our work included product strategy, user experience, visual design, and user research, which required close collaboration with subject-matter experts from the Centre for Social Impact and the Melbourne Social Equity Institute. We also engaged regularly with members of a social enterprise ‘co-design’ panel, who provided inputs and feedback throughout the project.

We started the project with in-depth user research, hosting multiple workshops with our co-design group—a handpicked team of 30 social enterprise representatives who would ultimately utilise the platform. Regular interactions with Seedkit stakeholders ensured the platform evolved to meet real-world needs.

At the heart of Seedkit lies our commitment to user-centric design. We prioritised data integrity and ease of use, incorporating a plethora of "must-haves" from our co-design group into the final product.

Collaboration was our north star. The co-design team, engineers, UX/UI designers, and the client's in-house stakeholders all had a seat at the table, ensuring a holistic approach to problem-solving and feature implementation.

We adopted agile methodologies, aligning perfectly with our iterative, feedback-driven approach to project execution.

The Seedkit project is a testament to the transformative power of user-centric design and the intersection of user experience with modern technology. It also showcases how UX principles can help to solve complex challenges and drive meaningful change.

Seedkit launched in November 2023.

We'd love to hear from you if you're passionate about elevating social enterprise evaluations, crafting data dashboards, or enhancing UX flows. Let's change the world, one data point at a time.