A new chapter for ThirdStory on the East Coast of Australia
ThirdStory’s Melbourne launch was an opportunity to see old friends, welcome new partners and spark thoughtful conversations about the changes our communities need, writes Perrie Ballantyne.
As a trusted social innovation partner, we have supported change across the globe for over 20 years. We have been working in Australia for the past 10 years out of our office in Perth. Our partnerships and projects have always taken us to the East Coast of Australia, and now we have a more permanent presence here.
Just before Christmas, we moved into RMIT’s City Campus - our first proper office. We are very grateful to Professor Katherine Johnson, Dean of the School of Global and Social Studies, for inviting us to share the space and for opening up opportunities to collaborate across RMIT’s social work and human services teams, sitting alongside the Social Equity Research Centre.
Naarm/Melbourne, on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation, is a creative, dynamic and culturally diverse city. It’s also a city troubled by world events and climate crises, and still recovering from the long-term impacts of COVID. It's a place where growing disparities in wealth and opportunity mean some flourish and many struggle.
Conversations are the work
Our Melbourne launch event brought together familiar faces we’ve worked with over the course of our decade in Australia, alongside partners and friends from more recent projects and collaborations. Conversation buzzed between old and new acquaintances, with our Board Director Jan Owen AM remarking in her welcome speech that a love of conversation is a hallmark of Melbournians. We value dialogue and relationships above all. We are listeners and developers of bold ideas and actions.
During the event, we shared our story for change. This is our way of describing the work we do to support and enable change, working alongside our partners in relational and participatory ways. The story for change has three components - gathering people and perspectives, illuminating new pathways, and realising a better future. They appear like stones in a river, little stepping stones to get us from one place to the next.
Much of our work starts with bringing different people and perspectives together so that new insight can emerge. For us, this often means working with people with lived expertise, service providers, and government, and bringing together different kinds of insight and evidence. It can also mean holding space for new conversations and ideas, such as through our forthcoming Social Imagination Speaker Series with the Centre for Public Impact.
There are real tensions in how perspectives and knowledge come together into a conversation that can lead to change. A lot of our work is about noticing power dynamics, and helping hidden realities and tensions to surface. These are usually the things that are getting in the way of change. We try to do research and design collaboratively and out in the open, where we can make sense of things together in conversation.
Often we form networks and learning communities around insights, ideas and actions, made up of different kinds of stakeholders from across places and systems - such as in our work with Paul Ramsay Foundation as part of their 2023 DFV Special Cohorts grant round. We ran a learning network for 31 grant recipients, aiming to build a shared dialogue about the challenges facing the field. This became an opportunity to learn about the field from practitioners working directly with communities and to share a compelling story with funders and decision-makers about the systemic shifts needed to enhance prevention work across Australia.
A bias to action
Change is hard - there is nothing glamorous about it. It’s mostly about people building strong foundational relationships, and rolling up their sleeves and doing difficult work together. As social innovation practitioners, we talk about better futures and imagine new possibilities, but always with a bias towards action.
We are currently working with our partners at RMIT University to explore how universities, services and communities can collaborate more effectively around community priorities. The work points to things that universities might do differently to make better partnerships, and to ensure that community knowledge and leadership can be centered.
Following a series of workshops, we are planning a prototyping phase that could trial a number of ideas that came through our consultations. One of these ideas is for a community clinic that majors on social prescribing and addresses people’s need for greater social connection and belonging. The only way to get the idea right will be to continue to develop, iterate and do the messy work of change in collaboration with community partners, NGOs and others, checking that key principles for partnership continue to guide the work.
The messy work of change
On their way out the door, many of our launch guests commented on how much they enjoyed coming together after so much online working during and beyond our COVID years. Although we have become skilled facilitators of online collaboration, there is no substitute for the warmth, vulnerability and deep trust that can only grow when you’re side by side. At ThirdStory, we aim to make systems more human, working with everyone who needs to be part of the change. We’re looking forward to more moments of human connection, to meeting new partners and learning about their ambitions and their challenges, and to moving through the messy work of change together.
Thank you to social enterprise STREAT Cromwell Cafe in Collingwood for hosting us at such a beautiful venue with the most incredible food, and Simon from Man with a Camera Photography for capturing the experience for us.