Inclusive Enterprise & Employment Pathways
Milki Desserts is a Brisbane hospitality business operated by Progen Innovations Pty Ltd. We trade to create paid, supported entry-level hospitality pathways for people who face barriers to work, while building a commercially sustainable business that can grow its social impact over time.
Milki sits within a broader purpose-led business approach that combines commercial discipline with measurable community benefit. In practice, that means using hospitality as a real workplace where people can build confidence, learn practical skills, earn paid income, and take steps towards stronger long-term employment outcomes. Our aim is not only to run a good business, but to demonstrate that commercial hospitality activity can be used to create meaningful social value.
What Milki is
Milki Desserts is a social enterprise pathway being developed through a for-profit trading business structure. It is not presented as a charity. It is a purpose-led hospitality venture designed to balance commercial sustainability with practical employment and training outcomes.
The business is operated by Progen Innovations Pty Ltd and trades as Milki Desserts. Our model is centred on paid work, structured support, capability-building, and reinvestment into purpose-led growth.
Who we aim to support
Milki’s primary social cohort currently includes:
- young people seeking first work experience
- migrants, refugees, and multilingual jobseekers facing barriers to gaining or sustaining employment in entry-level hospitality roles
People may be part of this cohort where they are early in their work journey and face one or more barriers to employment, including limited local work experience, language or communication barriers, low confidence, disrupted work history, transport constraints, or family responsibilities. Participation is assessed case by case, based on work rights, role suitability, support needs, workplace safety, and our capacity to provide reasonable supervision and adjustments.
How the pathway works
Milki’s support model is practical and workplace-based. Depending on the person and the role, support may include:
- structured induction
- buddy support
- additional supervision
- task breakdown and step-by-step instruction
- workplace communication support
- rostering flexibility
- confidence-building
- transport assistance where feasible
- referral to external supports where needed
We see the café not only as a trading business, but also as a real-world environment where people can build work habits, customer-service confidence, reliability, teamwork, and broader hospitality capability.
How people come into the pathway
Participants may come to Milki through a range of channels, including Workforce Australia providers, community organisations, schools, employment service providers, informal networks, family or community referrals, and direct walk-ins.
Cohort status may be identified through self-identification, intake discussion, referral information, support-provider documentation, school or community referral, work-right documentation where relevant, and internal assessment of barriers and support needs.
What we measure
We are building Milki’s impact framework around evidence that can be verified and reproduced. Depending on the reporting period, this may include:
- people from the target cohort engaged
- people offered paid work
- current paid workers
- total paid hours worked
- retention over time
- progression to other employment
- progression to study or training
- support provided
- skills developed
- wage subsidy value received where applicable
We only intend to publish claims that can be supported by payroll, rosters, training records, case notes, manager reports, or participant consent.
Governance and reinvestment
Milki’s operating entity has purpose-led provisions embedded in its constitution. These include a commitment to pursue commercial viability and growth while delivering measurable social and community benefit, including employment, training, and development opportunities for people facing barriers to work.
The constitution also provides that not less than 60% of surplus is to be applied towards purpose, subject to lawful operation, prudent reserves, working capital needs, and the long-term sustainability of the business. Permitted uses include staff development, supported employment initiatives, business improvements that strengthen social enterprise capacity, expansion of trading activities that increase social benefit, community-aligned initiatives, and the costs of measuring and improving impact.
The directors are also required to retain purpose-related records and approve an annual purpose statement summarising how the company pursued its purpose and how surplus was applied, retained, reserved, committed, or distributed.
Evidence and accountability
Milki maintains an internal impact evidence pack to support verification, certification, grant readiness, and due diligence discussions. This pack is designed to hold evidence that is dated, supportable, and capable of being reproduced.
The internal evidence framework includes cohort definitions, candidate case logs, paid hours, supports provided, outcomes achieved, destinations after Milki, and consented testimonials or photos where appropriate. A publication-safe summary can be prepared for external use so that privacy and consent are respected.
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