Refreshing our strategy – where we have been
It has been over five years since the Foundation’s last strategic shift that began our journey in working deeply to support and invest in community-led responses for wellbeing across South Australia.
We are grateful for the generosity of our partners during this time in trusting us to test and learn together; and sharing their expertise, learnings, feedback and visions for the future landscape of funding and wellbeing along the way. The Foundation is a reflection of this trust and our relationships, and the unwavering way in which our partners work alongside their communities. We are privileged to continue embedding this fundamental grounding as we move forward.
Our conversations about the future of the Foundation have allowed us to reflect collectively and from different perspectives on our growth journey; of our own practice in how we show up in our work as funders and partners, and the different ways we have supported community to learn, trial and develop wellbeing responses. It has us considering what we didn’t know at the beginning of our journey, how our learnings are shaping the path forward, and what it takes to support all parts of the work and a shared vision for change.
Putting pen to paper has also meant reflecting on what feels solid and unchanging about our future – while stretching ourselves around how we show up in spaces that our partners have asked us to step into or become more active.
So what have we been up to recently?
At the start of the year, we brought together a group of our partners and peers to collaboratively explore what the future direction might be across our focus areas, and our role as a Foundation. The conversations were grounded in hope and ambition for the future, and surfaced important insights about the role of philanthropy and our own position in both demonstrating what’s possible and influencing broader systems.
You can read more about those discussions here – Conversation with our partners: Evolving our Strategic Direction.
Since then, we have been working closely as a team to consider what this might all mean in practice – how does it all fit together, and what does it sound like to put words on the page?
To test our ideas and help sharpen our focus, we recently bought everyone together who had been contributing along the way – partners, networks, team and Board – to meet and unpack together the top priorities and intentions for our focus as we continue to invest in community led responses to wellbeing and conditions needed to support those responses.
These discussions delved further into details of how we could best continue and expand our work – across areas such as shifting narratives around wellbeing, building community-controlled wealth and resources, expanding access to community spaces and infrastructure, and spreading the reach and influence of community-led change.
We heard clear themes about where our resources as a Foundation are well positioned to meaningfully contribute towards change – as a connector, advocate and enabler while we walk alongside communities leading the work.
Over past months, we have also been working to deepen our understanding of the systems that influence community wellbeing and the work of our partners, including our places within and around those systems. As we move along the next stages of our path, we continue to be informed by research into evolving practice for funders. We’ve also recently started a process of commissioning research to better understand the mental health and wellbeing ecosystem in South Australia and explore strategic approaches to advocacy across key focus areas of our work. We’ll be sharing more about that work over the coming months.
What’s coming next?
It has been invaluable to hear from our current and past partners, who have generously provided their insights and expertise towards shaping our refreshed strategy to this point.
We want to continue to hear from different voices and communities across South Australia, so we will be holding two online conversations across November and December (open to anyone) to share our thinking around the evolving direction of our strategy.
If you are interested (or know someone who may be interested) in being a part of these conversations, keep an eye on our socials for more information and an opportunity to register – and please share widely!
We will be continuing to share our thinking and developments along the way, and you can read more about our strategy journey here.