SAVE THE CHILDREN AUSTRALIA 2016-18 STRATEGY
Building a better world for and with children
LETTER FROM THE CEO
I am immensely proud of what we have achieved for the world’s children over almost 100 years. We have
made significant progress in reducing the number of children who die from preventable causes. We have helped
more children access quality education. We have protected children from harm. We have supported children to
achieve their rights.
This progress only makes us more ambitious. Together, we want to end preventable deaths of children, ensure
that all children receive a quality basic education, and protect children from violence. We also live in one of
the most disaster prone regions in the world. Whether in Australia or overseas, we must work even harder to
protect children on the frontline.
But we are working in a tougher and more challenging environment. To achieve our ambition, we need to be an
organisation that adapts quickly to change. We need to find innovative ways to achieve positive outcomes for
children, respond to increasing donor expectations, capitalise on new technology opportunities and find fresh
ways of engaging our partners and supporters. We need high performing people who share the organisation’s
values and support our purpose.
Our 2016-18 Strategy provides a clear vision, goals and actions to guide us in this direction. Our three year
strategy brings us together as a global organisation and ensures we continue to adapt to the new challenges and
opportunities we face.
I look forward to working with you on achieving our goals, which will ultimately improve the lives of children in
Australia and around the world. Together, we can make a real difference.
Paul Ronalds
CEO, Save the Children Australia
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SC AUSTRALIA’S STRATEGY
WHAT
SURVIVE
LEARN
BE PROTECTED
No child dies from
preventable causes before
their fifth birthday
All children learn from a
quality basic education
Violence against children is no longer tolerated
We will focus on children who are the most deprived and marginalised.
WHO
We will work to achieve the rights of all children, but we will put children who are the most
marginalised and deprived first in our own work and advocate for others to do the same. We will judge our success against our ability to reach these children.
Creating positive impact for and with children
• Drive high quality and effective programs
• Influence the public and policymakers
• Lead the humanitarian sector in Asia-Pacific
Fuelling change with partners and supporters
HOW
• Build a sustainable and trusted organisation
• Deepen our engagement with partners and supporters
• Collaborate to create real and lasting change
Being a great place to work
• Make it easy to get things done
• Be agile and adaptable
• Attract and retain the right people
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SC AUSTRALIA’S FOCUS IS AUSTRALIA AND THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION
In Australia
In the Pacific
In Asia
Context
Context
Context
• Despite Australia’s high standard of living, thousands
of children struggle to reach their potential because
they don’t have equal access to education, health
and support services.
• In our neighbouring countries, a generation of
children are growing up with violence, particularly
sexual violence, as a norm.
• Asia is home to 57% of the world’s children.
• Indigenous children are particularly affected and
‘Closing the Gap’ targets, established to address this
disparity, are not on track to be met.
• Indigenous young people are 24 times more likely
to be incarcerated than other Australian youth.
• Migrant and refugee children and families are subject
to rights violations in regional processing centres.
Many also feel isolated when they settle in Australia.
Our focus
• Working with the hardest to reach, most vulnerable
communities and advocating to protect their rights.
• Working with families to increase their knowledge
and skills and ensure children are protected from
abuse and neglect.
• Working with disengaged youth, increasing their
pathways to education and employment.
• Consolidating our early childhood care and
development programs, improving educational
outcomes and transition to school, and campaigning
to ensure all Australian children are ‘school ready’.
• Developing our strategy for improving the health of
disadvantaged children in Australia.
• Health and education systems are weak, affected by
poor governance and low social accountability.
• Despite significant economic growth, there are
stark contrasts in the standard of living between
and within countries. Vulnerable groups have
minimal access to health and education services.
• High rates of maternal and infant mortality, and
poor child health.
• Urbanisation and slum living brings challenges in
housing, transport, employment and basic services.
• Poor access to quality early childhood development
programs and low value placed on education for girls.
• Migration is rising, with displaced and stateless
people often unable to access services.
• Pacific countries rank among the most vulnerable in
the world to natural disasters and to climate change.
• The region is vulnerable to hazards, such as natural
disasters and conflict, which sets back progress.
Our focus
Our focus
• Protecting children from all forms of violence
through community based prevention and response,
systems strengthening and advocacy.
• Preventing violence against children and ensuring
children have appropriate care; advocating to
protect children on the move.
• Community based early childhood programming
including transition to school and school governance
strengthening.
• Providing early childhood and early years education
and working to improve teacher quality and systems.
• Scaling up existing primary health care programs to
reduce maternal and child mortality.
• Prioritising gender and climate change in our work.
• Building the capacity of the Pacific countries to
prepare for and respond to disasters.
• Focusing on maternal and child health programming,
nutrition, water and sanitation.
• Supporting communities and local authorities to
prepare for and manage the risks of disasters and
climate change, and responding to disasters.
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CREATING POSITIVE IMPACT FOR AND WITH CHILDREN
Drive high quality and effective programs
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Measurable progress against our breakthroughs,
using the targets we set for the strategy period.
