The challenges facing a community rarely sit neatly within the boundaries of one organisation.
Housing, homelessness, mental health, legal assistance, alcohol and other drug support and community wellbeing are deeply connected. Across Southside, many organisations are working on these issues every day, bringing their own expertise, experience and strong connections with the community.
But there are limited opportunities for those organisations to come together, share what they know and build a shared vision for the community.
Southside Justice wants to help change that.
With support from Southside Community Foundation’s 2026 Grants for Collaboration, Southside Justice will lead Partners in Place: Collective Voice, bringing community service organisations, people with lived experience and other local stakeholders together to harness the deep local knowledge of community service organisations; enabling them to act collectively with greater impact and strategic influence.
Southside Justice CEO Mel Dye said complex community issues require a collective response.
“We're delighted to receive this support from Southside Community Foundation. We know that the most complex issues facing our community can't be solved by any one organisation alone.”
Locals are struggling with growing inequalities in wealth and opportunity; while the organisations supporting them are struggling with tight resources putting pressure on services to simply keep their doors open.
The project builds on collaboration that has already begun locally.
In 2025, a roundtable convened in response to proposed local law changes affecting people experiencing homelessness demonstrated strong interest across the sector in greater collaboration and collective action. What was missing was an ongoing way for organisations to continue that work, strengthen relationships and establish longer-term, shared priorities.
Partners in Place will create space for that next step.
Through a series of facilitated workshops, community organisations, people with lived experience and other local stakeholders will come together to explore shared challenges, identify priorities, and develop a shared vision for working together.
The process will result in an agreed way forward, helping to guide future collaboration, advocacy, partnerships and funding opportunities while laying the foundations for a stronger collective voice across Southside.
“This grant gives us the opportunity to bring people together, build a stronger collective voice and lay the foundations for a more coordinated and ambitious vision for positive change,” Mel Dye said.
Southside Community Foundation is supporting Partners in Place: Collective Voice with a $10,000 Grant for Collaboration, helping create the space for organisations, people with lived experience and other local stakeholders to come together and shape what happens next.
It is collaboration at its most fundamental: creating the space, relationships and shared direction that can make stronger collective action possible.
