FOR ORGANISATION LEADERS NEEDING CONSULTANTS

For organisations needing a consultant or professional business service, we have assembled 75 experienced and highly vetted specialists (and growing). You can either:

• Lodge a request or RFP with us at Concierge
• Speak with one of our Community Managers at Concierge
• Search for a specialist or solution using our search filters (though most people find it quicker to speak with us!) 

Our specialists have delivered more than 300 engagements to 200 organisations, and work closely with each other.

We pride ourselves on listening to your needs, helping you find the best possible support, and saving you time, heartache and headache. Get started here.

FOR CONSULTANTS & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES 

We also provide a community where our specialist consultants collaborate and innovate. Read more here.

FOR SECTOR LEADERS, GRANTMAKERS & INTERMEDIARIES 

We work closely with sector intermediaries, grantmakers and member-based organisations who value our approach to supporting organisations in a respectful and values-aligned way. Read more here.

Our specialists have worked with 500+ organisations, from all corners of the social purpose sector:

• Not-for-profits, charities, social enterprises, local/state/federal government, member-based organisations, grantmakers, corporates
• Organisations at all life stages – pre-startup through to growth and scaling up, merging or winding down
• Organisations large and small – our specialists have well-priced packages for small organisations, and we have a free video library.

We have very strong rural and regional credentials that can be hard to find – 70% of our specialists are either based in, originate from, or have worked on projects in rural, regional and remote Australia.

We currently have 75 specialist consultants and professional services in the Collective.

Our specialists deliver services in a range of ways, including consulting, advisory, coaching and small group training.

We cover the following major specialisation areas, and more than 300+ areas of sub-specialisations:

• Governance, Organisational Strategy, Board Evaluation, Transformation
• Risk Management, Intellectual Property, Insurance, Compliance
• People and Culture, Human Resources, Recruitment, Leadership, Cultural Change, Diversity & Inclusion, Vicarious/Frontline Trauma
• Mergers, Acquisitions, Demergers, Restructures, Change Management
• Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate/Community Partnerships, Philanthropy, Grantmaking, Volunteering
• Fundraising, Grants, Submissions, Bequests, Capital Campaigns, Outsourced Fundraising Teams, Appeals, Fundraising Events
• Marketing, Business Development, Brand, Public Relations, Events, Annual Reports, Photography, Videography, Printing
• Communications, Community Engagement, Market Research, Focus Groups, Data & Analytics
• Accounting, Finance, Charity/DGR Set-Up, Book-Keeping, Virtual CFO
• Business Systems, IT, Apps, Process Improvement, Websites, CRM 
• Outcomes Measurement and Evaluation, Theory of Change, Impact Measurement, Outcomes Reporting/Reports

To understand if we can assist, please book a conversation with our Community Managers at Concierge.

Achieving our mission requires a number of intersecting initiatives, some of which you can read about here.
Our first endeavours over 2019-2021 have been to help changemakers find support on demand, which has required us to develop Stage One of our platform:

• Build and test a process to create a community of experienced and pre-vetted specialist consultants and professional services
• Create a way to search for specialists on our platform across 300+ areas of expertise, delivery methods and cause areas
• Create a sector-first business networking program for our specialists to sustain, grow, innovate and collaborate together
• Build and test a triage service (our Concierge service) of support organisations to find the right solution or support
• For organisations unable to afford services, we have developed a video library and conducted 30+ webinars/live shows

We achieve our mission through the Collective trading company, and our charity arm The Xfactor Collective Foundation (read more below).

Our 2019 Impact Report and 2020 Impact Report both provide a quick glance at what we have created together.

The Xfactor Collective Foundation is a registered charity, with a mission is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of the social sector in Australia.

The Foundation's strategic focus is to:

• Create a suite of evidence-based, priority mental health interventions and locate these in a Wellbeing and Resilience Resource Hub. The Hub has a range of proven tools, resources and support to prevent and reduce mental health illness
• Be a key voice in mental health advocacy to make mental health visible in our sector and to provide key decision-makers with advice about structural solutions
• Promote good mental health practice and harm reduction via awareness campaigns, digital storytelling, social sector summits, podcasts and more
• Be data driven and use research to drive outcomes, ensuring our response is guided by best practice interventions globally. This includes providing organisational leaders with an index to measure and benchmark their performance against and inform them about which interventions best suit their needs. Data will also be used to strengthen advocacy and to measure what is working in our Hub.
• Provide accessible support, especially to small charities

One of our first major projects through the Foundation was the RESET 2020 Impact+Need Research and Support Programs, supported by the Equity Trustees Sector Capacity Building Fund. It has been a large-scale project involving 20+ sector and peak bodies to understand the impact and needs of social purpose organisations, and provide immediate support, advice and inspiration to them during the height of the pandemic. This work over 2020 and 2021 shaped our Foundation 2025 Strategy, which includes the Collective Wellbeing and Collective Access sub-strategies. 

To find out more, please reach out to Special Projects and Partnerships Manager Annette Herschtal at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A UNITED BELIEF

We rally behind a belief that there has never been a more important time in human history to work smarter, not harder.

COMMUNITY VALUES

• We support each other to be BRAVE and take chances.
• We all participate to help the Collective grow. When the Collective wins, we all win.
• We make every decision through a lens of Win-Win-Win-Win-Win – a win for our Partners, specialist consultants, Collective HQ, clients and the community/beneficiaries they serve. If it doesn't meet this 5-Win approach, we don't do it. 
• We RESPECT each other - our skills, visions and aspirations.
• We CARE about social change and supporting changemakers to fulfil their ambitions and potential.
• We believe in and uphold GOOD OLD-FASHIONED values of accountability, trust, honesty, responsibility, fairness and kindness.

Our mission comes from a deep place of concern about the overall wellbeing of social changemakers, often overlooked as our world's most finite resource. The 'Xfactor' in our name represents the "fire in the belly" -  the thing that unites all social changemakers whether we are working to advance education, arts, human rights, rural communities, climate change, refugees or homelessness. We are all united by the fact it is not negotiable that we choose to work here in this sector.

However, let's face it - the work conditions are not that great. The focus is usually on the wellbeing of our beneficiaries (rightly so), but very rarely on us as social changemakers, even though in Australia the sector employs more Australians than the tourism and hospitality sectors combined. This has led to a culture of self-sacrifice that causes wide-scale burnout, perpetuated by unchallenged systemic causes.

BACK TO THE PROBLEM AND THE EVIDENCE

The levels of anxiety, burnout and stress are not acceptable, and not necessary.

In 2020, our RESET 2020 research showed us how grave the situation is:

• Pre-COVID, nearly 1 in 5 social changemakers were not taking care of themselves OFTEN or ALWAYS.
• During COVID, this increased to 40% of social changemakers (see below). 
• 45% reported they were stressed or anxious OFTEN or ALWAYS. 
• 80% of participants in our research said it was pre-COVID ways of working that were causing the wide-scale burnout (read more here)

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So the Collective is our response to helping changemakers work smarter, not harder.

If you'd like to join us on this mission, read more about our efforts in the 'Foundation' section above, or visit the RESET 2020 hub