From Two Cafes to a Movement: Cafe Stepping Stone's Journey with Social Impact Hub
If you've been part of the Social Impact Fellowship, or joined us for a Scale for Impact Retreat in collaboration with The Mill House Ventures, this feeling might be familiar.
That moment when the sessions end, the cohort chat quiets down, and you're left holding a folder full of new ideas - and one big question: what now?
For some Fellows, the program is a moment in time. For many others, it becomes the turning point that changes the whole trajectory of their organisation.
Rina Brettell's story, and that of Cafe Stepping Stone, sits firmly in the second camp.
From two small cafes with a growing waitlist and no clear funding strategy, to a social enterprise now recognised nationally, with 43 beneficiaries employed and trained, 22,726 hours of paid employment for beneficiaries, and more than 62,000 customer orders, Rina's journey shows what's possible when deep community purpose meets the right strategic tools at the right time.
Recently, Rina, Director at Cafe Stepping Stone, shared how the organisation’s path has evolved - through both the Social Impact Fellowship and the Scale for Impact Retreat - and what has changed as a result.
The Social Impact Fellowship: Finding Their Voice
The Social Impact Fellowship is a 12‑week online learning program for people who want to deepen their understanding of how to create positive social impact. The program includes twice‑weekly online learning and networking sessions, access to a mentor or coach, the chance to work on a real project with a social enterprise, and at the end, being part of an Australia‑wide network of more than 500 alumni.
Where were you before joining the Fellowship?
In January 2025, our co‑founders Vanessa and Hannah won Australian of the Year - Local Hero. It was completely unexpected and incredibly exciting! The award pushed our social enterprise into the spotlight and gave our co‑founders a platform to promote our vision, mission, and model to a much wider audience. Cafe Stepping Stone was growing rapidly and organically, with strong public interest in how we support vulnerable migrant women through early integration, job skilling, and pathways to economic participation and security.
What challenges were you facing at that time?
We were operating two cafes with limited external funding. Demand was high - many vulnerable migrant women were registering to work with us - but we didn’t yet have the resources to meet that need. We’d had success with small grants, but we needed to reach larger donors and philanthropists, and we didn’t yet have a strategy for doing that. We also needed a meaningful way to measure our social impact so we could tell a powerful story to donors and government.
What new insights came from the Fellowship, and what happened as a result?
The key insights for me were the power of messaging in a meaningful way, how to structure our social impact measurement framework, the different social enterprise business structures available to us, and the various approaches to funding. These insights gave us the language and confidence to start telling our story with much more clarity.
Scale for Impact Retreat: Building the Structure
The Scale for Impact Program, an initiative by The Mill House Ventures and funded by the ACT Government is designed to provide tailored business support to create and explore pathways for scale-up social enterprises in Canberra, connecting them to growth, sponsorship, and philanthropic opportunities. Social Impact Hub delivered the program's 2.5-day Masterclass Retreat followed by Growth & Impact Diagnostics for each participating organisation.
Where were you before the Retreat and Diagnostics?
Before Scale for Impact, we were focused on consolidating and finding a sustainable way to keep running the business without so much dependence on our founders. Honestly, we were tired and lacking motivation, without a clear sense of our strategy or next steps. That began to shift after the Retreat - around the same time as the Australian of the Year recognition - and together, they opened the door to many more opportunities and partnerships.
What challenges were you facing then?
Our management and skilled team was small, funding was limited, and demand from vulnerable migrant women on our waiting list was high. We weren't sure how we'd be able to provide employment and training for more of these women.
What new insights came from the Retreat and Diagnostics?
We learned to think outside the box - to look at other models and businesses to see how they were doing things, and to think about scale differently. Scale didn't have to mean growing the business or employing more people; it could mean having a deeper impact on fewer people. The process pushed us to question different aspects of how we were operating and to check that our strategy was genuinely aligned with our mission. The Diagnostic report was invaluable in highlighting our key focus areas: strategic planning, an impact measurement framework, and financial resilience.
A Cafe Worth the Visit
Our Director of Education, Vera Borsboom, recently visited Cafe Stepping Stone in Strathnairn and couldn’t stop talking about it - the beautiful views, the cosy atmosphere, and genuinely great coffee. If you’re ever near Dickson or Strathnairn, we wholeheartedly recommend stopping by. It’s a warm reminder of the real, human impact the organisation is creating: a place built by and for the women it employs.
Staying Connected
Rina and the Cafe Stepping Stone team are now part of our community of 500+ Fellowship alumni, and we couldn't be prouder of how far they've come. There's so much other Fellows and alumni can learn from her journey, from finding a powerful message to rethinking what scale really means.
For alumni, Cafe Stepping Stone's story is a reminder that the Fellowship and our Retreats aren't a finish line. They're part of an ongoing relationship that can meet you wherever you are in your journey, whether that's finding your voice or rebuilding your strategy from the ground up.
For those considering our programs, this is a glimpse of what's possible: clarity, confidence, and peers that keeps showing up long after the program ends.