PAUL BARCHAM
Development Manager at Melbourne Indigenous Transition School
Awarded a McKinsey Academy Scholarship for the McKinsey Academy Young Leaders Forum, 2019
What sort of work does your organisation do?
MITS is a residential transition school for Indigenous students from remote and regional communities. Each year, 22 Year 7 students attend our classroom inside the Richmond Football Club and board together on Richmond Hill. MITS’s purpose is to assist students in familiarising themselves with away-from-home schooling in Melbourne, before transitioning to one of our 13 Melbourne Partner Schools for year 8 onwards. Describe a typical day's work.
Engaging with our generous supporters by organising visits to the boarding house, sending MITS updates, putting together funding proposals.
What were some of the key learnings from the course? That there are outstanding young leaders out there! I gained a real appreciation of the need to be a more ‘well-rounded’ leader – this includes reflecting more deeply on my own biases, and what tools can be used to get the very best out of different personalities in the workplace.
How has it impacted / changed / benefited your role and your organisation as a whole?
I think I have become a more active, attentive listener, especially toward those who come from a very different context to my own. How did you come to be working in the not-for-profit sector?
Like most people – I ‘fell into’ the NFP sector and have loved it ever since! I started as a volunteer in my early 20s at a refugee organisation during my university studies. Rather serendipitously, the organisation was expanding quite rapidly at the same time I finished my degree. A new fundraising position opened up in the same area I was volunteering, I applied and got the role, and have loved the sector ever since. What do you feel is most needed to sustain and build the impact of the not-for-profit sector?
A recognition that a true diversity of skillsets and approaches yields the best results. We need people from all backgrounds (personal and professional) to contribute to the NFP landscape. People with lived experience, younger, older, urban, regional, business backgrounds, risk-takers, devils advocates – the lot. Organisations that seek to effect real change should ask themselves; do we reflect the diversity which makes up the Australian populace? If the answer is no, how can we expect ‘ordinary Australians’ to listen to our message? What is something interesting / unique / unusual about you?
I am a curious combination of inner-city lefty coffee-loving NFP worker, who is also obsessed with the AFL, cricket, camping and loves a beer. I guess you could say I am ‘broad’.
Click here to read about other ASF scholars.
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