It started with a conversation amongst four local people who were concerned about what we were hearing in the community about the lack of support for women who were both homeless and/or had experienced domestic violence. We knew very little about domestic violence or the situation in our community, and we knew nothing at all about best practice, what worked, what didn’t work. We decided to invest a minimum of six months learning from a whole variety of sources, locally, across Australia and globally. We’d spend that time, which turned out to be 8-9 months, talking with service providers in our community, with academics, with other service facilities, and, importantly, with women with lived experience of domestic violence. One of the early questions I was asked was, “How could four people who have no experience of domestic violence come up with something that will work?”  It was a very valid question, a challenging question. The four of us agreed we may end up saying that we’d learned a lot but would go no further. But at the end of that long period, we began to make some major decisions – how a local facility was going to operate, how it would be funded, and how it was going to be evaluated to ensure that what we would deliver would be regarded as best practice. 

A psychotherapist and former manager of Lou’s Place in Kings Cross worked with us on the development of our operating model and helped us think through many of the issues that we’d be facing, as did two academics from the University of Wollongong. 

We decided that we’d be 100% philanthropically funded and agreed that we wouldn’t employ one member of staff until we had enough money committed to run the operation for the first several years. Our funding model would be based on multi-year pledges. We were also lucky to be given a small house for a two to three-year period by a local doctor. We wanted it to feel like a home, be warm, welcoming, that women would walk through the door and say I feel safe and would be comfortable to share their stories. We wanted a service model that was agile, flexible, innovative and responsive to the needs of the women and their children, and not to any bureaucratic dictate. We also contracted two University of Wollongong academics to do a multi-year evaluation starting from the day we opened our door, to verify what we were doing, and help us shape what we were doing based upon their feedback. We wanted what we established to be embedded in the local community, in terms of what we developed, what was delivered and how it was funded.  

At the end of this three-year period, we were lucky again that one of our donors owned a property in the next village and has enabled us to use it for a very long period going forward, then fortunate again to receive funding for the renovations. Pop In now employs a manager, a casework team leader, three case workers and a part-time paediatric occupational therapist. 

At an organisational level we all brought something significantly different to the table that was critical to success. We all agreed on the fundamental goals and values we established early on.

We’ve spent a lot of time working with the community. Building that collective is important for three reasons. The first is advocacy so everyone understands that we exist and understands what we do. The second is that almost all our fundraising is from the local community, and the third reason is that Pop In is a hub that pulls together other service providers. We need to all work together to support the women who come through our door.

Without collective giving we wouldn’t exist! We now support approximately 250 women and children annually. 59% have never spoken to other providers about their circumstances and 69% have self-referred. They realise they can come directly to us. Another impact of collective giving is that the groups of women we often speak with – local businesswomen and potential donors – feel they want to engage with Pop In because they will be doing something for the women in our community and taking responsibility for our community.

Personally, I’ve learned that the satisfaction I’ve gotten out of what we have done far outweighs anything I ever did in my corporate career. Because our model is community led, community funded and community supported, the team feels the significant impact they are having, that they are empowering the women to help them change their lives and their children’s lives. At a Board level, the key is keeping everyone on song, always focussed on our values and how they play out in our decision making.  

We recognise that we can’t keep going back to the same people, that sense of having to review and broaden out the funding base, how to get more women not just donating but also engaged with what we do. The past 12 months we have consciously engaged with a much younger generation of women, linking advocacy and fundraising, and that’s starting to pay dividends. We are also thinking about how we generate other sources of revenue and what that might look like.