The Mill House Ventures is committed to the growth and impact of social enterprises in the Canberra region. We offer programs that support the emergence and growth of social ventures, provide access to professional services, and act as a thriving hub for changemakers to connect and grow their innovations.
At The Mill House Ventures we provide through life support for social enterprise in Canberra and the surrounding region. If you have a social enterprise idea or are up and running we would love to hear from you. We have a full suite of programs to suit every stage of development from incomplete idea through to being ready to scale and reach new heights.
We will help you lay the groundwork for your social enterprise, emphasizing the desired impact and the specific issue to be addressed.
Accelerate your social enterprise idea over 3 months, learning the skills and tools to start your for profit, for purpose business.
Helping established social enterprises navigate challenges, access opportunities and grow through bespoke consulting.
If you’re ready to expand, diversify, reach new heights, access philanthropic or venture capital funding, Scale for Impact is for you.
Competitive grant program, targeting start-up social enterprises. Matched funding between $10,000 and $30,000
Partnering with the Business, Government and Law faculty of the University of Canberra, we pair students with social enterprises for real world experience.
At The Mill House Ventures we provide through life support for social enterprise in Canberra and the surrounding region. If you have a social enterprise idea or are up and running we would love to hear from you. We have a full suite of programs to suit every stage of development from incomplete idea through to being ready to scale and reach new heights.
We will help you lay the groundwork for your social enterprise, emphasizing the desired impact and the specific issue to be addressed.
Accelerate your social enterprise idea over 3 months, learning the skills and tools to start your for profit, for purpose business.
Helping established social enterprises navigate challenges, access opportunities and grow through bespoke consulting.
If you’re ready to expand, diversify, reach new heights, access philanthropic or venture capital funding, Scale for Impact is you.
Competitive grant program, targeting start-up social enterprises.
Matched funding between $10,000 and $30,000
Partnering with the Business, Government and Law faculty of the University of Canberra, we pair students with social enterprises for real world experience.
So far, The Mill House Ventures has consulted with over five hundred individuals in our region. 99 ventures have graduated from our flagship accelerator, GRIST.
We work with established businesses that are interested in incorporating measurable social purpose into the DNA of their enterprise.
Existing community organisations that rely principally on grants and philanthropy come to Mill House to iterate alternate revenue models.
The Mill House Ventures is an integral part of the wider Canberra Innovation Ecosystem. Our focus lies in fostering economic development while generating tangible and traceable public benefits.
The enterprises that engage with Mill House are social enterprises, a form of hybrid between for profit and for purpose organisations – they function both as charitable endeavors and businesses operating within competitive trading markets.
We use many of the tools of the lean start-up business model as we believe that these tools are useful to focus an innovator on early engagement and validation of their idea with their target market, developing minimum viable products and building knowledge and skills required to scale.
We work with enterprises at any stage from idea to established and have programs tailored for anyone at any stage of their journey.
The Mill House Ventures is an integral part of the wider Canberra Innovation Ecosystem. Our focus lies in fostering economic development while generating tangible and traceable public benefits. The enterprises that engage with Mill House are social enterprises, a form of hybrid between for profit and for purpose organisations – they function both as charitable endeavors and businesses operating within competitive trading markets. We use many of the tools of the lean start-up business model as we believe that these tools are useful to focus an innovator on early engagement and validation of their idea with their target market, developing minimum viable products and building knowledge and skills required to scale. We work with enterprises at any stage from idea to established and have programs tailored for anyone at any stage of their journey.
Small Until High Projects
The Mill House programs offer support and guidance through all stages of starting a social enterprise. From 2 hour introductory programs to our 4 month social enterprise accelerator, our programs are designed to guide emerging and existing ventures through the landscape of social enterprise.
The Mill House Ventures Clinic assists Social Ventures by pairing enterprises with students at the University of Canberra to assist in identifying and addressing problems faced by the social enterprises in the areas of marketing, digital health and more.
The Mill House Ventures in Canberra is a cooperative that supports for-purpose entrepreneurs in using capitalism to positively impact vulnerable people in the community. Through grinding and refining ideas, they create projects for the community's benefit, continuing the tradition of cooperatives as the oldest form of social enterprise.
The Mill House Ventures exists to support the development and growth of a thriving social innovation ecosystem in Canberra and the region. We believe that such an ecosystem benefits when individuals are experimenting with an innovative business model called social enterprise. Social enterprises are hybrid organisations that seek to reduce their reliance on income from grants and philanthropy through the pursuit of commercial business models. Individuals that are passionate about solving problems in the community using hybrid models often face barriers to business education and investment. The Mill House Ventures programs are designed to address this market gap in business advisory services in the ACT and region. Offering a place for new ventures to thrive, Mill House clients can choose to work collaboratively through skills development initiatives in the Social Enterprise Accelerator as well as access professional services through our REFINE program and the student-led Clinic.
So appreciative of Cindy and the Mill House. I’ve learned so much in the first three days. Looking forward to collaborating over the next three months and beyond!
Applications are now open for Part 2 of the 2026 ACT Social Enterprise Grant Program, with Canberra-based social enterprises able to apply for between $10,000 and $30,000 in matched funding to support their next stage of growth.
What started as a way to make driving lessons more accessible has grown into something much bigger. Allara Drives founders Jessica Wright and Ruth Oettle share how listening to the women they worked alongside helped shape a social enterprise creating pathways to independence, employment and opportunity, and what they’ve learnt about building sustainable impact along the way.
After years working on data projects in the Department of Social Services, Tara Spokes saw how hard grant reporting was for small community organisations without the right systems.
The Mill House Ventures supports social entrepreneurship in Canberra through programs, professional services, and a platform for innovation and collaboration.
