Not-for-profit · Melbourne, Victoria · Since 2019
Community Aid Australia builds the media capability of multicultural communities — training community storytellers, recording migration histories, researching the issues that shape diaspora life, and campaigning on them.
Our purpose
To inspire and empower diverse communities for social, economic and environmental sustainability. Working for the welfare of families, promoting multiculturalism and strengthening ethnic media. Registered purpose · Community Aid Australia Inc.
Migrant and multicultural communities in Australia are written about far more often than they write. Decisions get made about housing, aged care, family violence, student welfare and settlement support — and the people most affected are usually quoted rather than heard.
We think the fix is capability, not sympathy. A community group that can record, edit, publish and pitch its own story does not need anyone's permission to be part of the national conversation. So we teach that, we record what would otherwise be lost, and we do the research that gives community advocacy something solid to stand on.
We are an incorporated association run by a volunteer committee, based in Melbourne and working across Victoria.
What we do
Recording first-generation migration stories before they are lost — oral histories, podcast series and short documentary made with the people whose lives they describe.
Practical workshops that teach community groups and young people to produce their own digital stories, podcasts and video — and to pitch them.
Public campaigns on the issues our communities raise with us most often, run with the communications discipline these causes rarely get.
Original surveys and reports on diaspora communities, and submissions to inquiries and consultations — so advocacy has evidence behind it, not just anecdote.
How we work
Projects start with a group that wants something made, and they hold the final say over how their story appears.
We research first and campaign second. A claim we cannot support is a claim we do not make.
Every project should leave a community group able to do more on its own than before we arrived.
We work on issues, not for parties. We will criticise or support any government on the merits of a decision.
Where we have been
We would rather be straight about this than pad it out. Community Aid Australia was incorporated in 2019, won and delivered its first digital-inclusion grants, ran events, went quiet through the pandemic years, and stayed registered and compliant throughout. In 2026 the committee decided to bring it back with a much sharper idea of what it is for.
Get involved
Membership is open to anyone who supports our purposes. Members vote at general meetings, can stand for the committee, and shape what we work on. There is a small annual subscription set by the committee.
We are particularly looking for people with accounting, research, video editing, audio production, grant writing or community organising experience. Also for a treasurer.
If you run a community organisation and want your people trained, your story recorded or your issue researched, tell us what you need. Most of our work starts with a group asking.
We are not currently endorsed as a deductible gift recipient, so contributions are not tax-deductible. We would rather say so plainly than have you find out later.
Governance & transparency
Some of our committee members work in commercial media. That is why this organisation has media capability at all — and it is governed openly rather than left unsaid.
Any committee member with a material personal interest in a matter must declare it, leave the room while it is discussed, and not vote on it. Where the association engages a business connected to a committee member, the decision is made by the committee with that member absent, at no more than market rate, and recorded in our conflict of interest register. We disclose those interests in our funding applications.
An elected committee of volunteers governs the association. Committee members are office holders with duties equivalent to company directors. The committee meets monthly, minutes every meeting, and reports to members at the annual general meeting, where the financial statements are presented and the committee is elected.