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Who we are
The Our Community Group provides advice, connections, training and easy to use tech tools for people and organisations working to build stronger communities.
Our partners in that work are grantmakers (government and philanthropic), donors, enlightened businesses, community builders, and - of course - not-for-profit organisations themselves.
A Certified B Corporation and multi-award-winning social enterprise, Our Community's offerings include:
OurCommunity.com.au - Australia's Centre for Excellence for the nation's 600,000 not-for-profits and schools: where not-for-profits go for help
Institute of Community Directors Australia - the best practice governance network for the members of Australian not-for-profit boards, committees and councils, and the senior staff who work alongside them
FundingCentre.com.au - the best place to go to get information on grants and fundraising in Australia
GiveNow.com.au - commission-free online donations for not-for-profits, and philanthropy education and tools for businesses, families and individuals
Australian Institute of Grants Management - information, inspiration and education for government, philanthropic and corporate grantmakers, including Australia's most-used online grants management solution, SmartyGrants
Australian Institute for Corporate Responsibility - creating and facilitating authentic connections between enlightened businesses and their communities
The Innovation Lab - the engine room for seeding ideas to drive social change by doing old things better or new things first
The Our Community Group is evolutionary as well as revolutionary. We have a number of staged developments and product offerings. Our websites and our services are always changing.
Our vision centres around social inclusion and social equity. Our dream is that every Australian should be able to go out their front door and stroll or wheel to a community group that suits their interests, passions and needs - or log on and do the same.
We want to help make it easy for people to join in, learn, celebrate, worship, plant trees, play a game, entertain and be entertained, care and be cared for, support others and be supported, advocate for rights and celebrate diversity. To get involved. To be valued.
Why we're here
Our Community works to build stronger communities through stronger community organisations.
Not-for-profit organisations, including schools, are the focus of our work. They are absolutely vital for the development of a thriving and vibrant Australia, helping us bridge the changes and transitions in work, learning, technology, demography, social roles and support - transitions that are having such major impacts on our lives in the twenty-first century.
Prior to the formation of Our Community, Australian community groups were much loved by the more than 65% of Australians who belonged to one or more, but many were under-resourced and highly vulnerable. There was a fear that starvation, dysfunction and disorganisation in the areas of fundraising, financial management, marketing and governance put the foundations of this important $100 billion sector at risk.
Since our formation in 1999, Our Community has worked with a range of partners to create practical tools and disseminate information and training that can be easily understood and immediately implemented by busy volunteers and hard-pressed staff.
We have also worked to bring all parts of this vast $100 billion sector together to achieve a united voice and bring to bear its combined purchasing power.
We later brought this same real-world approach to our work with grantmakers and businesses seeking to make their money go further and achieve more productive and authentic community connections.
The products and services we have developed and disseminated are having a real and sustained impact on the fortunes and effectiveness of many thousands of not-for-profit organisations across the country and the grantmakers, businesses and community builders who work alongside them. This has had immeasurable flow-on effects for the health and success of Australian society as a whole.
Our Community is a Certified B Corporation (we like to say we were a B Corp before B Corps were invented) that leads Australia in providing a model for socially minded businesses. We operate under a cross-subsidisation model, aiming to reach as many organisations at as low a cost as possible. Paid products and services (e.g. newsletters, books, training, SmartyGrants subscriptions, jobs listings) subsidise free or reduced-cost ones (commission-free donations through GiveNow, free Policy Bank and Board Matching Service, etc.). Many of the things we do turn a profit, but everything we do must contribute to our social objectives.
How we work
We are dogmatic and passionate. We strive for fairness and question authority. We accept increments, but strive for revolution. We use our balance sheet to create social change.
We are failure and risk-tolerant. We celebrate success and learn from our mistakes.
We believe in a work environment that allows for an authentic life balance. We value our flat structure: we share the cleaning as well as the decision-making.
Ethics, inspiration and innovation are at our core.
Our ideal environment is at the edge of chaos - the estuary region where rigid order and random chaos meet and generate high levels of adaptation, complexity and creativity. |
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