About the Fellowship
Reclaiming our assets: how disadvantaged communities can buy profitable properties to address place-based disadvantage now and into the future
Jeanette will explore how community co-operatives can counter disadvantage in regional towns by owning local assets, building wealth, and participating in democratic decision-making. Her involvement with the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-operative has demonstrated the outcomes possible when local people pool resources for shared benefit. Together, members raised $2 million in loans to purchase a local building, taking it out of the speculative real estate market – and making it community owned – for good. The Castlemaine community will be left with an asset and income stream for the future, ensuring economic benefits remain local.
Jeanette's Fellowship will examine how co-operative models can create lasting change in regional communities, the conditions that support their success, the barriers within current systems, and the frameworks or policies that could enable more communities to realise these opportunities.
About Jeanette
Jeanette Pope is a founding Director of the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-operative, an innovative model in Australia that turns locally pooled loans into permanently community-owned, income-generating assets. In December 2025, the Co-operative received the Mount Alexander Shire Council’s People’s Choice Business Award.
With extensive experience in strategy, policy, and research, Jeanette has focused on addressing disadvantage across government, statutory authorities, not-for-profits, and universities. She has contributed to major national research on geographic disadvantage, including The Social Health Atlas of Australia and Dropping off the Edge. At the Department for Victorian Communities, she led whole-of-government strategies and evaluated place-based partnership initiatives. Jeanette’s work has been recognised with the Nancy Mellis Medal for Public Health Practice and a Lifetime Achievement Award for advancing community development evidence.
As Director of Strategy, Research, and Advocacy at the Foundation for Young Australians, Jeanette led research on the future of work. She has also delivered award-winning projects for local government, the OECD, and Infrastructure Victoria, focusing on community wellbeing, infrastructure, and community-led responses to local challenges. Jeanette provides pro bono support to community organisations innovating in the new economy.