Single mums, First Nations and homeless the real winners in award-winning impact efforts

The awards recognise excellence, innovation and collaboration in impact measurement by not-for-profits, funders, governments, companies and social enterprises.

This year’s winners are:

• Global Sisters, which won the top award for excellence
• The Salvation Army, for outstanding collaboration
• 15 Times Better, for innovative design

Reforming welfare with women’s insights

The top award for excellence in social impact measurement went to a project that helps solo mothers on income support to build financial independence through self-employment.

The Solo Mums Parenting Payment demonstration project by Global Sisters was designed with the NSW Office of Social Impact Investment and supported by the AMP and Paul Ramsay foundations.

Heather McLean-Thompson, Global Sisters’ chief operating officer and head of social impact, said the organisation aimed to “remove barriers to women's economic security”.

“Through the demonstration project, we're aiming to prove that 300 solo mums can move off welfare through self-employment,” she said in the organisation’s pitch to judges.

McLean-Thompson said the organisation employed longitudinal data, “timeline mapping” to track participants’ progress, and systems mapping and analysis.

A key finding from the study was that most participants needed more time to reach full financial independence, largely because of the long-term effects of surviving violence.

The study found that existing government timelines were “completely unrealistic and unachievable”, but the Global Sisters model showed how getting women off welfare was possible.

“We are now using the evidence base as advocacy to create permanent and lasting change,” she said.

Judges praised the project as “a standout example of social impact measurement driving both program innovation and systems change”.

They cited the “mixed-method framework, feminist design, strong lived-experience voice, and verified business outcomes” saying the project would stand as a model for excellence “in measuring what matters for disadvantaged women.”

Innovation: First Nations-led tool reveals paths to improving lives

A First Nations-owned and -led consultancy has been recognised for developing a digital diagnostic tool to assess and improve impact for First Nations communities.

15 Times Better’s “15xB Impact Assessment” assesses organisation’s performance across seven domains, including strategy, employment, governance and cultural respect.

The tool combines cultural knowledge and structured impact measurement and has been trialled by 20 organisations, including companies such as Bupa and IFM Investors.

In her pitch, 15 Times Better CEO and founder Topaz McAuliffe said, “How is it that a $6 billion spend in one year alone hasn't translated to improving the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? I'll tell you why. We're measuring the wrong thing.”

“In the absence of a standard to measure impact, we have developed the GRO (gaps, risks, opportunities) assessment, which looks at seven key impact areas aligned to core business.”

The system uses a structured logic model to highlight gaps, quantify risks and highlight paths to greater effectiveness, as part of an ongoing assessment process.

The judges described the effort as “a gamechanger”.

“This application showcases innovative design by flipping the focus, for real transformational change,” judges said. “First Nations-led design, expertise and priorities elevate the tool, and the application is explicit in challenging implicit and explicit power through the criteria you have developed.”

Salvos lead the way in collaboration for homelessness effort

A national effort to better measure the effort of homelessness services is the winner of this year’s collaboration award.

The Salvation Army-led Homelessness National Outcomes Measurement Pilot enlisted more than 700 workers across 23 services to test a trauma-informed, strengths-based framework.

The project brought together people with experience of homelessness, frontline staff and data specialists to design a flexible national tool that could support both standardisation and local context.

The Salvation Army said the pilot involved working with services and clients to refine the framework, ensuring it was “robust” and “grounded in the realities of homelessness”.

Research analyst Stefano Verrelli, who led the project, accepted the award, but said the recognition belonged to the organisation’s homelessness leaders, practice specialists, frontline teams, and people who had experienced homelessness, “who trusted us with their stories and wisdom, ensuring this work stayed connected to the realities that matter most”.

The new framework was expected to be used nationally, following the successful pilot.

Judges praised the program’s “feedback loop”, which ensured that “clients and communities, especially those involved with consultation, [were able] to understand the value of their involvement and collaboration.”

Runners-up

The runners-up in 2025 were:

• Hands Up Mallee (excellence) for its evaluation framework
• Brightwater Research Centre (innovation) for creating a monitoring, evaluation and learning toolkit for aged care and disability services
• The BUSY Group (innovation) for its development of a global theory of change and impact framework across international employment and education programs
• Milk Crate Theatre (collaboration) for its shared measurement framework for community-engaged arts.

Will AI drive the future of social impact measurement?

The online awards ceremony also featured a debate between experts about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on social impact, and whether it was beneficial or detrimental.

The debate featured Federation University’s Professor Bindi Bennett, evaluation consultant Matt Healey, the National AI Centre’s Rita Arrigo, and, playing the role of ChatGPT, former SmartyGrants chief technology officer and outgoing SIMNA co-chair Sarah Barker, wearing a white mask sporting a ChatGPT logo.

The group tackled equity, ethics, obsolescence and opportunity, but most agreed with Barker’s suggestion that users should “treat AI like a tool … with a personality cult behind it”.

“There are always humans shaping the world views, the blind spots, and adding marketing spin. Ask who benefits, who built [the AI] and who gets left out,” she/ChatGPT said.

Professor Bennett won nods from the others when she argued that any use of AI must “stay relational, community-led and justice based”.

SmartyGrants – which is part of the Our Community group of social enterprises – has been a sponsor of the event for the past six years.

More information

More about the winners and runners-up at simna.com.au

Past winners 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021