Hot Takes: Community Services – Managing Contraction for Growth and Sustainability

02/05/2025 14 min
Hot Takes: Community Services – Managing Contraction for Growth and Sustainability

Listen "Hot Takes: Community Services – Managing Contraction for Growth and Sustainability"

Episode Synopsis

We're focusing on a sector facing intense and sustained pressure: community services.

Community service organisations play a vital role in supporting the health, safety, inclusion, and wellbeing of individuals and communities, particularly those experiencing disadvantage, and are essential to the social and economic fabric of society. From workforce shortages and rising demand, to tightening budgets and growing regulatory complexity, many community services organisations are entering a period of contraction in order to survive. But what if this moment of constraint could be something more than a crisis? What if it’s a turning point

Julie Kun, from Julie Khun consulting with 20 years of experience in the community sector, and Antony McMullen, director and secretary of cooperative bonds, a cooperative development agency, join Peter Thomas to explore purpose, mission, new ways of operating, what can be learned from the cooperative movement and how it’s essential to cooperate for success.

To learn more about RMIT FORWARD, and our 50+ global ecosystem of world-class Industry Fellows who we assemble into fluid teams to work as strategic partners with organisations to ensure they have the right help when they need it, head to https://rmit-forward.org