Congratulations to our 2025 $100,000 Primary Grant Recipient!

Wildflower Gardens for Good 

Wildflower is dedicated to caring for country, creating urban spaces and empowering Aboriginal community with sustainable employment.

Wildflower exists to tackle the interconnected challenges facing young Aboriginal people in urban and suburban Sydney, particularly those at risk of homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and mental health issues. Many have experienced intergenerational trauma, systemic racism, and disconnection from culture and Country. These experiences contribute to cycles of disadvantage, leaving young people isolated, underemployed, and vulnerable. Mainstream support systems often fail to meet these young people where they are—culturally, emotionally, and practically.

Wildflower tackles the challenges facing young Aboriginal people through a culturally grounded, land-based employment and mentoring program that integrates paid work, personal development, and community connection. Its approach begins with meaningful employment. Young people join its crews to work on bush regeneration, horticultural maintenance, and cultural landscaping projects across Sydney. Alongside employment, participants receive one-on-one mentoring from experienced Aboriginal crew leaders and elders. Wildflower embeds wraparound support that addresses housing insecurity, mental health, and substance use, delivered through its own culturally safe staff or in partnership with trusted service providers.

IMPACT100 Sydney North’s grant will be used to employ and mentor an additional 10 young Aboriginal people over the next 12 months. The grant will fund wages, mentoring, equipment, and social impact measurement. This investment will enable Wildflower to meet growing demand, take on more contracts, grow its team, and deepen its social and environmental impact, as well as generating broader benefits for the Sydney community by creating healthier green spaces, improving biodiversity, and strengthening social cohesion through the visible, hands-on contribution of young Aboriginal workers.

Congratulations to our 2025 $30,000 Impact Grant Recipients!

Success Works Partners 

Success Works was established in 2022 to help women with a criminal record reintegrate into society, breaking the cycle of disadvantage and reducing recidivism.

Success Works addresses the issue of lack of employment opportunities for criminalised women, the abhorrent trend in our community to continue to punish disadvantage, the need to address head-on the discrimination in employment based on a criminal record and the damage inflicted on families where mothers and nurturers can find no support to reassess their lives and build their skills and confidence to support their families and communities. It is the only service in NSW that offers gender-specific employment support for women affected by the justice system. Each year, KWOOP (Keeping Women Out of Prison) reports that 2,760 women return to the community from prison, with over 900 facing homelessness. 379 women are identified as at risk of re-imprisonment, yet only 236 receive adequate gender specific support.

IMPACT100 Sydney North’s grant will be used to establish a test and tag business service, a gap in the market identified through research and advice from Success Work’s industry partners and connections. This service, which is legally required for businesses to test and tag electrical items, will be the first social enterprise of its kind in NSW. It will provide a pathway to employment, allowing women to take on internal support roles with Success Works before moving into broader job markets. The grant will create meaningful part-time employment opportunities for at least 20 women with roles lasting approximately six months or until they secure other employment. The model will generate surplus funds within two years which will be reinvested to expand reach.

The Freedom Hub 

The Freedom Hub is committed to ending modern slavery by empowering survivors and transforming business. 

Modern slavery is a hidden crisis in Australia, with an estimated 41,000 people trapped in exploitative conditions nationwide. In NSW alone, approximately 16,400 people are believed to be living in modern slavery, including forced labour, domestic servitude, and human trafficking. They often face long-term trauma, homelessness, language barriers, social isolation, and significant obstacles to employment and financial independence.

The Freedom Hub exists to address this urgent, unmet need. It provides the only long-term, trauma-informed support system specifically designed for survivors of modern slavery in Australia. Its Survivor School equips individuals with the skills, confidence, and community support to recover, rebuild, and thrive. Currently, its Sydney Hub supports 150 survivors each year—but demand far exceeds capacity. Survivors come from across Greater Sydney and are often from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including refugees and asylum seekers. The Freedom Hub partners with ethical employers and businesses to provide safe employment pathways, including through its own social enterprises. Survivors are guided from recovery to independence, with practical support every step of the way. This approach, grounded in trauma-informed principles, is proven, sustainable, and ready to scale. 

Impact100 Sydney North’s grant will allow expanded services to support an additional 100 survivors, helping address the urgent gap in access to trauma recovery, work readiness, and sustainable employment pathways. The grant will be used to deliver tailored work readiness, digital skills and vocational courses, hire a job pathways and empowerment coordinator, establish a survivor-led peer mentoring model and provide essential support services such as transport, childcare and mental health sessions. 

Turbans 4 Australia 

Turbans 4 Australia provides emergency goods to people in need (e.g. financial hardship, homelessness, impacted by natural disasters), regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.

Turbans 4 Australia is addressing the growing crisis of food insecurity in the Greater Sydney region, particularly among vulnerable and marginalised communities. It supports over 6,000 individuals each month across Greater Sydney through its food relief and essential goods distribution program. Rising living costs, housing stress, and economic instability have driven increasing numbers of individuals and families into hardship, especially recent migrants, refugees, people with disabilities, single-parent households, and those recovering from natural disasters.

These communities often lack access to culturally appropriate food or are hesitant to seek help due to stigma, language barriers, or a lack of trust in mainstream institutions. Many live in “food deserts” with limited access to affordable, nutritious food, compounding the effects of poverty and social isolation. In response, Turbans 4 Australia has developed a grassroots model of culturally sensitive, community-based food relief. It works with local partners to distribute food hampers and essential supplies directly to those most in need, regardless of their background or belief. However, demand has grown beyond current capacity. 

IMPACT100 Sydney North’s grant will help Turbans 4 Australian expand its operations to meet this rising need, reduce hunger, and restore dignity and hope to thousands of Sydneysiders facing hardship. This includes using the funds to buy food and hygiene supplies, for transport and delivery costs, volunteer support, packaging and distribution materials and monitoring and evaluation tools.

Congratulations to our 2025 Semi-finalists!

Consent Labs is a national youth-led not-for-profit organisation focused on prevention through education. They deliver engaging and interactive evidence-based consent and respectful relationship education workshops. Consent Labs empowers young people and their communities across Australia to actively change the culture around sexual violence.

Habitat for Humanity works alongside local partners and community leaders to expand access to decent housing, basic services, and secure land rights, creating lasting impact and change. They are dedicated to building strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter.

RACS is a nonprofit providing the one form of help that can give refugees and people seeking asylum lasting safety: legal support. They provide trauma-informed legal help to people of all nationalities, religions and gender identities and advocate for fairer and more humane asylum policies.

Thread Together collaborates with fashion brands and retailers to extend the life-cycle of clothing by keeping it in circulation. They collect end-of-line, brand new stock, which is sorted by volunteers and distributed through their national network of registered charities and social service agencies. This collaboration allows Thread Together to clothe individuals, families, and communities in need, restoring dignity and offering hope to those facing hardship, while diverting brand new unsold clothing from landfill.