Client Summary

ACRE (Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship) is a nationally recognised organisation committed to improving outcomes for children and young people in regional Australia. Through its flagship initiative, Social Enterprise Schools (SES), ACRE fosters entrepreneurial thinking and community engagement among students. In 2024, ACRE received one-off capability funding from the NSW Department of Education to scale SES across 20 public schools. As part of the funding agreement, ACRE was required to acquit its grant with credible, independent evidence of program impact.

Challenge

ACRE faced several challenges in meeting its acquittal obligations:

• Aligning outcome measures with its Theory of Change and demonstrating impact using scientifically validated tools.
• Administering surveys efficiently across diverse school settings with limited internal capacity.
• Ensuring credibility and independence in reporting outcomes to government and stakeholders.
• Capturing meaningful data that reflected student wellbeing and resilience in a way that was both rigorous and accessible.

Our Approach

Giving Connect partnered with ACRE and its independent impact consultant to design and implement a robust impact measurement framework. This included:

Analysing data to identify trends in student wellbeing, resilience, and social enterprise confidence.

Mapping short-term outcomes to validated instruments such as the Cantril Ladder and Children’s Hope Scale.

Developing and deploying a pre/post survey tool known as TOMS (The Outcomes Measurement Service), supported by Resilient Youth Australia and the University of Adelaide’s WiLDlab.

Training school teaching teams to administer the surveys, resulting in over 1,100 responses from 672 students across 24 schools.

Impact & Outcomes

The results were compelling. Students reported a 25.43% improvement in wellbeing, measured through internationally recognised scales. The data revealed strong correlations between increased agency, social enterprise knowledge, and resilience. Additionally, qualitative feedback from students highlighted growth in teamwork, problem-solving, and community engagement.

ACRE was able to confidently report these outcomes to the NSW Government, philanthropic partners, and school communities, strengthening its case for future program expansion.

TOMS empowered ACRE to understand and amplify the impact of Social Enterprise Schools (SES) across NSW communities. With its powerful survey tool and intuitive portal, we could vividly capture and share our outcomes with State Government, philanthropic partners, and—most importantly—the students we serve.

The insights we gained didn’t just inform our stakeholders; they united and inspired our team, fuelling our collective drive to deepen the impact and support the case to expand the reach of the SES program.

Tom Colcott, Program Manager | Next Gen, ACRE