social enterprise: head of a business, heart of a charity.
We are a unique social enterprise that combines forensic science with a social mission. Social enterprises are often described as having the ‘head of a business and the heart of a charity’, blending strategic business acumen with a strong social purpose.
what is a social enterprise?
A social enterprise is an innovative business that exists to solve a social problem. Like any business, it generates revenue through commercial activity. Unlike most, it reinvests profits to amplify social impact rather than maximise shareholder returns.
In Australia, social enterprises must:
- Operate with a primary social purpose that benefits the community.
- Derive a substantial portion of their revenue from trade.
- Reinvest profits towards their purpose so public benefit outweighs private gain.
We tick all these boxes.
a world-first forensic solution.
We are the world’s first social enterprise, and Australia’s first independent forensic service, dedicated solely to identifying human remains, locating missing persons and reunifying separated families.
Our social mission is to ensure that every deceased and disappeared person receives timely, appropriate and respectful forensic treatment to establish their identity and fulfil their human, cultural and legal rights.
We provide expert forensic services to all who need them – government agencies, humanitarian organisations, Indigenous communities and underserved families. We treat every case with the same care and respect, no matter the client, budget or situation.
Why? Because every unknown individual deserves an equal opportunity to be named – regardless of when, where, why or how they died. A person’s chance to be identified should never be limited by the forensic resources available locally.
Too many missed loved ones remain on institutional shelves or lie in unmarked graves due to low prioritisation, inequitable treatment, inadequate testing or under-resourced investigations.
We exist to change that.
fixing a broken system.
Australia has long relied on government laboratories for forensic services. These facilities primarily serve police priorities, are bound by state budgets and often lack the capacity, expertise or partnerships to progress backlogged unknown decedent cases with the urgency, proficiency and sensitivity required.
Especially remains from historical or humanitarian contexts, or those of ancestral or modern Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The closure of the federally funded National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons in 2024, despite resolving over 50 cases, highlights the fragility of relying on short-term government funding and ever-changing government remits to sustain this critical work.
The current model is broken.
Why? Because we still have hundreds of untested unidentified human remains in police storage. We still have an epidemic of missing and murdered First Nations people. We still have unknown individuals buried in unmarked graves at former institutions. We still have war casualties lying in battlefields as nameless heroes. And we still have thousands of families enduring life without answers.
This situation is not unique to Australia.
Many identification efforts around the world are surviving off volatile political will or sporadic donor funding – if either falters, the vital work stops.
reimagining forensic services.
Faced with this unmet community need, and recognising that identity is a fundamental human right, our founder, Dr Jodie Ward, set out to create a more sustainable, accessible and impactful forensic service using a direct benefit and cross-subsidy impact model.
Forensic human identification is all we do, and we do it well. We provide one-off or end-to-end support, from remains recovery, radiocarbon dating and dental comparisons to rapid DNA testing and forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Our consultative approach places the needs of those affected at the centre, enabling us to tailor solutions to each case, context or country.
Unlike government laboratories, we are not constrained by competing priorities or resource limitations. Unlike private laboratories, we are not driven by shareholder profits or investor demands. Unlike non-profit laboratories, we are not dependent on grant funding or crowdsourcing (but we’ll never say no to extra support!).
Instead, we operate entirely independently under a profit-for-purpose structure. And importantly, every client we work with generates social value that extends far beyond their own case.
Direct social benefit is achieved by enhancing forensic capabilities for government clients, extending access to non-government entities and reinvesting our surplus to subsidise these services for under-resourced organisations, communities and families. This strategy ensures that those who would otherwise be unable to access advanced forensic services due to market constraints can receive the support they need.
By combining business sustainability, scientific innovation, expert collaboration and social justice, we are building a forensic service model that puts people before profits, ensuring forensic expertise and technology are available to all, in life and death.
delivering public benefit.
Authorities, communities and families deserve access to the forensic resources required to effectively and efficiently restore names, reunite families and resolve cases. They should not face systemic, technical, cultural or financial barriers that prevent them from doing so.
By centralising and democratising specialised forensic capabilities, free from vested interests and systemic biases, informed by best practices and stakeholder needs, and guided by humanity and humility, we support:
- The timely and dignified recovery, identification and return of remains from police holdings, public institutions, unmarked graves and crisis zones.
- Clients unable or unwilling to access existing government forensic services due to distrust, urgency, cost or ineligibility.
- Families impacted by the long-term physical, psychological, emotional and financial toll of searching for a missing loved one.
In our first year, we supported diverse clients across Australia and abroad with a wide range of services – from guiding DNA-led identification programs, resolving skeletonised remains cases and reviewing unsolved homicide cases, to piloting new forensic technologies and conducting independent DNA testing. We also worked to generate investigative leads, develop forensic strategies and examine potential miscarriages of justice. Beyond casework, we pursued funding opportunities, advocated for families, educated decision-makers and built strategic partnerships that extend our social impact.
The societal benefits of this ‘business for good’ are significant: restoring dignity to the deceased, reuniting families with lost relatives, ending the trauma of ambiguous loss, advancing unsolved criminal cases, seeking justice for victims, rectifying historical institutional practices, repatriating Indigenous remains to Country and rebuilding public trust in forensic science, among many others.
Every person deserves a name. Every family deserves an answer. Every community deserves to heal.
