2024-25 Impact Report

This report celebrates the stories, tracks the impact and highlights lessons learned in our first year of operation. Our work is focused on helping leaders, organisations and communities collaborate on projects of social and environmental significance, often requiring people to work across siloes, sectors and jurisdictions. As such, the work presented in this report is not just ours. It is the work of so many people and the relationships we've built.

The numbers:

• 725 people reached through our program

• 36 workshops or programs delivered, most of which were 2-day sessions

• 61.5 workshop days

• 20 coaching clients

• 49 coaching hours

• 10 organisations supported and served

• 14 communities across Darling Downs, Finley, Broken Hill, Woorabinda, Emerald, Gladstone, Loxton, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Kingaroy, Tasmania, APY lands.

• 100% of surplus reinvested into pursuing our mission

• $6000+ donated to charity

Special shoutout to our partners and clients in this work:

• Australian Rural Leadership Foundation

• Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust

• QLD Government Department of Environment Science and Innovation

• Insurance House

• DisCO Consulting

• Ability Agriculture

• Brisbane Youth Service

• Kulintja Kutju

• Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service

• Austroads

People

Our first move when kicking off was to form a team of people who share our values and are committed to doing deep collaborative work across systems. A special shout out to Dr Polly McGee and Eddie Harran who were both critical in supporting the formation of how we approach what we do.

Much of the delivery work in the first year was led by Benny Callaghan, which on his own is unsustainable. Expanding our team of facilitators and collaborators in future years is going to be key to us making the impact we seek to make.

First Nations Commitment to Action

We feel privileged whenever we are invited to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations. This is about more than reconciliation - it represents a commitment to supporting self-determination. Our work in this area is guided by our principles and we are grateful to learn from the incredible leadership wherever we go.

This year we were able to serve several organisations and communities through a combination of paid, pro bono or low bono consulting:

• Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service: We offered a reduced-rate service to support the application to  

• Kulintja Kutju Empowered Communities

• Changemaker, Woorabinda Shire, delivered in partnership with Australian Rural Leadership Foundation.

Case Study: Kulintja Kutju, Central Australia

Kulintja Kutju is one of ten Empowered Communities across Australia, based in Mparntwe Alice Springs and supporting communities across the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, which includes 26 communities across 350,000 sq kms.

Kulintja Kutju have been delivering an Emerging Leaders program for five years and were keen to shift this program to be locally designed and led.

Benny was invited to work with alumni of the program to support the design of a new iteration of the program where the local alumni would become the facilitators. Through supporting the facilitators virtually and across two visits to the region prior to the sessions, this led to the first delivery of the leadership program in Aṉangu language - a significant milestone in self-determination.

The Aṉangu facilitators were incredibly inspiring to work with and we are very proud to have learned from them while supporting this work.

Beautiful Minds: Supporting Neurobrilliance

We are committed to understanding and supporting people with neurodifferences in our business and the people we serve.

More than half of our collaborators identify as having a neurodifference. We have actively sought out people who bring rich knowledge and experience.

Our collaborator, Eddie Harran (pictured with Benny), brings enormous experience and intellect to the table as an AI advisor and systems cartographer.

This year we invested $10,250 in providing employment to advisors who have lived experience of neurodifference. Our work focused on:

• Exploring ways to improve work and learning opportunities for people with neurodifferences.

• Research into the intersection of neurodifference, AI and the future of work

• Ideation of a spinout project providing advocacy and support for people.

We are proud of the initial steps we have taken with this project and look forward to reporting back on progress we make in future years and reports.

Planet

Core to our work is supporting organisations and communities working on projects with environmental significance. A key relationship in this work was with the Queensland Government Department of Environment, Science and Innovation's (DESI) Office of the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage.

Case Study: Great Barrier Reef and River Catchments

The team at OGBRWH are deeply committed to genuinely engaging with community to ensure their inputs to policy and programs are heard and considered at every level. The work of protecting the health of the Great Barrier Reef means working closely with communities, landholders, agriculture groups, Natural Resource Management organisations and conservationists who live and work within river catchments across the full length of the reef.

As the Great Barrier Reef has UNESCO World Heritage designation, this work requires collaboration between the Queensland Government and the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW) to meet those obligations. Cross-jurisdictional work carries unique challenges requiring support and care.

We worked with the team on a series of engagements that included:

• Community consultations in Cairns and Cooktown

• Collaborative planning sessions between DESI and DCCEEW

• Collaborative review and planning sessions across various units within DESI

• Collaborative review and planning sessions between the departments of DESI, DPI, DNRMMRRD, DLGVW, Treasury and Premier & Cabinet

• Listening Report sessions with community and industry stakeholder groups

• Project governance sessions with DESI.

Environmental Sustainability & Impact

One of the dynamics of our business is that number of clients we serve across Australia, often in rural, regional and remote areas that lack the kinds of services and supports we offer.

Flying is not something to boast aboat. This year we took 46 flights to do the work we do. We carbon offset when booking our own flights, but we recognize this isn’t enough. A key goal for 2025-26 is to reduce the number of flights we take. We’ll do this by:

• Focusing on building our presence in Brisbane and Southeast Queensland

• Continuing to engage as much as we can virtually

• Building a collaboration pool we can refer business too (we managed to do that with two gigs in 2024-25).

When on ground, we preference walking and using public transport wherever possible. When using Uber, we choose Green.

Where possible, we look for suppliers who share our commitment to sustainability. An example is choosing a carbon neutral internet provider.

How We Fund the Work We Do

Revenue by Sector

Nonprofits made up more than half our revenue through a number of partnership and contractor relationships.

Our Corporate revenue largely came through an engagement supporting the leadership team at Insurance House, helping build their ability to work collaboratively across the organisation. This organisation has a strong focus on rural and regional Australia, which was a strong values fit with other work we do.

Government work was primarily with DESI and the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

While First Nations often fit in the nonprofit legal structure, we wanted to call this out specifically to support our principle around this sector's own self-determination and in recognition of the growing impact they make in the Australian and global economy.

Revenue by Focus Area

Most of our work in the drought resilience space was supporting the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation in program design and facilitation in several communities across Queensland, NSW, Tasmania and South Australia.

Some of our work crosses several focus areas. For example, our work with the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program has strong reach across regional NSW and impacts drought resilience.

First Nations communities are also found across and provide immense leadership within water and environment, drought resilience, and with youth and young people. In this sense, displaying very interconnected work in a pie graph is not fully representative of the process and impact of our work.

Financial Performance

100% our revenue is generated via sale of services. In 2024-25 we received zero grants or donations. 100% of surpluses have been reinvested in the fulfilment of our social and environmental purpose.

Charitable contributions

We made the following charitable contributions this year:

• $5000 to Outward Bound Australia, an organization that aligns with our purpose to build the collaborative capacity of people

• $500 to other charities including Epilepsy Queensland

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Pro and low bono value added

We seek to make our services accessible to communities and organisations who most need support. As such, we provided discounted services to several clients and partners, totalling approximately $25,000.

We'd love to hear from you if you are interested in learning more about our impact and or partnering with us on future collaborations.

Onwards,

Benny

Benny Callaghan

Director and Chief Collaborator