• Set and measure targets for our impact, aligned to
Save the Children’s breakthroughs, global results
framework and other leading practice frameworks.
• Working to meet all three breakthroughs in
Australia, Asia and the Pacific.
• Proven, recognised, high quality programs in
Australia, Asia and the Pacific.
• Develop a ten year plan for at least one community
per Australian state.
• Develop and implement a plan to build Collective
Impact skills, recognising that the skills we need
depend on context.
• Develop our strategy and approach to health in
Australia; put the strategy into action.
• Establish ourselves as the lead agency working to
prevent violence against children in the Pacific with
a long term strategy in place.
• Strengthen partnerships with SCI Country Offices
to deliver programs most effectively. Improve the
feedback we receive from Country Offices and
improve program quality.
• Capture data and conduct evaluations that assess
and improve our quality and effectiveness.
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CREATING POSITIVE IMPACT FOR AND WITH CHILDREN
Influence the public and policymakers
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Measurable progress against our advocacy change
objectives linked to the breakthroughs.
• Define clear change objectives for our advocacy
priorities and make definitive progress against them.
• Centre for Evidence and Implementation is sought
after and highly respected, with annual turnover
over $5m.
• Establish the Centre for Evidence and
Implementation to promote effective and evidence
based policy and program interventions for children
in Australia, including in our own programs.
• Maintain position as #1 quoted NGO in the media.
• Increase our profile, influence and appeal with
audiences including universities, mainstream and
social media, and State and Territory governments.
• Well resourced and influential advocacy capability
for children in the Pacific.
• Engage with 1 million people in our public advocacy
campaigns and recruit and maintain a database of
80,000 active advocacy supporters.
• Engage 6000 school-age children in Australia
through child advocacy programs.
Zoe Daniel, journalist and ABC Correspondent
• Government relations plans in place and achieved at
Federal, State and Territory level.
• Establish an advocacy capability for children in
the Pacific.
• Launch an Australian-specific campaign aligned to
the global campaign on the issue of children left
behind.
• Build our child-centred and child-led advocacy
and campaigning program to empower more
young Australians.
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CREATING POSITIVE IMPACT FOR AND WITH CHILDREN
Lead the humanitarian sector in Asia-Pacific
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Interventions are in place in Asia-Pacific, including
the Emergency Health Unit, Education in
emergencies and children on the move.
• Scope and pilot the Emergency Health Unit.
• Pacific countries have improved capacity to prepare
for and respond to disasters.
• 3000 students engaged with the Centre for
Humanitarian Leadership and $15m of activity over
three years.
• Increasing ownership of the humanitarian space in
the minds of Australians, with a reputation in the
‘Top 3’ for humanitarian response.
• Develop the Children on the Move strategy and
roll out in the Asia-Pacific region.
• To prepare for disasters in the Pacific, develop
logistics plans and emergency preparedness plans;
preposition stocks; and train Pacific-based staff
through formal training and emergency
preparedness planning.
• Grow the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership to
build a more effective humanitarian system.
• Establish and implement a plan for engaging with
corporate, media and marketing partners on
humanitarian issues.
• Embed humanitarian capabilities and position as
part of the brand relaunch.
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FUELLING CHANGE WITH PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
Build a sustainable, trusted organisation
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• A financially sustainable organisation, with
increasing funding available to allocate to new
programs or initiatives.
• Relaunch Save the Children Australia’s brand and
tone of voice internally and externally. Ensure it is
consistently used throughout all communications
and platforms.
• Unrestricted income growing at 10% annually.
• Increased awareness of the Save the Children brand
in Australia, measuring 80% prompted awareness
and 7% unprompted awareness.
• Programs funded from restricted income fully
recover the cost to run the program, including
support services.
• Define and meet our environmental sustainability
targets.
• Optimise and diversify our unrestricted portfolio of
income to maximise return on investment.
• Invest in more profitable models and channels
to raise unrestricted income, such as bequests,
Workplace Giving, cause-related marketing,
community fundraising, digital.
• Grow net income from our retail shop network
and increase linkages with SC Australia’s brand,
programs and supporters.
• Change the way we cost new programs that are
funded from restricted income, so that the income
covers the full cost of the program (including the
finance, HR and IT support required).
• Agree and implement our volunteer strategy
• Establish and meet tiered service levels for
corporate and philanthropy based on the value of
the partnership.
• Develop the model for our Centenary campaign.
• Improve our tracking of our environmental
performance and reduce our impact through
delivering on our Year 1 initiatives in our
Environmental Sustainability Plan.
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FUELLING CHANGE WITH PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
Deepen our engagement with partners and supporters
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Leading the sector (in the top quartile) in lifetime
value of supporters.
• Establish supporter and partner engagement and
satisfaction measurement and complete baseline
measurement.
• Leading the sector (in the top quartile) in
supporter engagement.
• Supporter numbers growing at 10% each year.
• Establish supporter led culture and decision making,
based on actionable supporter insights.
