
‘A’ is for Accountability
We hold ourselves and each other accountable for actions and results. Every employee contributes to our success.

Bringing our commercial laundry up to speed
Upgrading a commercial laundry like our Newcastle NSW facility is no small feat. However, having assessed the positive impact it could have on our business, we knew it was an investment we had to make.
Completed in April 2017, the upgrade represents nine months of hard work. Replacing our equipment wasn’t a simple ‘in and out’ exercise, it involved careful planning and the strategic swapping out of equipment — all while the laundry continued to operate as usual to meet our customers’ needs and ongoing business commitments.
While it was a long process, the upgrade has already made an impressive impact. With our new modern, commercially competitive equipment, we can operate much more efficiently, which of course has big business benefits.

The amount of linen we are able to process weekly has increased by a massive 56%, while input costs decreased by 25%. In addition to the obvious profit increase, the upgrade has also helped us improve business security and safety, and enabled us to continue providing development and learning opportunities for our employees with a disability.
The upgrade has a positive effect on the way we’re perceived, with our commercial laundry now positioned to be a major supplier of services to the accommodation and hospitality sectors in the Hunter region.




Keeping our performance in check with CQL
This past year marked our fourth year of accreditation with the Council on Quality and Leadership (CQL), and saw 132 Personal Outcome Measures (POMs) interviews conducted.
At House with No Steps, we have been proud to be accredited by CQL for the past four years. This has meant consistently meeting a set of mandatory standards that promote our customers’ human rights, health, safety, and human security — standards that have provided us with a gauge to monitor our customers’ quality of life, and also our ability to support them.
To maintain our accreditation, CQL conducts site assessments, as well as POMs interviews with both our customers and employees — both of which have highlighted our commitment to providing quality and person-centred support.

We’re proud to be able to say we’ve seen a consistent improvement in every one of the 21 POMs indicators since we were first accredited in 2013. Many of our indicators are even performing higher that the US average, which is a testament to our dedicated team.
Where to from here? Now and in the future, we’ll continue to deliver high quality support focusing on our customer’s goals and needs through our commitment to world-class systems and practices. All of which contribute to our customers’ quality of life.

Arming staff with data so they can make good decisions
To make the right decisions, you need the right information on hand. We knew we could present our data in a better way, so we implemented the business management dashboard, Tableau.
Last year at House with No Steps, we looked for a solution to simplify and consolidate the reporting systems used by our Management teams. By July, we had worked out the best solution was to implement the business management dashboard: Tableau.
There are a few major benefits of Tableau, the first being how easy it makes it to collate and view data. By aggregating data from other internal systems, such as client management systems, accounting systems, and quality management systems, Tableau can ‘pull together’ the information in the form of a single live report. Rather than sift through multiple data sources, we will be able to see what’s going on at a glance.

By analysing this data, Tableau is also able to help our teams understand and use it more effectively too. With an understanding of things like financial reporting, trends, patterns, and key metrics, our Managers will be empowered to make the right decisions more easily and quickly.
So what are our next plans for Tableau? Over time we’ll be linking more of our internal systems to the dashboard, to give Managers a broader snapshot of the organisation.

Making our fundraising count
Fundraising is a vital part of our strategy, enabling us to continue to evolve, grow, and improve our services. This year we’ve also placed increased emphasis on the impact each fundraising investment is having.
At House with No Steps, we’ve continued to explore and implement a range of different fundraising activities, including regular giving, community events, direct mail appeals, raffles, and gifts-in-Wills (Future Planning).
We’re incredibly thankful for the overwhelming response we’ve received to our fundraising activities during the past year — with a total of 29,961 generous people donating an incredible $4.6 million, all contributing to improve the services and support we’re able to provide for people with disability. To everyone who has shown their support, thank you.
Our plan for future fundraising is to focus on maximising our return on investment for each initiative. This is important not just so the donations can stretch as far as possible, but also so we can report back to our loyal supporters that their donations have generated improved returns. In order to do this, we work with major industry bodies including Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) and the Fundraising Institute of Australia (FIA) using their Governance Standards and Code of Practice for support and guidance.
With this approach in mind, we’ve developed and implemented a new strategy covering all our fundraising streams; from Appeals and Regular Giving, to Raffles, Community Fundraising, and our most profitable portfolio, Future Planning (primarily gifts-in-wills).

We’re pleased to say that because of these funds, we’ve already been able to deliver:
- Two much-needed sensory rooms in Forbes and Lismore NSW, filled with specialist sensory equipment
- A full-time therapist for 12-months in Forbes NSW
- An upgrade to our Early Childhood Intervention facility in Lismore NSW
- New equipment for supports and therapy services
- Upgraded technology to aid communication, fine motor, and cognitive development
- A soccer program in the Hunter for kids with disability aged 7–13
- Additional therapists hired in New England, North West, and Far North Coast NSW
- Increased ability to provide services in rural and remote communities
- Staff development to ensure best practice and the best possible service is provided to our customers.
