“Act with the urgency of tomorrow, and also with the patience of 1,000 years.” (Jayesh Bhai)
I love this quote by Jayesh Bhai because it represents the work that so many of us do in the for-purpose sector. We know that social progress is long term work, especially when there is complexity at play, but that we also need to act with ‘urgency’ around progress.
PRF’s purpose is to help end cycles of disadvantage in Australia by enabling equitable opportunity for people and communities to thrive. We understand that disadvantage can be a sticky perpetual web and that with access to the right resources at the right time we can create a brighter future together. This will be very long term work that we will need to do in partnership with others across sectors.
As we are embarking on this work with our partners, it is important that our structure and culture is fit for purpose. Like any organisation, we need to evolve as context changes over time. Therefore, we are ‘evolving for impact’. Whilst much of this is internally focused, you may notice some changes to roles and to how we work to ensure that we’re focused strongly on impact.
From 1 December, we are focusing on functioning as a united and collaborative team at PRF, with three functional groups, to ensure we can deliver impact, leverage impact and operationalise impact.
We continue to believe in a world where all people can live their best lives. Our approach is to invest in and partner with organisations and communities across Australia. We focus on enabling people and places to thrive, along with ensuring the right conditions are in place for progress. We invest in impact areas which intersect and influence each other, build the capability of organisations and the for-purpose sector, and influence through levers such as collaboration, research, policy and advocacy.
For now, particularly for our partners, your contacts remain the same. In the new year, there may be some shifts, as we ensure partners are aligned strategically to the right units of work and to ensure there are key points of contact throughout the grant lifecycle. We envisage this will come with new opportunities to collaborate, connect, and learn for the impact that we’re all working towards.
This is an exciting moment in the Foundation’s evolution. Our focus on delivering impact has never been more clear, and we are excited about new ways of working to leverage and amplify social impact across Australia, so that people and places can thrive, and that the right conditions are in place.
