Every October, Indigenous Business Month gives people a reason to discover Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses they might not have worked with before.

That’s great, but I think the bigger question is what happens after October.

This year’s theme, Local and Connected, asks us to think about the role Indigenous businesses play within their communities and the relationships that sustain them. It’s an idea that resonates strongly with how I think about the work we do. Across Blaklash, Aboriginal Art Co, Magpie Goose, Willie Weston and Elements, relationships are central to what we do. They create opportunities for artists, businesses, communities and the people and values that sit at the core of them.

For organisations wanting to improve their Indigenous procurement, relationships are the place to start.

Business can be a lever for social change🔗

I didn’t grow up thinking I’d run businesses. I started my career in communications and journalism because I was interested in storytelling, particularly creating opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to tell our own stories.

Over time, I started to see business as another way to do that, while also creating more tangible pathways for community. Through art, design and the built environment, I realised we could help bring those stories into the places, spaces and products people interact with every day, and in doing so build the blak economy, where the work, the decisions and the returns stay with First Nations people.

For a long time, Aboriginal culture has been used to create commercial value without Aboriginal people always having a meaningful share in it. We’ve seen products marketed through Aboriginal art and stories that weren’t made by Aboriginal people at all. For me, that raises a bigger question about who gets to tell these stories, who benefits from them and who gets the power to decide how impact is made.

Economic independence gives people agency. When a blak business succeeds, it is far more likely to employ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, procure from other First Nations businesses, ethically engage artists and direct more work and investment back into community. Importantly, we can make our own decisions about where that support goes.

We’ve been able to build a scholarship program, support emerging and established artists through commissions, and bring First Nations community members into our projects. Those decisions don’t need to wait for a grant program or somebody outside the community to determine where the need is greatest through the lens of a deficit model. There’s an element of agency in being able to say, “We think this is important, so this is where we’re going to invest.”

That’s one of the reasons I see procurement as such a valuable lever. A genuine, ongoing commercial relationship with a First Nations business can create effects well beyond the initial transaction.

Start with relationships🔗

If there’s one thing I come back to constantly in business, it’s relationships.

Whether I’m working with a client, a community or a collaborator, I’ve found that the quality of the outcome is closely tied to the strength of the relationship behind it.

The same applies to procurement.

If your only interaction with Indigenous businesses happens when you suddenly need a supplier for a tender, you’re starting from a difficult position. Get to know businesses before you need something from them. Understand what they do, what they’re good at and where there might be opportunities to work together.

And think about what reciprocity looks like. A meaningful commercial relationship shouldn’t be based around one organisation asking what it can buy once. It should create the potential for repeat work, referrals, collaboration and new opportunities over time.

That idea of connection is particularly relevant to this year’s Indigenous Business Month theme, which rightly describes economic strength as something built through local knowledge and relationships, with Indigenous businesses creating value within the communities around them.

Those connections also make supplier networks stronger.

Expand the circle🔗

One thing I hear reasonably often is, “We’d love to procure this from an Indigenous business, but we can’t find one.”

My first reaction is usually, “How hard have you looked?”

There are Indigenous businesses providing products and services across a huge range of areas and sectors. There are also organisations and networks specifically designed to help people find them, including Supply Nation, Queensland Indigenous Business Network, Kinaway Chamber of Commerce and other Indigenous chambers of commerce across the nation.

But again, relationships make a difference.

If you know a number of Indigenous business owners and suppliers, you’re not relying on a cold call every time you need something. We know our community. The murri grapevine moves quick. Word travels between Indigenous businesses, and people know who’s working in the sector, who might have the capability you need and who you should speak to next.

It also helps to think more broadly about where First Nations businesses could sit within your supply chain.

That might be something that’s part of your daily operations, like buying stationery from an Indigenous business, or something different, like engaging an engineering consultancy for a major infrastructure project. There are many blak businesses, too many to name, already working across areas such as professional services, design, art, tourism, activations, cleaning, furniture, textiles, project delivery and more.

At Blaklash, for example, we work across architecture, place, public art and strategy. Through Elements, we’re creating a First Nations-owned and led furniture offering pushing the boundaries of what Indigenous design looks like. And through Willie Weston we work across textiles, upholstery and wall coverings, connecting audiences with story and creating impact for artists across the continent.

For me, and I might be biased, our businesses demonstrate the opportunity to think about Indigenous procurement at different stages and to different extents within a project.

The important thing is to look beyond the categories you might instinctively associate with Indigenous procurement, and ask where First Nations businesses could participate across the broader supply chain.

Beyond October🔗

Indigenous Business Month has a crucial role to play in putting First Nations businesses in front of new customers, collaborators and organisations.

This year, the theme asks people to look around, identify the Indigenous businesses operating in their communities and consider how they can build genuine connections with them.

I’d encourage organisations to do exactly that.

Buy something from an Indigenous business this October. Engage a First Nations supplier you haven’t worked with before. Ask questions and find out what else they can do or who else they know.

Then keep the relationship going.

Because the greatest opportunity isn’t one transaction during Indigenous Business Month. It’s what can grow from that first conversation over the months and years that follow.