Every dollar donated goes directly to We Are Mobilise and supports our work across three key pillars: direct giving, outreach and igniting a movement. Through all these efforts combined we are changing the lives of people facing homelessness across the country and getting more and more people involved in finding new ways to get involved in the solution! As an ACNC registered charity, our annual financial statements are also publicly available to view any time. You can keep up to date with everything we’re doing through our socials, too! We’d love to have you follow along our journey.

The most direct way we get the money raised to the people who need it is through our Direct Giving programs. There are already so many awesome charities hiring social workers and case managers to help people out, so we let them do what they do best & instead give funding directly to people to meet their needs! This includes cash grants through Matched, and payments for housing through Kickstarter, bills, food and essentials through Pay, transport through Mobility, and mental health assessments through Wellbeing. These programs are unlike other support available in Australia and we’re very proud of them! We’re looking to set up sustainable systems & programs so that we can make a growing impact for years to come.

You can check our programs out here: https://wearemobilise.org.au/our-programs/

We have taken our role as custodians of the money donated very seriously to make every donor proud. Homelessness in Australia has either stagnated or grown for some time now, so we saw there is a need to try new ways of tackling the issue. After Nedd’s run in 2022, we spent time diligently thinking about the best way to use this funding, and carefully designed a whole range of pilot programs to test the best ways to go about it. That’s how our Direct Giving programs have come to life- we launched our first one in late 2023 and we’re already at a stage where we’ve had 150+ people come through and receiving life changing support! We’ve built all these with a tiny team and we’re on a long-term journey of growing these bigger and bigger now that we’ve built a sustainable organisation for years to come. Here’s what it’s meant for some of our participants:

“The payments are so generous, I’m crying happy tears.” – Mobilise Matched

“I’m able to buy more things to make my home, a home.” – Kickstarter

“Without the support from Kickstarter, I’d be so close to eviction.” – Kickstarter

“One of the ladies who got it was going to use those savings toward buying a car- she was able to purchase one, she had a small amount of savings […] she has 3 [children] under 7 so before that in middle of winter she’d be walking them to school and childcare, budgeting for boots and rain jackets. She cried when I told her she’d been approved for the grant.” – Pay [Charity Referrer]

At Mobilise, we know that we can only solve a problem once we understand what the problem is. We’ve also been able to dramatically scale up our volunteer-led Outreach program to make sure as many people as possible get out onto the streets and start actually meeting and speaking to people sleeping rough. Not only does this brighten the day for our friends on the street, but volunteers walk away with a whole new perspective on homelessness and keen to help people more.

Of 128 volunteers who responded in our post-Outreach survey, 99% (n=127) strongly agreed or agreed that they had a better understanding of the issues related to people experiencing homelessness than they did before the outreach. This is fantastic for us to know, because it shows that no matter what someone’s understanding of homelessness is before they have conversations with our friends on the street, they are always coming away with a fuller understanding. This also points to the power of conversations to build empathy and understanding.

We view 2022’s campaign as the seed funding, where we were able to pilot & test a whole new way of doing impact. We’ve seen that these direct giving programs work and the stories of lives changed are truly incredible. With the funds from 2024’s campaign, we are going to scale these programs and maximise the impact we can make nationally now.

We have set up an ever-expanding national charity network, we know these programs work and there are many people in need – it’s time to get the funds into the hands of those who need it most!.

P.S We’ve got a few different ideas on the whiteboard for new programs too, stay tuned!

We work with a whole suite of charity partners, with a network that extends from Brisbane to Melbourne, South Australia to NSW and we’re continuing to add on new charities every month! These partners refer potential participants to us who are facing homelessness and would benefit from being supported by one of our programs.

We trust the experts, the case managers & social workers of our partners are doing the heavy lifting on the ground and hold the relationships with their clients. It means we don’t have to build up an organisation of social workers and can remain lean, focusing on being as impactful as we can while still ensuring that all of our participants have intimate care & support. It also means we can extend our reach nationally without having to build large organisations in each state – efficiency without sacrificing the impact!

We want every one of our participants who go through our programs to either be prevented from falling into homelessness or be pulled out of facing homelessness. The aim is that every single participant has their life fundamentally transformed, setting themselves up for their next chapter.

We work alongside our charity partners, so when they’re finished our programs they are in a lot more stable position and they can also continue on with any care they need at our partners.  We also do follow-up surveys with our participants at key points after our participants have finished our programs so we can track how they’re going and see what types of support work best + for who!

Firstly, we hope you support as many charities as you can! But if you ‘d like to support us, we actually work with a network of charity partners to get our funding into the hands of people who need it. This means you’ll be helping out a whole range of people and charities through our programs. We’re willing to be brave and are coming at this problem of homelessness with the same tenacity that Nedd shows out on the track.

We’re backed by legends like Nedd Brockmann because we try to do things the sector haven’t been able to do and plug gaps in support, like our Direct Giving programs. Some feedback from our charity partners:

“Mobilise has genuinely created something where there was nothing.” – Charity referrer

“[Direct giving] is super needed funding especially when other sources are difficult to come by.” – Charity referrer

“I’ve never seen anything like [Kickstarter]. Rental and bond are such direct support. One-of-a kind support to help clients make a new start.” – Charity referrer

“We don’t have anything like PRAP here- on eligible properties [State Government] will pay bond and 2 weeks rent in advance, but some clients aren’t entitled to that. So, the properties women have just gone into, there would be no other assistance for them outside [Mobilise]. […] Even housing providers where we’ve used Kickstarter have been saying ‘What is this? This is amazing’! [Other] grants run out of money very quickly- so there’s no guarantee [of getting support].” – Charity referrer 

“Others are much more limited in the scope of their funding (i.e. very specific set of circumstances to be eligible for funding).” –Charity referrer (shortened) 

Don’t just take our word for it, here are what the CEOs of some of the largest homelessness charities have said about our programs:

• “We are so incredibly honoured to create a partnership with We Are Mobilise, this unique partnership has been amazing for us but even more amazing for the women we support. The Mobilise programs offer us something we simply could not provide to our clients. The additional support ensure our women feel empowered to make decisions they otherwise would not have been able to make. As you can imagine leaving Catherine House can be a stressful time for them, [Mobilise’s] support really does offer them a sense of security and safety.” – Jaylee Cooper, General Manager – Philanthropy & Engagement at Catherine House (South Australia)
• “Ever since we have partnered with We Are Mobilise our awesome young people have benefited from the direct giving programs, which were unheard of in Australia. We’re topping out at over $100,000 going to the vulnerable young kids that we support. You are changing and saving lives every single day.” – Ben Vasiliou, CEO of Youth Projects (Victoria)
• “Micah Projects are collaborating with Mobilise’s direct giving programs to open up more valuable resources for people experiencing homelessness. Those facing homelessness will be able to access more opportunities to mitigate cost of living pressures and prevent the growing rates of homelessness.” Karyn Walsh, CEO of Micah Projects (Queensland)