Foster care. Homelessness support. Food on tables across one of Melbourne’s fastest growing municipalities. The kind of work a community assumes will always be there.
Then local government cut the funding, late, and staff layoffs were on the table.
I heard about it at Christmas – the CEO is my aunt. My response: this is ridiculous. You’re a vital part of this community, and people would be outraged if they knew. A council election was months away.
So we went to the community.
Strategy
The normal move is a written appeal to the council – the same people who made the cut.
The case had to be made in public instead, by the people the organisation serves and the community around them – loudly enough, and close enough to an election, that renewing the funding became the easy decision.
That meant capturing the work so people could see it, and building the organisation’s own voice so the campaign wouldn’t end when I stepped back.
Action
I led the whole thing, pro-bono.
Directed and filmed the story of the organisation – the people, the programs, the heart of Wyndham at Werribee.
Took control of their social media accounts, set the system up properly, and trained the staff to run it themselves.
Then coordinated the grassroots campaign – the story pushed through the local community, backed with a modest amount of ad spend, timed to the moment it mattered.
The main video:
Outcome
The community responded – sharing, commenting, telling everyone who’d listen what the organisation meant to them.
The funding was renewed. And within the year, the Victorian Government announced $15 million for housing and homelessness support in Wyndham, through the alliance of local agencies Werribee Support and Housing belongs to.
Werribee Support and Housing is now Uniting Wyndham, part of Uniting Vic.Tas – and the work continues at Duncans Road.
If the people deciding your future have no pressure on them to lean in, I can help you build it.
