How to Be More Effective in Reducing Disadvantage? – Insights From 10 Years of SVA Consulting

As it celebrates 10 years of advising the social sector, SVA Consulting reflects on how to be more effective in reducing social disadvantage.

Since it was founded in 2007, with support from the Macquarie Foundation, SVA Consulting has become Australia’s leading social purpose strategy consultancy firm having worked with over 300 organisations in more than 650 projects.

Now employing close to 40 consultants, SVA Consulting has worked with social purpose organisations, philanthropists, governments and business, including National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, YMCA Victoria, House with No Steps, Uniting NSW/ACT, Paul Ramsay Foundation, Woodside Development Fund, Kimberley Land Council and STREAT, to support them with social impact strategy, outcomes management and evaluation, program design and implementation.

This July, to mark its anniversary, SVA Consulting will publish an SVA Quarterly article and host two SVA Quarterly events to share its insights about what works in reducing disadvantage, and discuss with leaders from service delivery organisations, government, and funders how we should approach the next ten years of working to support the most vulnerable people in our society.

SVA Consulting executive director, Olivia Hilton, said SVA Consulting was founded to fill an unmet need for dedicated high quality strategic consulting services and expertise to the not-for-profit sector.

“Staffed by professionals with a commitment and passion for improving the lives of people in need, we have corporate, government and social sector experience, complemented by a deep understanding of the drivers of social disadvantage,” Hilton said.

“To reflect on our work over this past decade, we wanted to look at what has changed in real terms for people living in disadvantage.

“At a macro level the social sector has grown. And yet, we still see high levels of social exclusion and income inequality. So while the team is very proud of the work we have done supporting organisations to improve their impact  and in influencing the outcomes agenda in this country, we know that to create real systemic change will require the sector to be bolder, braver and more innovative than ever before.

“We wanted to share our learnings from the numerous and varied engagements we’ve had about what works best in reducing disadvantage – how we can be most effective. And importantly we wanted to explore with sector leaders what this means for how we collectively need to approach this task for the coming 10 years.”

SVA Consulting will publish its reflections in the SVA Quarterly on 20th July as a launch pad for the two public SVA Quarterly events on Thursday 27 July in Melbourne and Wednesday 2 August in Sydney.

We invite you to come and join us to debate and explore how, together, we approach the task of reducing disadvantage in the next 10 years.