Welcome to our latest newsletter for 2019.
Following is a summary of our key projects and observations for the sector across Housing, NDIS and Shared Value.
If any of these stories resonate with your strategies for this year, and you would like to learn more about our services, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Regards
Andrew Hamilton
Director
Youth & Employment
Since our last newsletter, the commencement of the Department of Youth Justice in May 2019 accompanying a new A
ction Plan, reforms and significant investment. Thankfully some of the investment is targeting prevention and avoidance of the justice system, focusing on positive pathways and a future for at-risk young people. We continue to engage with the Department on training, employment and partnership opportunities.
Shared Value
The reputation and benefits of Shared Value was the instigation for a planning and strategy day with Dementia Australia, as they continue to develop and strengthen their corporate partnerships sponsorship. The Shared Value methodology was a foundation for the strategic day, and partnering fundamentals and team building and communication was the ultimate outcome for the action plan.
Housing & Homelessness
We have been working with Micah Projects as they deliver their “Community Connections, Employment Mentoring Pathways” funded by the Dignity First Fund. We worked with them to develop the program, then wrote the successful submission. Since then we’ve been working with the team on the reporting framework, writing case studies and mentoring the team to deliver on some intensive and impactful outcomes for people needing guidance to enter employment pathways.
Partnerships
Resonate Consulting has been a valued partner of Social Scaffolding since we began, and we partnered with Resonate Consulting to commence a mentoring program with PwC and ImpactBoom. ImpactBoom delivers Elevate+, and attracts significant skilled volunteering, but could see the benefits of working with a large corporate mentoring partner. PwC has for many years provided their staff with skilled volunteering opportunities, and we could see a great opportunity to facilitate this partnership. Based on skills, experience and support requirements of the social enterprise - seven PwC mentors were matched with social entrepreneurs participating in the ImpactBoom 12 week program. They attended a briefing and were then provided with support when required to strengthen the mentoring relationship and focus on agreed goals through the program. We evaluated the impact of this project through questionnaires and by conducting phone interviews.
Mental Health
For the 3rdyear Andrew worked with the Qld Alliance for Mental Health, the Qld Mental Health Commission and a representative from the community to evaluate funding proposals for the Qld Mental Health Week grants. Each year more and more school students are taking the initiative and running events during this important week of awareness raising, campaigning and promotion. Each year the funding gets oversubscribed with innovative and impactful programs and projects. In future rounds I look forward to seeing more applications from the community working alongside people and providers that are already participating.
Housing
Social Scaffolding hosted an insightful Housing Forum on 16 July at McCullough Robertson. Guest speaker Gary Storkey, Chairman of SA Housing Authority who provided examples of Government and CHPs developing new supply of affordable housing that challenged the historical planning and design process to build new homes appropriate for a wider cross-section of the population. These examples included the redevelopment of an existing, very dated social housing complex at Henley Beach - a partnership between SAHT and a CHP; small lot housing creating affordable home ownership options; and Innovation Housing Demonstration Project building new affordable homes faster by using pre-fabrication processes. Shari Lawrence from Social Scaffolding then went on to facilitate a discussion from the panellists:
Alastair McGibbon - CEO of Social Enterprise Finance Australia (SEFA),
Joe Hurley - Manager Development and Partnerships, Brisbane Housing Company (BHC)
David Cant - Board Member National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC)
who all joined Gary in presenting examples of:
using social impact finance to help fund a housing project through smart financial structuring (SEFA)
working with State Government in developing a five year business plan to leverage their balance sheet to deliver a diverse range of housing solutions (BHC)
how to access capital made available by the Federal Government to help stimulate development of affordable housing (NHFIC)
Industry experts, Belinda Drew - CEO Community Sector Industry Alliance and Ivan Frkovic - the Queensland Mental Health Commissioner, wrapped up the session providing their insights. Belinda highlighted that access to information, finance and advice for developing housing solutions in regional areas of Queensland is just as important as in the South East. The flow of capital and information can't stop at the border. Ivan echoed this and added that many individuals who find themselves in social housing, may have a mental health problem at some point in their life. It is therefore important to design housing with this in mind and incorporate support networks into the housing solutions through service provision. Social Scaffolding thanks all presenters for their valuable contributions. Our aim was to provide a forum where examples of increasing the supply of affordable housing could be shared. As consultants in the space, we hear and see many examples of what is being achieved or what solutions are available. We wanted to share this. The audience was from a wide cross section of NFP service providers and industry experts all of whom walked away with a greater depth of knowledge about what is happening in the sector both in QLD and interstate. Many in the room have already come back to us requesting further information and introductions. We would also like thank McCullough Robertson for kindly hosting the event in their offices. Their support is greatly appreciated.
Housing Projects
While we are still on Housing, the recent announcement of the Christian Super investment in SDA housing is a headline for the sector. According to research conducted by the Summer Foundation and PwC, there are currently 6,192 Australians aged under 65 years who live in aged care facilities. So the Christian Super investment represents a milestone of investment, ideally attracting many more future projects.
We are really pleased to also mention that Social Scaffolding is now a successful applicant for the Professional Advisory Services panel
The Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) is helping the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) deliver lower cost and longer tenor finance to Community Housing Organisations(CHOs) by coordinating a grant program that funds Professional Advisory Services.
Events
PAST EVENTS The Australian Pro Bono & Skilled Volunteering Summit. Andrew MC’d this event on 29 August, with more than 140 attending. It was a great event sponsored by Ashurst, Westpac Foundation, Macquarie, and Resonate whose Director Jennifer Bishop has been creating a strong movement both here and in the Asia Pacific.
UPCOMING EVENTS Shared Value Workshops 11th - 22nd November In partnership with Phil Preston, we will be running Shared Value workshops nationally, with the Theme of “Developing Partnerships for Profit & Purpose”. We haven’t set-up the registration page yet, so please send me an email for more information initially.
