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In recent years there has been growing interest by some third sector practitioners, policy makers and philanthropy in the possibilities of social enterprise to generate innovative responses to 'wicked' problems. Despite growing policy rhetoric and investment in social enterprise, very little is known about the scope and dimensions of this activity in Australia. In this paper, I present the main findings of the Finding Australia's Social Enterprise Sector (FASES) project, conducted with Social Traders in 2009-10. Based on workshops with 38 experts in social enterprise practice and policy, an inductive search for social enterprises across the country, and a national survey involving more than 300 organisations, FASES provide's Australia's first comprehensive snapshot of social enterprise activity. The research findings both confirm and contest some of the received truths of social enterprise presented in popular debates, and suggest further areas for applied scholarship in understanding the nature and impacts of this field of action.