For purpose organisations band together on purpose

In the past week, a diverse range of for-purpose organisations have joined forces to highlight important issues and drive change, including:

• a push to address the national skills shortage by harnessing the underutilised potential of Australia’s migrant community
• the launch of a campaign designed to tackle educational inequality by demanding an end to the underfunding of public education

It’s no accident that the campaigns, which brought together organisations such as Settlement Services International (SSI), the Community Council for Australia (CCA), the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Amnesty International were launched in the nations centre of political power – Canberra.

Both announcements saw representatives of the sector organisations concerns standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity before the nation’s media inside Parliament House.

The ‘Activate Australia’s Skills Blueprint’ sets out a roadmap to help skilled migrants back into professions in desperate need of new workers, such as construction and healthcare.

SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis, whose organisation is leading the campaign, noted the broad coalition of groups that had come together to back the plan.

“The diversity and power of the new alliance shows these solutions are popular and common sense. Everyone wins,” she said.

The campaigns to address the national skills shortage and educational inequality are the latest in a series of collective action by the community sector.

Ongoing examples include the push by the Alliance for Gambling Reform to ban online gambling advertising, the fight to secure community legal centre funding, the LGBTQI+ census backflip and the Pay What It Takes coalition – now in its third year – focused on educating funders and not-for-profits about the true costs of running an organisation.

Sector struggles to be heard in Voice debate

The advocacy surge comes as many sector organisations this week reflect on their collective failure in last year's Voice referendum a year ago.

While the missions driving community sector organisations vary widely, from helping the homeless and advocating for refugees to raising money for medical research, the sector was largely in lockstep in its support for the Yes case..

In the count down to the vote, for purpose organisations were vocal in their advocacy, commenting publicly and mounting social media campaigns in favour of and Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Many joined Allies for Uluru, a coalition of more than 300 community, non-government and corporate organisations from across the country created to support the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart starting and the creation of the Voice.

The coalition comprised a who’s who of the charity, NFP sector and community sector, including Mission Australia, the Fred Hollows Foundation, ACOSS, Beyond Blue and Infoxchange.

In June 2024, more than seven months after the Voice referendum was resoundingly defeated, 60 Allies for Uluru members signed a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

“We recommit to actively pursuing the establishment of representative voices for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” they said.

In a recent People with Purpose profile in the Community Advocate, Sacred Heart Mission CEO Hang Vo revealed that commitment still burned brightly, stating the outcome of the Voice referendum highlighted the need to become even stronger allies and advocate more fiercely for Voice, Treaty and Truth.

“The not-for-profit sector witnesses daily the impacts of colonisation and dispossession on First Nations peoples, who remain overrepresented in the justice system, homelessness, out-of-home care, and unemployment – the list goes on,” she said.

“We will not achieve systemic change without reforming policy to ensure that First Nations peoples have a say in the outcomes that affect them.”

More information

Community Directors Intelligence: The campaign edition

Sector throws support behind plan to tackle national skills shortage

Allies for Uluru refuse to give up the fight

Community sector leaders create a coalition for ‘Yes’ vote on Voice

Sector adds its voice to referendum debate