This week we had the opportunity to talk to Melanie Greblo, the entrepreneur behind two ventures in the not-for-profit and social impact scene. One of them is Scriibed, which provides safe, secure, and flexible work in the digital economy for women. The other is Banksia Academy, which offers an online platform providing training, education, mentoring, and a program of trauma-informed wrap-around support for women survivors of domestic and family violence.
ISB: How did you first get involved in the not-for-profit and social impact space?
MG: My career began in the NFP space with CanTeen, the Australian organisation for young people living with cancer. I got into this after my younger sister died from cancer and I knew I wanted to have a career with meaning and a sense of contribution. Losing her so young made me realise the preciousness of life and gave me a deep sense of purpose. From here my career flourished into the social impact space as founding CEO of Home Hospice, and thereafter involved in pioneering work building the impact investing ecosystem in Australia.
ISB: What inspired you to establish Scriibed?
MG: It was my own lived experience that inspired me to start Scriibed. The challenges of sole parenting amidst the ongoing issues post-separation crippled me financially. The economic impact was real, I was lucky to be self-employed which gave me the required flexibility to be there for my children but it had disastrous impact on my financial security. I often reflected on how difficult it must be for other women who were not as connected, supported, educated, and experienced as I was and I soon learnt that they were drowning, not waving. I knew I wanted to help and so a market failure saw me find the idea of Scriibed and worked to make it happen.
ISB: How does Scriibed leverage technologies such as AI and automation in creating jobs for women?
MG: Scriibed is leveraging AI and Generative AI tools to streamline our operational processes for productivity gains and to compete in the market. Our workforce is equipped with training across speech-to-text AI technology, ChatGPT, and other GenAI tools. We’re also training our workforce to undertake client projects that help them prepare for the adoption of generative AI, which requires vast amounts of useable data, we offer data services to clients to tag/annotate and cleanse so client data is ready to be ingested in a useful way in their organisations.
ISB: Can you tell us more about the work of Scriibed’s not-for-profit arm Banksia Academy and how it is helping women survivors?
MG: Banskia Academy is the training and support arm of the business. We welcome women who face barriers to employment into the Academy, to access free digital skills training, a suite of personal and professional development learning, peer support and community connection. We operate Australia’s first virtual hub for survivors, focusing on achieving financial independence. The Hub is both a safe and courageous space for women to walk towards a brighter future, a future that is transformative for them and their children. There are many reasons women face barriers to employment and experience of domestic and family violence is a significant factor, where the barriers span across the intrapersonal, interpersonal, community and institutional. Many survivors of domestic and family violence are single mothers and they are often living below the poverty line. Without dedicated support to encourage them on their journey forward, they can remain in cycles of poverty, with poor outcomes socially and financially for them and their children. The Academy aims to break these cycles.
ISB: What has been the most challenging aspect of running these ventures and how did you overcome it?
MG: The most challenging aspect has really been starting two businesses at once – start-ups are challenging and they’re even more challenging when you’re dedicated to impact first. There is still a dearth of funding for impact start-ups, and we know there is a massive gap in investment in female founder businesses. We have been incredibly fortunate that social impact investors have seen the value in what we are trying to achieve and backed us, particularly philanthropic innovators like the Snow Foundation who are investing in our early-stage growth. We’re also in partnership with the NSW Government alongside the Paul Ramsay Foundation, in a payment-by-outcomes program where investment is made for the social impact we generate. These partnerships have been game-changers for us.
ISB: What is your vision for both Scriibed and Banksia Academy in the next couple of years?
MG: The next couple of years is really about building and scaling the business. We’re about to hire a growth lead to work with us to execute our Go To Market strategy, develop our products and push into the market in a much bigger way. Our goal is to be every SME’s outsourcing partner of choice, with everyday impact. As we grow our customer base we’ll see more and more women coming through the Academy ready to forge a career in the digital economy where they can work with Scriibed remotely, flexibly and be remunerated in a way that keeps them out of the poverty trap.
