Hi ,

As we turn into a new financial year, we welcome the recent investiture of Sam Mostyn as our second female Governor General. Ms Mostyn vows a modern and optimistic stance to ‘address the rising lack of respect for women, of shrinking opportunities for some men, and the need for respectful conversations to understand the place for men in our communities now’ in Australia.

As a champion and change agent for this cause for many years, our new Governor General will provide the symbolic leadership to help all sectors of our social economy shape and shift the reforms required for greater gender equity in our society.  

Issues of domestic and sexual violence are boiling over in our national discourse, joining long-standing discrepancies of gender pay gaps and under-representation, and building tensions and conflicts abroad that continue to disproportionately impact women and children.  

So, we dedicate our Insight Piece this quarter to explore the gender bias and barriers faced by women, authored by the Director in our Melbourne office, Gillian Turnbull. We invite funders and philanthropists to be bold in their endeavours to address gender inequities head on, and to champion gender justice.  With the looming $3.5tr intergenerational wealth transfer expected to go mostly to women in the next generation, and acknowledging the recent launch of the national ‘She Gives’ campaign, the time is now! 

We also provide some updates on our service offering, key client engagements, our contributions to the broader sector and the momentum in our mission to make our contribution to more equitable and sustainable world. 

Enjoy the read.

Kind regards,

Simon Lewis 

INSIGHTS

Seeing the World Through Gender-Tinted Glasses

by Gillian Turnbull (Director)

A few weeks ago, I was one of many people across Australia who read with great interest a report released by Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA), Gender, Climate and Environmental Justice in Australia which explored the intersectionality between these important topics.  

This report firstly explored the extent to which women were disproportionately impacted by climate change, in particular those from vulnerable groups. It painted a pretty terrifying picture. Apparently, globally, women are fourteen times more likely to perish in a disaster and represent 80 percent of people displaced by extreme weather. 

Whilst these statistics are shocking, I admit to not finding them particularly surprising.

SHORT ANNOUNCEMENTS

We are dialling up our support to the leadership teams of For-Purpose organisations. With a growing team and skills base, we offer expertise across the layers of structure and governance through to strategy, operational performance and impact measurement.

Our Services To For Purpose Organisations are also relevant for the recent announcement around the Social Enterprise Development Initiative (SEDI) grants and areas where GoodWolf can offer its support. Follow the link above to learn more about our support to help organisations deliver at the nexus of important social change. This offering complements our Services To Philanthropy, and the role we play in bringing these sectors in closer partnership. 

And as a reminder to those exploring SEDI grants, please check in with us to see how we might be able to help. Contact nina@goodwolf.com.au  

CLIENT SHOUTOUTS

Cool.org 

A very satisfying quarter has been spent with Cool.org to develop a revised Theory of Change and Social Impact Framework for their social enterprise that creates high quality educator resources for teachers.  

We worked with the team to understand how their stakeholders experienced their services and the outcomes they valued through doing an upfront piece of research. These insights have been key in enabling the team at Cool.org to speak to their impact with confidence and clarity. It’s easy to be led to what people ‘think the outcomes should be’ but when we talk to stakeholders, we understand in their words what the outcomes actually are. 

The GoodWolf team appreciated the enthusiasm and excitement Cool.org brought to this project, and we know the results will be put to very good use. Our values of Delight & Essentialism certainly came out in this project.

AIGI

GoodWolf is currently working closely with the staff and board of Australia Indigenous Governance Institute (AIGI), Australia’s peak organisation promoting the principles and practice of Indigenous governance and the role of “Two-way” governance in self-determination. Together, we’ve developed a Theory of Change and developed a plan for revenue diversification through engagement with philanthropy.

One exciting element of this strategy is a dialogue series in which AIGI will bring people together to discuss the role of Indigenous governance across critical issues like the clean energy transition and caring for country. The series will kick off at the Philanthropy Australia conference with a session titled: The power of First Nations governance and how it makes a difference. This will be a session not to miss! 

FUTURITY EDUCATION FOUNDATION & NEiTA

We completed an extensive engagement with the mutual educational bond provider, Futurity Investment Group. This saw us help the Board and CEO design a new strategy for the Education Foundation as well as reshaping the longest-running community-based teacher awards in Australia and New Zealand, the National Excellence In Teacher Awards (‘NEITA’) as this initiative approaches its 30th anniversary.    

Our work with them tapped into the resurgent interest not only in affordability in education, but in supporting and investing more in our teacher corps across the country, and in rural and regional areas in particular, at a time of crisis for the sector.

Monet & Metaphors

Revisiting the problem we’re seeking to address and the nature of the change we’re affecting is good practice for purposeful, effective and efficient operations. But often we forget to go back to our materials and stakeholders to gather the new evidence. It’s useful to do this when an organisation is establishing but also through key periods of development. 

Using research methodologies with fit-for-purpose rigour, we can seek to understand where we are at in what we are doing and why, and what outcomes our work is having, and ways that we can amplify outcomes.  

This type of process has been highly effective in our work around Theory of Change and Impact Framework development and one for funders and for-purpose organisations to consider investing in to gain rich insights that can be used at different organisational levels. 

Feeding Our GoodWolf

Look out for Simon and Hannah at this year’s Philanthropy Australia Conference in Adelaide from 5th to 7th August. We’ll be supporting the facilitation of a masterclass for Family Foundations, a workshop with AIDN and ACFID on Trust-Based Philanthropy and a breakout session on impact considerations for Balance Sheets. And don’t forget the AIGI session on the power of First Nations governance. It promises to be a great conference about ‘Shifting Perspectives, Shifting Practices.’

In the last tax year, GoodWolf helped set up the newest Victorian-based community foundation called ‘The Port Phillip Community Foundation’. We made another contribution to them this year as their Advisory Board comes together and the first Vital Signs Report for the area hits the presses to raise greater awareness and engagement around the issues. See our LinkedIn post for details.

• Simon attended the Volunteering Victoria conference and participated in a panel titled “Shaking up the funding cycle”. Volunteer-based charities are the cradle of our civil society and sit at the heart of what ‘philanthropy’ means.... discuss! See our LinkedIn post for details.

• Hannah attended the Creative Australia Partnership Award celebrating individuals from Australia’s philanthropy, business and arts sectors who show leadership in private giving, philanthropy and business partnerships with the arts. See our LinkedIn post for details. 

• Nina attended the 2nd annual Social Impact Summit, learning and connecting with cross sector representatives. With a theme as diverse as social impact everyone from charities to corporates were in attendance and topics from social impact in the arts to the ‘S’ in ESG were covered. See our LinkedIn post for details. 

• Hat’s off to the Qld team of Philanthropy Australia for the marathon of events celebrating Philanthropy Week in Qld. We were particularly pleased to welcome Maree Sidey, PA’s new CEO, on her first official engagement in the new role. See our LinkedIn post for details. 

• BCorp update: GoodWolf was registered as a Benefit Corporation (‘BCorp’) in May 2023 with an overall impact score of 98.3. We have made two important transitions in our service providers in the last few months to help lift this impact score at the next assessment: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/good-wolf-partners-pty-ltd/ 

• As we endeavour to align all parts of our business to making the best and biggest impact we can, we are delighted to have secured the support of the team at RBK Advisors, also a registered BCorp, to work with us on our compliance and tax services.  

• We have also set up a bank account with our local Bendigo Community Bank branch to manage our transaction accounts for GoodWolf going forward. The community bank model is a locally-owned franchise of the bank, with a focus on building stronger local communities.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of The GoodWolf.  

Please reach out or share a comment with us at hello@goodwolf.com.au or contact one of the team directly. 

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