The Commune Space is run by creative-duo Jess and Brenton who built the primarily B2B agency to offer all-inclusive creative services, and they have launched a new grants program to support this kind of business with branding and design. Think designing, planning, style and execution to help businesses in Brisbane and beyond.
There are an estimated 20,000 social enterprises in Australia, and this number is on the rise. Research shows that many of these social enterprises face a lack of resources for business growth, such as marketing, and Jess and Brenton spotted an opportunity to ‘give back’ to enterprises that are making a difference, partnering with complementary suppliers in the marketing sector to provide advice, expertise and services that the startup founders may not have, but that will be essential for their business growth and to solve their problem.
These community grants for social enterprises – which equates to a total package worth $8000 – are a helping hand for businesses that operate on tight budgets, with little or no room to spend dollars on brand-building services, such as design and branding, marketing, PR and copywriting. “The Commune Space is first and foremost built by community peeps (Brenton and myself), to see and create good for this planet we call home,” said Jess. “So, we wanted to extend the ‘good’ even further: by offering community grants to the businesses who are setting out to make changes for the better in our society, but who also needed a bit of a helping hand.”
The Commune Space saw how having a strong brand personality and aesthetic has helped organisations such as Thank You and Who Gives A Crap and given them real presence and recall amongst target audiences, and wanted to offer the same for smaller companies without big marketing budgets.
“We understand that sometimes design is the last thing a social enterprise can afford to get fancy with, because they have more pressing things on hand, like trying to make a difference in the world, So this our way of saying, ‘hey, we notice you, and this is our way of saying thanks.’”
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