Orienting Futures 

Emerging Culturally & Ecologically Responsive Practice in the Social Enterprise Sector


Orienting Futures is a learning community that emerges from a critical need to regenerate structures & practices within the social enterprise sector. It questions our ecological obligations & explores decolonial practices within our planetary boundaries in culturally competent & reflexive ways - ensuring we uphold the social determinants of a thriving future.

This learning community is a space to build a framework of competencies for social enterprise actors to engage in equity-centred programs and operations. It’s for people who are keen to meaningfully lead decolonising practices - and influence others along the way - to shift systems of inequity in your roles, organisations, and industries.

We expand on the structural bravery required to ask hard questions of ourselves, our communities & organisations. Engaging in lateral, somatic & experiential learning, this experience shares different ways of designing and doing, applied to social enterprise operating realities. It aims to empower those involved with frameworks, relationships & inspired self-determination towards grounded strategic action.

We unpack power dynamics in the social enterprise sector, extend on pathways of navigation & seek to overcome systemic challenges. Through these shared learnings, we will explore the content, apply your context & co-create industry specific resources and solutions - offering fit for purpose pathways to share & develop our sectors regenerative practices.

We’re inviting participants with agency and authority to take systems-changing action in diverse social enterprise places and spaces. We’d love to see representatives from social enterprise organisations, intermediaries, peak bodies, government departments (local/state/federal), funding bodies, and researchers working in the social enterprise sector.

This is an opportunity for deep learning and deep practice-development to help shift the way you design your programs and operations towards equity. This online program is open for Expressions of Interest for people working in & around the Social Enterprise sector.

Orienting Futures is commissioned by Social Enterprise Australia as part of the Australian Government’s Social Enterprise Development Initiative (SEDI), learning communities help build capability in the sector to grow social impact. 

Orienting Futures is part of Understorey digital commons and learning communities.

Program Structure

The learning community spans 3 series exploring different elements of changemaking. Each series consists of 4 weekly 2.5 hour online sessions. These sessions are designed to build critically reflective, in-practice understanding of systems thinking, intercultural literacy and social intervention in the context of the social enterprise sector. Each series explores content pertaining to the series theme & applies it to the social enterprise context you’re located within. The 3 series are outlined below:

Series 1

Building understanding of ecological & regenerative obligations to adapt social enterprise practices within planetary boundaries. 

  • Indigenous leadership, Ecological & Permaculture Design

  • Queer Theory & Queering as social innovation

  • Planetary Boundaries & SDG’s

  • Systems thinking & Social change

  • Queer Regenerative Design

Series 2

Practicing decolonial obligation towards ourselves, settings and the systems we subscribe to.

  • Unpacking Systems of violence & power

  • Intercultural Literacies & Frameworks

  • Invisible systems & unconscious bias

  • Forming equitable relationships

Series 3

Shifting our ways of seeing, doing and being, towards intersectional equity and trauma informed practice.

  • Trauma informed design

  • Forms of capital & resource

  • Functions of capital & privilege in equitable social change

  • Window of tolerance & lateral violence

  • The bravery of innovation & change

Time and Capacity Commitments

Our learning community is designed to address the realities of this challenging work through a trauma informed approach. Each session features regular breaks, somatic integration & activities to centre participant experience throughout. We ask all potential participants to read the following commitments for this program before submitting an EOI:

  • Available to attend all online sessions - 12 x 2.5 hour sessions over a 4 month period. Session times will be confirmed upon EOI’s closure.

    • Series 1 - Rough months - 4 weeks (2.5 hours each)
      2 week Mid series break

    • Series 2 - Rough months - 4 weeks (2.5 hours each)
      2 week Mid series break

    • Series 3 - Rough months - 4 weeks (2.5 hours each)
      2 week Mid series break

  • The willingness to step bravely into a challenging space of learning outside of conventional paradigms.

  • If successful in your EOI, to complete a 20 minute baseline survey before the learning community commences.

  • In-session participation in the following forms:

    • Group discussion

    • Solo and group reflections

    • Video feedback and reflections

    • Worksheet reflection

  • Out-of-session participation in the following forms:

    • Watch recordings & engage with activities if you are absent.

    • Complete a 20 minute Survey at the completion of each series.

    • Optional further engagement through session resources. These resources are presented as low/medium/high spoons & accessible to different learning styles and capacities. It is not a requirement that you engage with these resources, however they can be helpful in extending and integrating the content from the online sessions.

Expressions of Interest

We are inviting participants to apply from a range of backgrounds, experiences and current understandings of the concepts explored in the program. It is not required to have deep awareness or practices of these themes. We’d love to see representatives from social enterprise organisations, grassroots organisations, intermediaries, peak bodies, government departments (local/state/federal), funding bodies, and researchers working in the social enterprise sector.

Priority will be given to those from key impact & influence areas & those from historically excluded communities. However, all applications will be considered & we encourage everyone to apply. 


For those unsure, we recommend you submit an EOI if you're interested in:

  • Pushing forward to expand the limits of change-making in your organisation and wider community.

  • Understanding systems of violence, their intervention points and building systems of liberation

  • Collaborating and connecting with others in the social enterprise sector to build networks and resources for change 

  • Have the capacity to commit to 12 x 2.5 hour sessions over a 4 month period in 2025

We are very excited to embark on this exciting and important work. To express your interest please fill out the form below, or alternatively use the links in each section to voice or video record your responses to the questions. 

If you have any questions about the application please reach out to us through Toad@PermaQueer.com

Expressions of Interest close 11th of July 2025