Good Sammy posts FY23 turnaround

Good Sammy has posted a $6.3 million turnaround in financial year 2023, pulling the charity out of a $4 million deficit in the prior period. 

Kane Blackman joined the charity as chief executive in February 2022, when the charity recorded a $4 million net loss for the financial year.

But the organisation's FY23 results, released in November, revealed a net surplus of $2.3 million, with an operating surplus sitting at just over $400,000.

Over the financial year, Good Sammy Enterprises expanded its op-shop footprint, opening four new sites.

The charity took on two shutdown Anglicare WA retail stores in Morley and Maddington, opened a new shop in Ellenbrook, and upgraded its Fremantle flagship to a 1000-sqm premises.

The disability employer opened its first social enterprise café, Good Thanks, with the support of the City of Kwinana, and will launch a second café in the new year on Cambridge Street in West Leederville.

“Our new five-year strategy focuses strongly on the growth of our social enterprises and innovative pathways to support people with disability achieve their employment goals,” Mr Blackman told Business News.

“Good Sammy’s core mission is to create employment opportunities for people with disability, and it does that by running sustainable social enterprises where people can work and develop and train within.”

As a leading provider of disability employment in WA, Good Sammy employed 361 people with disability over the 12 months, increasing its workforce of people with disability to 52 per cent compared to 43 per cent in the previous financial year.

The charity created training opportunities for 210 people with disability through its Good Sammy Academy and helped 23 people with disability find open employment through corporate partnership development pathways.

Expanding its social enterprises to provide employment and job training for people with disability, the charity also started a gardening service employing people with disability, which has the support of 30 corporate clients.

Good Sammy diverted six million textiles from landfill in the 12 months and had foot traffic of more than one million customers through its stores.

As WA’s largest Containers for Change not-for-profit program partner, Good Sammy acquired the largest container recycling facility in Balcatta from the City of Stirling during the 2023 financial year and recycled 20 million containers through its 20 refund points across the Perth metro area.

Addressing the $4 million loss in the previous financial year, Mr Blackman said the loss was due to a number of reasons, among them the challenging retail trading environment with COVID-19.

“We had to make some tough decisions to shut three of our charity stores that were poor assets in poor locations that were performing poorly,” he said.

“We had to do a number of organisational restructures as well to get the right people in the right roles.

“We’ve finished the 2022-2023 financial year with over a $6 million turnaround. We've gone from a $4 million overall loss to a $2.3 million net profit, which is a combination of the operating results, which was a $400,000 surplus to add to our reserve.”