WILEY managing director Tom Wiley may have been helping to feed the world through his company’s innovative food technologies for more than 20 years, but in March he will be shrewdly managing real pots and pans to cook for the less fortunate.

Tom Wiley’s cooking session will raise awareness of food waste as part of Brisbane’s first OzHarvest CEO CookOff on March 7. 

Brisbane-based Wiley, an engineering-led design solution business servicing the food industry, delivers more efficient and effective ways to produce and process food, working with clients such as Huon Aquaculture, Harvest Fresh Cuts, Primo and Heinz Golden Circle.

Mr Wiley will be slicing and dicing alongside Queensland’s best chefs at the CEO CookOff, before sharing a three-course meal with 1,000 homeless and disadvantaged guests.

Confirmed ‘kitchen masters’ include celebrity chef Ben O'Donoghue who stars in the TV show Aussie Barbecue Heroes, Javier Codina of Brisbane’s Moda, Ben Williamson the executive chef of Gerard’s Bistro and the darling of Queensland’s foodie scene, Dominique Rizzo of Putia Pure Food Kitchen.

Mr Wiley jumped at the chance to use his cooking skills to give back to the community in Brisbane’s first CEO CookOff.

“Wiley is passionate about bringing food and people together in a better way,” Mr Wiley said. “The CEO CookOff is a fantastic event because it’s all about bringing food to those who need it most, but also to find a better way to address pressing food issues facing society such as food wastage.

““Wiley partners with our clients to develop innovative food manufacturing solutions and we believe every project is a new opportunity to improve global food security. Figuring out how we are going to feed the world is an issue that motivates me every day.

“The support we’ve already seen from the Wiley team has been outstanding and is a demonstration of our strong community values.

“My cooking skills are mostly limited to the barbecue and my pizza oven, so I’m also happy to pick up a few tips from the chefs on the night,” he said.

OzHarvest’s founder and CEO Ronni Kahn said the OzHarvest CEO CookOff was a great opportunity for Australia’s business leaders and top chefs to connect in a very meaningful way with those who are less fortunate.

“Food is all about caring, sharing, dignity and respect. It’s an equaliser and a connector and that’s what this event is all about,” Ms Kahn said.

Wiley’s goal is to raise $20,000 to support OzHarvest’s work feeding Australia’s homeless and disadvantaged via food rescue programs, and reducing food waste by redistributing quality, excess food from commercial outlets to charities around the country.

www.ceocookoff.com.au/fundraisers/tomwiley

www.ceocookoff.com.au

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RSPCA Queenland’s innovative Pets in Crisis program -- which helps women and children caught in domestic violence situations -- is desperately seeking a sponsor.  

In partnership with dvconnect the Pets in Crisis program helps women and children who feel trapped in violent domestic situations because of concerns for their pets.

"Obviously no one should feel that they can’t leave a violent home. However, the majority of domestic violence refuges are neither equipped nor permitted to accept animals," RSPCA Queensland spokesperson Michael Beatty said.

"This can cause extreme distress to the victims of domestic violence because in many cases their pets have become their lifeline. Research shows that up to 25 percent of women in violent situations where there is a family pet present may remain in that situation because of concern for the welfare of their pet if they leave."

RSPCA Queensland provides temporary care for these pets until the women and children are resettled.

The Pets in Crisis domestic violence program was launched 10years ago but the demand for its services has been increasing.

“Last financial year we took in 122 animals providing 4,100 days of care at an average of 34 days per animal,” Mr Beatty said.

“We know the importance of the service but we’re also feeling the strain of providing that service. Ten years ago we had a partial sponsor but for the last six years we’ve on our own.”

Pets in Crisis is a critical program that delivers many community benefits.

"On the one hand, it provides women with a release from their ‘hostage’ situations and enables families to seek refuge," Mr Beatty said.

"On the other, pets are protected from violence or abandonment and are able to be reunited with their families when they are in a safe environment. It’s absolutely vital that this program continues."

www.rspca.org.au

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Philanthropy University, developed by the United States' second oldest university-based business school, Berkely-Haas, is offering free online courses for social change leaders around the world in an effort to build sector networks and boost impact.

"Philanthropy University offers leaders in the social sector opportunities to strengthen their skills and grow their network of peers and mentors, ultimately increasing collaboration and efficiency and leading to a greater impact in the world," said Laura Tyson the director of the Institute for Business and Social Impact at Berkeley-Haas and chair of the Philanthropy University advisory committee. 

"Berkeley-Haas is proud to be a partner in this new effort to break down barriers to social change by providing free, accessible learning to foster the capacity of the sector around the world," Dr Tyson said.

Berkeley-Haas is playing a significant role, helping form networks of organisations that use Philanthropy University to increase their impact, shaping the curricula, sourcing faculty from Berkeley and top universities worldwide, building an open innovation platform that provides space for learners to collaborate, and integrating its Global Social Venture Competition with this initiative, according to Dr Tyson.

Founder of Philanthropy U, the non-profit sponsor of the initiative, HE Amr Al-Dabbagh said, "Imagine a workforce of social change professionals who are primed, positioned and skilled to impact the lives of millions of people and effectively change the world with their work. This is the vision of Philanthropy University."

Philanthropy University courses go beyond the traditional non-profit webinar through dynamic week classes lasting five to eight weeks that will be taught by leading instructors and renowned practitioners. Courses focus on team-based, experiential learning, enabled by the latest social learning technologies from NovoEd.

The seven inaugural courses, which begin on September 29, 2015, teach key skills that people need to succeed in the social change sector, including fundraising, strategic planning and scaling for impact.

