Women experiencing domestic and family violence face a stark choice. Stay in the violence, or leave and potentially live in poverty. Humans of Purpose and its Academy is solving this problem all while helping to plug our country’s tech skill shortage.
“We’ve got massive tech skills shortages in our country and they just keep growing,” founder and CEO Melanie Greblo tells OnImpact. “At the moment, we don’t really as a country have a plan to plug those. We’re trying, but it’s still pretty slow.
“And then you’ve got women survivors who can’t access employment. And if they do, it’s not the right kind of employment — it’s not going to ever see them live above the poverty line. This is critical to their recovery and to not returning to violence.”
Humans of Purpose is sitting at the intersection of quite a few different societal problems and solving for those problems through this one vehicle. Not only does it teach the actual skills of the digital platforms and tools, but provides trauma recovery at the same time.
“It’s not a magic bullet. It doesn’t solve everything. But it does sit at this intersection where there is a gender digital divide — still only 30% of women are in tech.”
Scaling up positive impact
Humans of Purpose and its Academy was founded by Mel in 2022 by combining her 20+ career in social impact and lived experience to bridge the gaps in long term recovery support for survivors of domestic and family violence — with a focus on social and economic participation.
The doors to its virtual Hub, an Australian first, were opened in October 2023 and it is now supporting 120+ women survivors through digital skills training, mentoring and whole person coaching. When women are assessed as work-ready they then transition into employment, either in our social business as a Digital Hero, or with an external employment partner.
The Academy has trained 64 women in digital skills that are work-ready, with 22 women employed in the last 18 months and a really strong retention rate. Those employed with Humans of Purpose have increased their fortnightly income by $600 a fortnight, which is quite material for all of them with most (84%) being single mothers.
Mel explains that the secret sauce is the combination of trauma recovery alongside learning the actual skills of the digital platforms and tools.
“We can help a woman get some tech skills and digital skills and throw them off to an employer somewhere but without those foundations as a base they won’t last because the trauma recovery part of their journey is not really being held and looked at.”
In order to scale up its impact, the organisation has launched a $2 million capital raise to fund its operations, targeting philanthropists and impact investors looking for bang for their buck.
Humans of Capital is seeking interest from anyone who’s interested in investing with a gender lens — those with a passion for gender equality, women’s economic inclusion, inclusion generally, and supporting the recovery and healing of victim survivors of domestic violence. It is also seeking grant capital or looking at a grant investment to build on the Snow Foundation’s grant investments.
On track to profitability
“We’re looking to raise funds with a fairly clear trajectory towards operating profit in two years’ time and then the business funding the operations of our not-for-profit academy within two to three years as well, with a self-sustaining model,” said Mel.
“Tthat will see us deliver up to 200 jobs to women survivors of domestic violence in that time, some of them going through a six-month placement and some stay on to work with us as well. This will significantly grow our client base significantly.
“We’ve got to the point where we’ve proven the model and got some good traction, while operating on a very lean team and need to grow the team, so that’s predominantly what the raise is for.”
Digital solutions for purpose-driven enterprises
Broadly speaking, Mel has noticed a recent reluctance to invest in work-integrated social enterprises, as the model can be really tricky without government investment.
Humans of Purpose does have a payment by results contract with the New South Wales government, but unlike some other social enterprises it doesn’t rely on single government contracts for revenue. The business is not at threat of falling over due to the loss of one contract and doesn’t rely on any government payments being funneled through like NDIS payments of participants. A lot of the business is de-risked with annual recurring revenue from multiple SME clients and backed in by the government contract.
Also key to the continued growth and reaching profitability is signing on more clients. Mel also calls on anyone in the purpose-driven space who needs good partners in digital and social media marketing to get in touch.
For more on Humans of Purpose see https://www.humansofpurpose.com/about and check out the first Humans of Purpose Academy Impact Report.
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