Webinar: Preventing burnout: advice for leaders in philanthropy

Highlighting opportunities to prevent and manage leadership burnout, and pay what it takes, join the April 2023 Philanthropy Australia wellbeing-focused webinar, free for members at all levels. 

The webinar will include a welcome from the CEO of Philanthropy Australia Jack Heath and be moderated by Nigel Harris AM.  

Speakers include three founding CEOs of Australian for-purpose organisations:  

• Julia Keady (Founding CEO, The Xfactor Collective) 
• Lyndon Galea (CEO/Founder, Eat Up Australia) 
• Cormach Evans (former CEO/Managing Director, Ngarrimili; Founder/Managing Director, Strong Brother Strong Sister). 

Hear from our panel of leaders as they unpack their lived experiences addressing burnout, and discuss trends, tips and opportunities for philanthropic organisations to invest in, and prevent burnout in sector leaders and staff.  

Moderator

Nigel Harris – Managing Director, Nigel Harris & Associates

Nigel Harris is an established and recognised non-profit sector leader with a strong focus on fundraising and philanthropy. With a career spanning nearly 40 years, Nigel is one of Australia’s most experienced and successful health foundation CEOs and a respected advisor to organisational leaders, fundraising executives, and donors. 

Introduction

Jack Heath – CEO, Philanthropy Australia

Jack has been a leader of for-purpose organisations for more than 25 years. He believes there has never been a more important time for philanthropy as we grapple with huge societal challenges and diminished trust in our public institutions.

A graduate of the University of Melbourne in Honours Arts and Law, Jack has also undertaken executive courses at Harvard and Stanford universities. He served in Government as a diplomat, speechwriter and senior adviser to Federal Ministers, including Prime Minister Keating and Foreign Minister Rudd. Following the suicide of his young cousin, Jack led the establishment of the ReachOut youth mental health organisations in Australia, Ireland and the United States before serving as CEO at the national mental health organization SANE Australia for eight years.  

Jack sits on a number of advisory boards and committees and has received awards for his contributions in mental health and community service. He lives in Sydney with his publisher wife Catherine Milne and their dog Fred, and they are parents to Lucy and Jamie. 

Panelists

Julia Keady – CEO/Founder, The Xfactor Collective

Having experienced and observed wide-scale burnout in the social purpose sector over the last 15 years, Julia set up The Xfactor Collective in 2019 as a dual entity social enterprise to provide support and services for changemakers to achieve their mission without burning out. In May 2023, they launched a world-first: the Social Sector Wellbeing and Resilience Hub, with Stage 1 funded by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation. 

Prior to running the Collective, Julia was the inaugural CEO of Australian Women Donors Network (now Australians Investing in Women), and ran her own social impact consultancy from 2012-2019. Julia is a fierce advocate for women, social enterprise and rural/regional Australia, and also serves as Co-Chair of Australian Centre for Rural Entrepreneurship (ACRE). 

Cormach Evans – Founder/Managing Director, Ngarrimili and Strong Brother Strong Sister

Cormach Evans (he/him) is a Yorta Yorta man that grow up on Wadawurrung Country, who now calls Larrakia Country home. 

Cormach is the Founder and Managing Director of Strong Brother Strong Sister, a for-profit for-purpose First Nations Youth Organisation founded in 2017. Today, Strong Brother Strong Sister have supported over 2500 First Nations children, young people and their family, with 1:1 personally tailored support, youth groups and school holiday programs, family support, suicide prevention programs and more.  

From Cormach’s journey of starting a business for the first time, he saw many barriers and discriminatory areas in the way of First Nations people thinking about business, starting a business and wanting to grow a business. This led to Cormach and his partner Coco, and good friend Shol, starting Ngarrimili which today is a national First Nations Business Support organisation and a DGR1 status charity. Ngarrimili injects over 80% of its turnover back into the First Nations economy and has supported hundreds of First Nations people to start a business, grow their business and even export overseas. Over 80% of the founders that Ngarrimili supports are First Nations women. Cormach recently stepped down as Managing Director of Ngarrimili to pass on the journey to Bek Lasky, a proud 23-year-old Wakanya Women who was a part of Strong Brother Strong Sister’s leadership program back in 2017. Ngarrimili is currently underway in building its first of many First Nations hubs, Murrun, which will host a retail store, exhibition centre, cafe, coworking space, meeting rooms and a conference centre.

Cormach has also just founded the Strong Brother Strong Sister Foundation, a First Nations youth led DRR status charity, which will focus on reconnecting First Nations youth back to Country, Culture, Community and Kinship and is looking to build a First Nations School with Culture at the forefront of the curriculum. 

Cormach is a director at Common Ground, a First Nations not-for-profit, working to shape a society that centres First Nations people by amplifying knowledge, cultures and stories.

Lyndon Galea – Founder and Founding CEO, Eat Up Australia

Lyndon is the Founder and Spokesperson of Eat Up Australia. After reading that kids were going hungry at school in his home town of Shepparton back in 2013, Lyndon pinched what he could from his mum’s cupboards and started making sandwiches to drop to the schools mentioned in the article. Lyndon went on to grow Eat Up’s passionate and capable team, while inspiring an army of volunteers that help us to feed hungry school kids across the country. He currently interfaces with their corporate and philanthropic supporters, media and the public to advocate for their cause. 

After “hitting a wall”, Lyndon recently took some time away from Eat Up Australia, to return within the year with renewed enthusiasm and perspective. 

“Social change is a long-term game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Moving at a fast pace, but a pace you can sustain is best.”