We build collaborations for a brighter and fairer future for all.
If you want to develop your leadership in ways that change power and transform systems, we invite you to check out our Learning Program courses.
Develop your systems change thinking & practice.
Explore our Learning ProgramWe bring together leaders and organisations from different contexts to build new relationships. We foster networks for learning, creativity, and shared action. Collectively, we bring to life new narratives for a more equitable Australia.
We work with First Nations and other Australians to create conditions for peace, healing and equity. This work is structural and relational.
It is about collective healing in a country still grappling with colonisation. Through Peacebuilding and Healing, we transform ourselves as we transform our systems.
We believe an equitable democracy is one in which dialogue and decisions take place with all of us. It includes diverse perspectives and takes place from communities to the national level.
We work with communities, governments and organisations to strengthen leadership, governance, and practices that redefine democracy. This is about fostering collective agency and more equitable decision-making.
ChangeFest is a nationwide movement for community-led change in Australia. It recognises and celebrates stories of local change and impact across Australia.
ChangeFest is committed to listening to and amplifying the voices and knowledge of First Nations Peoples who have led place-based approaches for millenia.
Learn moreOur focus is collaborative systems change that is led by communities. We start with people and Country.
We will continue to work where we are invited in by communities.
We work with you and your community on your vision for more equitable futures.
We help you weave in partners – other organisations, governments, philanthropy, and business – to align with what is most important to you.
We provide expertise to help you collaborate - in ways that transform the systems you are part of.
Today’s challenges require leadership by people who can work systemically and in complexity.
This includes being able to harness our collective power and agency.
We work with you to help build collective leadership. This may be within your organisation, sector or beyond.
With our partners, we design and demonstrate new governance models and practice.
Our focus is enabling multi-stakeholder collaboration for systems change.
We specialise in centring principles of equity and shared decision-making in governance. We can work with you on local, regional and/or national governance.
Systems learning involves listening and hearing from the whole system and considering what this means for the work.
We work with you to embed systems learning and knowledge sharing. We provide support for strategy and narrative building.
Our approach focuses on redistributing power and accountability to people most impacted by the system(s).
We work with you to develop innovations that increase community control over resources and capital.
We do this so communities can realise their aspirations and sustain community-led change.
Our focus is how governance and practices can lead to community control of resources that is more equitable.
We partner and collaborate with you to:
We work with you to cultivate the next generation of systems change collaborations.
This could be designing, testing, and incubating new innovations and experiments.
It could be walking alongside as a learning partner as your initiative reaches the next level of maturity and depth.
For over a decade, we have been helping ecosystems for community-led change to flourish.
We help you learn and connect through platforms, courses and events (virtual and in-person).
We support you to build your knowledge, share insights with peers, and grow your networks.
You may be new to collaborative systems change, or an established leader.
We bring diverse people together to learn, connect and grow our field.
We help amplify the work of communities that are demonstrating ways to make systems more equitable.
We work with communities, government, and funders to identify and build the infrastructure we need for the next horizon of systems change.
We convene forums and publish articles and research to share our collective insights.
We work with our peers, nationally and internationally, to advance the field of collaborative systems change.
Deep Collaboration was created by First Nations and other Australians with one goal. That is to find a new way to lead change together and create a more equitable Australia.
More than ever, Australia needs leadership collaboration across racial and cultural divides. This means working together in the messy middle spaces shared by First Nations and other Australians.
Deep Collaboration is a leadership practice so we can work across culture and power, while centring justice and equity. It enables First Nations and other Australians to collaborate and tackle systemic barriers to equity.
This practice has been adopted by a national network of practitioners. It has been applied to the Victorian Treaty pathway and negotiations; to capability building of the Commonwealth Government for Close The Gap; to local Voice and self-determination governance practices; and to many other initiatives.
Explore our courses
We’re thrilled to announce ChangeFest25 will be held on the country of the Whadjuk people in the greater Walyalup area (Fremantle) in partnership with Imagined Futures on 19-21 November 2025.
Originally launched in the east—on the country of the Yuggera and Yugambeh Speaking people, followed by Darug country—the ChangeFest Songlines have also embraced Larrakia country in the north, Lutriwita country in the south, and Latji Latji country along our great rivers.
This extends the ChangeFest Songlines westwards for the first time.
“It is right that the ChangeFest Songlines now travel to Western Australia. ChangeFest25 in Walyalup connects the work of ChangeFest across the country, providing a continuation of celebration, learning, and connections for change,” said ChangeFest Elder Aunty Faith Green.
Photo credit: Jillian Mundy and ChangeFest
It was exciting to see the launch of Partnerships for Local Action and Community Empowerment (PLACE) in 2024. PLACE is a national organisation that supports the adoption and impact of place-based approaches across Australia.
PLACE was a long time in the making. It came from visionary and persistent leadership from communities and collaborators across Australia.
CFI was the Foundation Partner for PLACE, in consortium with the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) (University of Queensland) and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG).
The Foundation Partner role was to design PLACE. We did so through a collaborative design process and consultation with stakeholders across the ecosystem. We engaged community, government, philanthropy, service sector, business, researchers, intermediaries and others supporting place-based change.
Photo credit: PLACE
“When we have an agenda to change or transform systems – to make the systems we are part of more equitable – we are calling ourselves and those we work with into a different way of being and working together.
One that is community-led, systemic, learning centred, experimental. And at times, wisely disruptive.”
