Earlier this month, the Mutual Value Lab – a research partnership between Australian ICMIF member the BCCM and Monash University to measure the value that cooperatives and mutuals create for their members and communities – was officially launched in Melbourne (Australia).
The lab is the latest addition to the Monash Business School’s pioneering Impact Labs, comprising dynamic interdisciplinary research labs that collaborate for impactful research with external partners. The Mutual Value Lab is the first research unit of its kind in the world. It leverages the ongoing research collaboration between Monash Business School, the BCCM and the cooperative and mutual sector in Australia, which led to the rollout of the groundbreaking performance and impact measurement tool, the Mutual Value Measurement Framework©.
According to data from the annual National Mutual Economy report from BCCM, Australia has 1,848 active cooperative and mutual enterprises, directly employing 76,000 people, and the top 100 have a combined turnover of AUD 40.4 billion. Cooperatives and mutuals provide numerous benefits to the communities in which they operate. For every Australian dollar spent in a cooperative or mutual, there is an estimated reinvestment of 76 cents in the local community. But awareness of this business model is low. Despite eight in 10 Australians being a member of a cooperative or mutual, only three in 10 know they are.
“What gets measured, gets monitored. What gets monitored, gets valued. Valuing the positive impact of cooperatives and mutuals on their members, their customers, their communities and wider society, is long overdue. Mutual Value Measurement© is a framework that makes sure none of the value coops create is hidden, overlooked or ignored,” said BCCM CEO Melina Morrison.
The Mutual Value Lab will have a research kiosk, enabling any cooperative or mutual access to a team of dedicated researchers keen to address the myriad challenges and opportunities for coops and mutuals to create and deliver impact for members in the broader community.
Monash’s Associate Professor Paul Thambar and Professor Matthew Hall will share how the Mutual Value Measurement Framework© can help drive success in cooperatives and mutuals through better alignment between measurement practices and business strategy as part of the Leader Dialogue series at the BCCM Leaders’ Summit in October this year in Brisbane (Australia).
More recently, it has been announced that the Mutual Value Lab, is also advertising a PhD Scholarship.
Care Together is an education, advisory and support programme that will assist cooperatives and mutuals to develop sustainable service delivery in areas of social care where current approaches are not working, with a focus on regional, rural and remote parts of Australia. Learn more.
Photo shows: Rohan Mead, Group CEO, Australian Unity (left); Liz Thomas, CEO, Common Equity Housing Limited (CEHL) (middle); and Anthony De Fazio, CEO, BankVic (right) discussing the contribution that cooperatives and mutuals make to the economy and the communities in which they operate during the launch of the Mutual Value Lab.
