Navigating Short-Term Funding and Government Election Cycles to Achieve Sustainable, Transformative Social Impact

Submit your paper here!

Introduction

This is a practical challenge special issue which aims to bring together business academics with partner organisations to address a social impact problem.  In this special issue, the partner organisation will write a commentary responding to papers accepted in the issue, providing useful feedback and evidence of potential impact of the paper for authors.

Partner Organisation: Mudth-Niyleta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation

Practical Challenge 

Mudth-Niyleta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation, established in 1988, is an Aboriginal community controlled organisation that is managed and operated by local Indigenous people. Located regional Queensland, Australia, this non-government organisation offers holistic services addressing accommodation, health, youth initiatives, employment, education, and cultural preservation. It also serves as an advocate for the Indigenous community, negotiating with government and non-government agencies to support community development and wellbeing.
The practical challenge facing Mudth-Niyleta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation is navigating short-term funding and government election cycles to achieve sustainable, transformative social impact for their community. Meaningful social impact takes time, money and public policy support. As a community-based organisation, Mudth-Niyleta invests significant time and energy identifying, applying for and administering consecutive short-term funding in an effort to achieve the full transformative potential of their social impact programs to improve the length and quality of life of their Indigenous community. As most of their social impact programs are funded by national, state or local governments, who set policy priorities, government election cycles create instability as changing priorities can stall, compromise or even halt the progress of their social impact programs. 

Background 

This special issue aims to explore the practical challenges and opportunities faced by social impact programs that operate within the context of short-term funding and government election cycles. A social impact program is an initiative or intervention designed to address a specific social cause, issue or challenge with the goal of creating sustained, positive and measurable changes in society (Benjamin et al., 2023). These programs often focus on improving the wellbeing of individuals and communities by addressing issues such as poverty, ill health, anti-social behaviour or educational inequality. Social impact programs can be implemented by various organisations, including non-profit organisations and social enterprises, and they typically involve activities such as providing services, conducting advocacy campaigns, implementing behaviour change interventions, or supporting community development (Nordin et al., 2024). The effectiveness of social impact programs is often gauged by their ‘social performance’, which refers to their ability to achieve beneficial outcomes for the target population (Doan and Knight, 2020; Ebrahim, 2020).

Done well, social impact programs generate short-term outputs commonly measured by the work accomplished, such as the number of people fed or the number of hours of allied health support delivered (Ebrahim, 2020). However, it is the long-term outcomes that are transformative, as making real, sustained differences in people's lives takes time, such as reducing rates of illiteracy or poverty (Ebrahim, 2020). Hence, the timeframes for sustainable, transformative social impact programs well exceed the usual one- to three-year funding timeframes. This short-term, outputs-centric funding means program leaders, administrators and chief executive officers find themselves chasing a series of consecutive short-term funding arrangements in an effort to achieve the full transformative potential of the program and optimal benefits for the affected group (Malenfant and Nichols, 2019).  Where funding is from federal, state or territory governments, it is particularly susceptible to shifting government priorities and government election cycles, creating instability that can compromise the program's ability to achieve its full potential (Ali and Gull, 2019; Nordin et al., 2024). To date there is little evidence of the role that business research can play in designing, implementing or evaluating social impact programs.  This special issue seeks to address this problem.)

List of Topic Areas

We invite business scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to contribute to our special issue. We seek submissions that present innovative strategies, case studies, systematic literature reviews, empirical research, commentaries, policy papers, practice papers or viewpoints that shed light on effective business approaches for maximising sustained social impact amidst these dynamic funding and government election cycle conditions. We also invite submissions that outline how short-term funding and government election cycles led to the premature ending of promising social impact programs. 
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Innovative funding models for creating and sustaining social impact programs.
• Adaptive business program design strategies to align with changing Stakeholder collaboration and partnerships with business to build funding resilience and continuity for social impact programs.
• Business theories, models and frameworks for designing and sustaining social impact programs.
• Business advocacy and engagement strategies to influence governmental decisions to prioritise social issues or social impact programs.
• Evaluating social impact business program outcomes within fluctuating funding and political environments.
• Practical business approaches that demonstrate what works and what doesn’t for navigating short-term funding for social impact programs
• Social impact business programs undertaken by First Nations community controlled or self-determined organisations.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.

The special issue co-editors will hold webinars for potential contributors, with dates and times to be advised via social media. Authors wishing to publish in this special issue should send a 300-word abstract of their proposed paper, clearly identifying the type of paper (e.g., case study, systematic literature review, empirical research) they are submitting to [email protected] by 30 November 2024. Feedback on the abstracts will be provided within three weeks, with full papers to be submitted for peer review by 30 March 2025.

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/02/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 30/03/2025 
Closing date for abstract submission: 30/11/2024 
Email for abstract submissions: [email protected]

Guest Editors

Professor Maria Raciti, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, [email protected]
Dr Janine Gertz, University of Queensland, Australia, [email protected]
Mr Sam Raciti, Mudth-Niyleta Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation, Australia, [email protected]