Heading into the back end of 2021 we have been fortunate enough to have exceeded our expectations, delivering on meaningful projects, achieving financial sustainability, scaling up our team and having the opportunity to answer the question ‘where do we see ourselves as an organisation in the next five years?’

We’re seeing a number of organisations approach us for advice around organisational strategic planning - a good sign that many NFPs are starting to open conversations with community members, staff, external stakeholders and board members about their organisational direction in a post-COVID world.

In this blog, we bring you something that we have been relatively quiet about - our migration to Far North Queensland and the inspiring work that our Cairns-based team apply themselves to every day.

Grant and tender writing can be challenging for people in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector who are more accustomed to project management or client facing roles. Over the last couple of years, we’ve supported many NFPs to submit high quality grant and tender applications across topic areas from mental health, alcohol and other drugs, health and wellbeing, disability, employment, and many more!

To acknowledge another successful year (in still somewhat turbulent times), we would like to thank the wonderful client partners we’ve been able to work with and reflect on the impactful projects we’ve had the privilege of working on this year.

Marcus Mission is a Peer Mentor program that was founded after a young man took his own life. The Peer Mentor program, located in South-East Queensland and run by Wesley Mission Queensland, aims to reduce the risk of suicide for men.

The good news is that with a bit of space, time and well thought through process design, undertaking a customer journey mapping process isn’t unattainable for a not-for-profit organisation to deliver effectively. To help get you started, we’ve outlined a common customer journey mapping process that we have used successfully across a number of previous projects.

So, what does being ‘ethical’ mean to us? To find out, we ran an activity that gathered the perspectives of all of the Beacon Strategies team members. This was a great opportunity to reflect on what ‘being ethical’ means to us as individuals, and to find out more about how it guides how our teammates work. 

Moving from a position of mobilising general support for the concepts towards the uptake and implementation of social prescribing elements is the challenge. There are significant opportunities to enhance the uptake of social prescribing in local communities and health systems right across Australia, with PHNs having a particularly profound opportunity to lead the charge.