Looking forward
Since 2016 SVA has been working toward our 2020 Strategy which describes four strategic pillars that will enable achievement of our objectives.
2020 Strategy update
We have made significant progress towards the goals outlined in our 2020 Strategy. In particular, we have:
- Built many flagship relationships with trusted partners;
- Deepened our practical knowledge about disadvantage in our four core practice areas of education, employment, social and affordable housing, and First Australian communities, and established new areas of expertise;
- Grown to 90 FTE, increased professional diversity and strengthened our employee value proposition;
- Invested in our capacity to deliver sustainably and reduced our relative reliance on donations.
Where to next?
Our assessment and reflections against our performance in FY18 have informed priorities for FY19, which include:
Trusted partnerships:
- Continuing to deliver high impact engagements and activities with our partners and clients, for the benefit of people and communities.
Practical knowledge:
- Establishing new community-led system change programs to develop our approach to catalysing effective systems-wide change;
- Extending our ability to collaborate by capturing, codifying and sharing our practical knowledge of how to reduce disadvantage;
- Finding ways to ensure the voices of people with lived experience of disadvantage are informing our work through, for example, the establishment of a First Australians Advisory Committee.
Outstanding team and financial sustainability:
- Completing our investments in organisational capacity to build the collaborative culture to which we aspire.
What do we mean by community-led systems change?
SVA has worked in partnership with organisations and leaders across the government, corporate and social purpose sectors for over 15 years.
Through this experience we’ve seen that approaches that address the multiple, interconnected contributors to experiences of disadvantage, and galvanise effective action
across the social ecosystem, often have the greatest capacity for impact.
Put simply, there are times when you can achieve a greater impact by changing the system than by delivering another service or even a better service.
This has come to life in initiatives as varied as the Newpin Social Benefit Bond, where the lessons emerging out of the Newpin program are now informing broader child protection policy in NSW; to SVA Consulting’s evaluations of Working on Country programs, which influenced significant funding increases.
In FY18 we’ve been exploring how SVA can build on our current work to play a more deliberate role in creating this kind of change.
We are reaching out to people across sectors to deepen our understanding of areas where policy and service delivery are ripe for change; with a focus on understanding where SVA could make a unique and significant contribution to systems change.
Following a process of research, deliberation and stakeholder engagement we have decided to further scope opportunities to dramatically improve the social outcomes for two specific cohorts – young children experiencing vulnerability, and older women at risk of homelessness.
In FY19 we will continue this scoping work, in partnership with funders, policymakers, service providers, thought leaders and people with lived experience of these challenges.
