Distinguished mandarin named age discrimination commissioner Community & Social Robert Fitzgerald will commence as Age Discrimination Commissioner on Tuesday, April 2. His term will be for five years.
Charities in crisis: Why we must help the helpers June 14, 2021 By Suzie Riddell Community & Social Unlike commercial businesses, charity funding for services doesn’t rise in parallel with demand, and can in fact go down.
Australian charities need ‘tailored’ government support to survive, report says July 22, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Economy & Industry Social Ventures Australia and the Centre for Social Impact noted that their past research has shown a 20% drop in income would lead to one in six charities exhausting their liquid reserves within six months.
Social impact bonds: why investors put $5 million into reducing youth unemployment April 16, 2019 By Stephen Easton Case studies Australia’s latest social impact bond sale has collected $5 million to help fund a four-year program that aims to reduce youth unemployment, and provide investors returns as high as 12.4% per annum.
Grand designs: will NSW’s big social housing flip work? September 14, 2017 By Julian Bajkowski Community & Social There are signs social housing builds are finally changing for the better. But can good architecture change entrenched disadvantage and a punitive mentality towards welfare recipients?
Funding floods SA social bond as ScoMo eyes a simpler kind of impact investing March 10, 2017 By Stephen Easton Jurisdiction Investors have jumped at the chance to buy into South Australia’s first social impact bond, which aims to address homelessness. Meanwhile, the federal Treasurer is weighing up a different and much simpler Swiss model of social impact investment.
Practical reconciliation in public sector organisations August 3, 2016 By Stephen Easton Features A good reconciliation action plan can guide government agencies towards a workforce that is more reflective of the community, and perhaps more effective and more efficient. Give responsibility to regions, not just head office.
'Failed model': union warns Treasurer off social impact bonds July 18, 2016 By David Donaldson Jurisdiction Social impact bonds are just a new form of privatisation, argues CPSU Victorian branch secretary Karen Batt. A “race to the bottom with low wages and casualisation” or a more targeted way to achieve results?
Bringing data into education policy with Evidence for Learning May 26, 2016 By David Donaldson Features Researchers already know that some of the most popular schooling policies don’t work, or have very little impact for high cost. Evidence for Learning hopes to rectify our current gaps of what works in Australian schooling.
Rob Koczkar: time for a national agenda for social innovation December 11, 2015 By Rob Koczkar Community & Social While Australia still underinvests in social innovation, there is much to be optimistic about with better use of existing data. There are big opportunities to reduce disadvantage through data use.
Data labs: a low-cost way to understand service impact March 13, 2015 By Olivia Hilton & Tarah Barzanji Features We’re good at sizing up social problems but not at measuring the impact of the problem solving. We need better data, used smarter. Data labs — once thought cost prohibitive — are now a reality.