More than 10,000 learners have already registered to be in Philanthropy University's inaugural session. Instructors include Kiva.org co-founder Jessica Jackley, Stanford University emeritus professor Paul Brest and Erik Simanis of Cornell University .

Learners can earn recognition from Berkeley-Haas including a Statement of Accomplishment upon completion of any course or a Certificate of Completion in Social Sector Leadership by completing all seven classes.

The initial course offerings and start dates are:

Starting September 29, 2015: 
Global Social Entrepreneurship  
Essential of Nonprofit Strategy   
Organizational Capacity: Assessment to Action

Starting October 6, 2015:
How to Scale Social Impact    
Leadership: 10 Rules for Impact and Meaning   

Starting October 13, 2015:  
Financial Modeling for the Social Sector    
Fundraising: How to Connect with Donors

Learn more and register at www.philanthropyu.org.

About Philanthropy University 
Philanthropy University is the first-of-its-kind online education initiative for change makers, providing free non-credit courses taught by world-class instructors and powered by the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Philanthropy University is sponsored by Philanthropy U, a registered non-profit. Learners are not entitled to college or other academic credit. philanthropyu.org.

About Berkeley-Haas 
As the second-oldest business school in the US, the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley is one of the world's leading producers of new ideas and knowledge in all areas of business. The school offers outstanding management education to about 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students each year who come from around the world to study in one of six degree-granting programs. http://www.haas.berkeley.edu

About NovoEd 
NovoEd powers leadership development online. The company's social learning platform and design services help organisations convert in-person training to scalable online classes and programs. NovoEd leverages the latest science and tools in peer-to-peer, project-based, and team-based learning.

http://novoed.com . 

COLLABORATION and innovation is rarely highlighted in relation to the community services sector – but it is precisely this focus that must drive the real outcomes into the future, CoAct CEO Matt Little urged at The Power of Many CoAct conference, in Canberra in June.

The conference served as both a wake-up call and a celebration for the sector and it was convened by CoAct – formerly the Job Futures – which launched its new brand designed to unite and energise community services throughout Australia. 

In an industry needing to build new alliances and business relationships, the conference was both about celebrating CoAct members’ considerable successes while alerting business and community leaders to the broad challenges threatening the sector.

Guest keynote speakers Marco Roncarati from United Nations ESCAP – who presented vital regional information on youth unemployment issues – and Stephane Carcillo from the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs offered international perspectives on successful programs and experiences that Australia could adapt.

Diminishing budgets – and a change of approach by the Federal Government in seeking to procure from larger ‘single point of contact’ organisations, as outlined by Bronwen Dalton of UTS Business School – are creating unexpected challenges for smaller and regional community organisations that can only be addressed through innovation and collaboration.

“Whilst the current state of social affairs can, at times, make for grim reading in the media and foster a climate of pessimism, we feel that through collaboration and harnessing the power of many we can offer innovative solutions for the future of all Australians,” Mr Little said. 

He said the change of brand and approach from Job Futures to CoAct was designed to help the community services sector to become more innovative and effective while delivering better outcomes for government and Australian society.

“The latest research shows that the community services sector contributes over $43 billion to the economy and is an essential ingredient in the decision making process for any government,” Mr Little said. “CoAct alone represents a sizable contribution to this figure and, with the combined knowledge of the people assembled at this conference, we can change the direction for social policy for years to come.”

CoAct is a national network of locally embedded community service providers who work together to create social and economic opportunities. As the former Job Futures, the community-based organisation was formed to meet the new environment as Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) was replaced by Centrelink in the late 1990s, to assist in co-ordinating the creation of job opportunities.

“We operate solely for community benefit and drive over 90 percent of revenue back into the communities in which we operate,” Mr Little said. “Overall, the community sector returns more (to the overall economy) than it receives in funding. That’s a fact.

“More than ever before, we need new solutions to old problems that have never been fixed and are beginning to fester.” Mr Little said one of the most serious problems in Australia – as it is in much of the Asia Pacific region – is youth unemployment.

“The youth unemployment rate in Australia remained unchanged at 13.6 percent which is more than double the average unemployment rate,” Mr Little said. “We are losing a generation of Australians to poverty, unable to afford housing in our major cities and becoming increasingly separate from the wider community.”

Mr Little said the CoAct conference was so important to the process as it was a rare opportunity to gather community, business and government leaders to address the key challenges in creating “an equitable Australia that provides actual jobs, places to live and access to services that are able to deliver innovative solitons without hindrance”. 

“The purpose is to focus minds and generate action,” he said.

The impetus to innovate has been bolstered by recent CoAct partnership successes with business, especially in areas such as youth job creation.

“Earlier this year, I visited one of our programs,” Mr Little said. “There I could see for myself the work we have done changing the lives of Indigenous youth who had, up until that point, no hope of finding employment or accessing the skills training to get a job – it was a revolutionary experience for me.

“When we worked together with the business sector in our Hit the Ground Running program, we not only found jobs for young people but we got them work experience,” he said, as an example. “We found ready-trained employees for the business, Australian Hearing, saving them thousands of dollars in employment costs by reducing job lag.

“This is the power of collaboration and innovation. In this case we saved the economy and businesses money and created better lives full of opportunities that the individuals concerned would never have had access to before.

“Governments alone cannot solve these issues, however they can nurture the environment for true collaboration between industry and community that is focused on beneficial outcomes for all.”

“We want government to publicly commit to a sustainable sector, free from hindrance and with workable business models,” Mr Little said.

“And we want them to give their policy teams new orders to accelerate the progress toward new, sustainable, effective, comprehensive and socially ambitious community services and development agreements that restore funding to essential services such as specialised providers to youth and homelessness.”

www.coact.org.au

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