18 August 2023
Recognising that many people around the world face systemic barriers to employment, the majority of the Macquarie Group Foundation’s (Foundation) grant funding globally focuses on breaking down these barriers and building effective pathways to employment.
Each of our four regions face distinct challenges, which is why each region concentrates on issues with local relevance and aims to create the greatest social impact.
In Australia, young people are increasingly experiencing entrenched inequality and disadvantage that can be the result of poor job opportunities and broken career ladders. This lack of opportunity for young people negatively impacts social mobility and creates broader societal problems1.
Responding to this, the Foundation’s grantmaking focus in Australia seeks to support organisations helping young people participate in jobs that prepare them for a better future. Social Ventures Australia (SVA) research commissioned by the Foundation shows there is a gap between employers who want to attract and retain people into entry level roles and young people who are keen to access those roles but lack the experience or skills employers are looking for.
Four non-profit organisations working in different ways to address this gap are SVA, YLab Global, Shoreline and Generation Australia. By taking a flexible approach to funding and putting equity at the heart of the Foundation’s work, we are supporting them to build a better for young Australians.
The real value for us in receiving core operating expense funding is that it really values the true impact of the work that we’re trying to do and understands that in order to create impact for young people, we need a certain level of strategic flexibility.”
Brigid Canny
Executive Director at YLab Global
Foundation for Young Australians
We work with employers to understand exactly what they need in terms of entry level talent, then we design our programs to ensure that those people coming through are actually ready to work from day one.”
Malcolm Kinns
CEO
Generation Australia
What the grant has allowed us to do is build the foundations and continue to build on what we do, which is facilitate these job partnerships and really work on scaling that with a sound base.”
Jason Ryan
Managing Director
Shoreline Foundation
Doing the research and development, the experimentation, to find a model that we think really attacks this question about the gap between employers and young people. Now, with three years of funding we’re looking at three years of being able to grow that model, experiment, continue to innovate so that we can make impact at scale.”
Dr Lisa Fowkes
Director of Ventures (Employment)
SVA
Read about our support of community organisations focused on breaking down barriers to employment around the world.