• Finish implementing Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system and other marketing
automation tools to deepen supporter relationships.
• Implement the first phase of our content strategy;
transforming the way we engage with existing
supporters so they are confident in the impact they
help create.
• Embed the Corporate and Philanthropy
Development Council as a core part of supporter
and partner engagement.
• Establish the definitions and methodology
to measure the lifetime value of supporters.
Map the ideal supporter experience to better
attract, convert and increase the lifetime value of
supporters, ready for implementation in 2017.
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FUELLING CHANGE WITH PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
Collaborate to create real and lasting change
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Total income of at least $150m.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with
institutional donors and Federal, State and Territory
governments through improving our business
development capability.
• Scale and sustainability in our region, with annual
programming spend of over $34m in Australia and
$25m in the Pacific.
• Known as the partner of choice in creating positive
impact for children, by large institutional donors,
governments, corporates and high value donors,
maintaining or growing our share of funding from
key donors.
• Strong reputation with the public, with 5% growth
each year in our RepTrak score.
• Develop new business model concepts to maximise
engagement with supporters.
• Develop greater sophistication in philanthropy,
including development of thought-leadership
initiatives, increasingly tailored proposals, and
greater stewardship for high value donors.
• Continue to develop tailored Shared Value
initiatives that address key challenges and meet the
strategic goals of our partners.
• Create stronger connections between our
partners and our work, including by measuring
partnership impact.
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BEING A GREAT PLACE TO WORK
Make it easy to get things done
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Over 80% of finance, human resources and IT
processes are measured as ‘efficient and effective’.
• Launch a single help desk to provide all staff in
Australia and the Pacific with one point of contact
for all their finance, IT and human resource queries.
• Policies, procedures and how to guides are easy to
access and follow.
• Core systems and processes are aligned with the
global organisation.
• Result of 60% for questions related to systems and
processes in our engagement survey.
• Transform our policies and procedures into useful,
living documents. Use consistent easy to follow
formats and language, provide regular training,
and make sure they are accessible to a range
of audiences.
• Establish KPIs to monitor the effectiveness and
efficiency of key processes.
• Invest in global systems and processes including
Human Resources Information System (HRIS);
Award Management System (AMS); Project
Reporting, Information Monitoring and Evidence
(PRIME); provide SC Australia’s requirements and
roll out global solutions in Australia and the Pacific.
• Leverage global standards around child safeguarding,
safety and security. Ensure we have best practice,
operationally suitable systems and processes.
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BEING A GREAT PLACE TO WORK
Be agile and adaptable
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Meet targets for programs funded through the
Innovation Fund.
• Disburse the first tranche of funding for the
Innovation Fund for children in Australia.
• Result of 70% for the ‘Collaboration and
Communication’ category of our engagement survey.
• Make sure our working environment enables an agile
and collaborative culture; relocate to new premises
in Melbourne and several other Australian states.
• A culture of continuous improvement exists across
all support functions, using the Save the Children
global continuous improvement methodology.
• Agile project management methodology is used on
relevant projects and activities.
• Known as an agile, innovative organisation, winning
grants for new program models.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement in
support functions, train staff on the agreed global
methodology and use it for process improvement
work.
• Embed innovative ways of working and agile
project management capabilities, especially in the
digital team.
• Work with Save the Children members globally to
share learnings and best practice.
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BEING A GREAT PLACE TO WORK
Attract and retain the right people
Goals by 2018
Activities in 2016
• Increase in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
representation in our workforce, making up 35%
of staff in Australian Programs and 3% outside of
Australian Programs.
• Adopt a new Reconciliation Action Plan that brings
together and build on Save the Children’s and Good
Beginning’s earlier plans.
• Engaged staff, measuring 70% in our annual survey.
• Increase employment of Aboriginal & Torres Strait
Islander staff across the organisation.
• The best people want to work at Save the Children
Australia, with regrettable turnover at 15%.
• Increase career opportunities for our staff locally
and globally.
• An effective approach to recruitment, with less than
5% of new staff leaving within their first 6 months at
Save the Children.
• Create opportunities for ongoing learning and
development, focusing on leadership, management,
child safeguarding and safety.
• Improve employee engagement including developing
and implementing action plans for each department.
• Develop a cost-effective recruitment and selection
strategy to improve quality of hire and management
of our employment brand.
• Refine performance management tools and
processes to be more meaningful and integrated
(including the role of clinical supervision).
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BECOMING THOUGHT LEADERS BY SPEAKING WITH ONE VOICE
We identified priority issues because we are stronger with an aligned, shared voice.
We will build our credentials as a thought leader by speaking with one voice on
these issues for three years, with the whole organisation coming together at certain
times, taking aligned approaches across public-facing departments.
On the frontline, saving lives
Hunger and Nutrition
Children left behind
Emergencies
Global with Pacific focus
Australia
Global
These issues were identified based on: Alignment to our current and future programming footprint; Fundraising potential;
Shared value / partnership potential; Clear policy / advocacy objectives, and Brand alignment.
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