Message from the Chair, Executive Officer and General Manager
It has been a year of tremendous growth for the Association, seeing our annual turnover increase to almost $14 million and welcoming into the Community Resources family a whole bunch of dedicated people from the south and west of Australia in the Soft Landing team, and the new Resource Recovery Southern Region team. We also welcomed new people to our existing social enterprises, community service providers and local community initiatives.
From what began as a humble effort at helping those experiencing disadvantage in the Great Lakes community back in 1987, we are now an Association which stretches across Australia and continues to do its best to serve those in need.
Despite this continued growth to other regions, our mission statement still captures perfectly the essence of what we do and why we do it:
‘We use local knowledge and networks, and develop partnerships with government, industry and community to assist people experiencing disadvantage to develop social and economic livelihoods for themselves.’
This mission statement was developed when we were a much smaller operation in a much more specific geographical context. Even though we no longer operate only in the Great Lakes, our mission statement is as relevant as ever: we see ourselves as ‘local facilitators’, supporting people according to the needs of the communities where we work.
The Annual Report gives everyone involved in Community Resources the opportunity to communicate the work they have been doing and the impact it is having. Here are some of the details from this last year’s efforts:
- We employed 267 people;
- Of this 267, 144 people are permanent staff ;
- The total hours worked by the organisation’s staff was 221,845;
- 112 Full Time equivalent positions over the year;
- Over $6.5 million in wages was paid to Community Resources employees; and
- More than 25% of our workforce identified as Aboriginal.
This year of growth has seen a doubling in turnover. In June 2015 the Association was turning over $7M pa, and by June 2016 it was $14M pa. This growth has come at a cost though, as we recorded a deficit of $300K. As the Association does not have reserves, and as a not for profit we do not raise equity capital, we rely on the support of our bank, the CBA. Continued growth at this rate is necessarily constrained by the limits of financing through borrowings. This has necessitated a period of constraint and consolidation. In some ways this is disappointing as our expertise and capacity is in considerable demand.
Our growth has also given us cause to review how we actually talk about ourselves in Community Resources more generally. We have such a rich diversity of things happening in the organisation that it can get confusing at times for people on the outside looking in. To reduce confusion, we have further characterised our various activities.
Community Resources can be understood as having the following entities:
Social Enterprises
Our social enterprises give people experiencing disadvantage access to meaningful jobs and training opportunities. These businesses exist primarily to create positive social and environmental impacts for the communities in which they operate. They are commercially viable businesses with the purpose of generating social and environmental impacts as well as providing quality services and products to customers.
Community Services
Our community services assist people experiencing disadvantage, providing homelessness services, youth outreach, Aboriginal health and wellbeing services, and support to those seeking employment. Our community services deliver principally on behalf of government. They are funded by all levels of government, as well as by philanthropic and other sources of income.
Local Community Initiatives
Our local community initiatives build social and cultural capital. These initiatives are diverse, creative, meaningful and fun. They often also provide invaluable opportunities for outreach to occur simply by bringing people together. Communities need cultural and sporting activities to take place in order for people to come together and celebrate their common interests and values.
International Development Initiatives
Our International Development Initiatives are made up of local people doing amazing things on the international stage. Our core belief that a community may be judged by how it responds to those in need is writ large in this context, with initiatives responding to needs in Africa, South East Asia and Central Asia. Our international development initiatives are focused on responding to our neighbours and friends in need who live in this ‘global village’ that we share.
Another thing we have included is more snippets from our partners and customers. Our mission is to help people experiencing disadvantage and we do this by working with a variety of stakeholders in the government and non-government sectors. Some of these we call our customers, and others we refer to as partners. Either way, they are the people with whom we deliver our services, so who better to validate our work than those with whom we work? These are the community stakeholders or businesses who are part of how we make our social and environmental impact.
Even though we have asked others to talk about us, we can’t help but share a few of the highlights from the last year with you too.
Here are a few highlights from across the organisation:
We brokered a licensing deal with a landfill lid designer and started a manufacturing business which makes a range of products for the waste and recycling sector. WasteWell is headed by Tim Rees and it is growing well in its early development.
Homebase Services won the Transition to Work tender, commencing a 5-year program assisting young people in the area transition into meaningful work and/or education.
Helping Hands and Home Modifications successfully amalgamated under the one brand and are finding synergies that help serve those in the community wanting to age in their own home well. They are also gearing up to provide services as the NDIS rolls out in the area too.
The Great Lakes and Manning Youth Homelessness Service has exceeded all expectations (including the expectations of its funding) for supporting youth in crisis and transitional accommodation, and is building its team of dedicated staff in the Manning, Great Lakes and Gloucester areas.
We welcomed the team at Soft Landing Mattress Recycling into the family and they have hit the ground running. Soft Landing has expanded their social enterprise model from the Sydney and Illawarra regions to Perth and Canberra. Plans are also underway for Melbourne Metro and possibly Newcastle too.
With the acquisition of Soft Landing from Mission Australia we were also fortunate enough to have a number of recycling centres join our Resource Recovery Australia team, with some great people from Dunmore and Moss Vale settling in nicely.
Community Resources completed a Gender Diversity Report for the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and is now much more aware of the pathway towards seeing the organisation become more gender equal.
Our international development work has steadily grown with John Weate a founding board member of Waste Aid, working with a number of international stakeholders to see the ‘Waste to Wages’ message go global. Heart-2-Heart and the Tibetan Buddhist Institute of Studies has been reminding us all that Australians do have big hearts and will support others in need overseas.
At the Board level, we settled on a number of key strategic areas last year at our Annual Planning Day, these being:
- increased Aboriginal representation in the organisation (50% at the board level);
- increased internal opportunities for development of our Aboriginal employees; and
- greater sustainability and the ongoing pursuit of promoting social procurement in the economy.
These strategic objectives are incredibly important to our work as an organisation and rest at the core of who we are.
At the end of the day, not much has changed from an organisational culture perspective. Our people are still focused on the challenges and opportunities presented to them, and they work hard to deliver services to the youth in need of a shelter to sort things out; the young man struggling to gain a foothold in the local labour market after leaving the prison system; and the person with a disability struggling to find where they fit in the working world. More than ever, the people of Community Resources are focused on serving others in need.
To all of our dedicated staff, we extend to you all the deepest thanks and gratitude for having the opportunity to work with you again over the past year. We are so proud of all the effort you put into your work, day in and day out.
To the newer members of the family: Community Resources has a rich history of attracting great people who want to do great things for others in the community. We pride ourselves on recognising in others the best of who they are as individuals and community members.
Welcome to the family, we are sure you will fit right in!
Enjoy this year’s Community Resources Annual Report by following this link to our online version: http://ow.ly/raac305GeSL
