Research & advocacy · Melbourne, Victoria · Since 2019
Community Aid Australia is a Melbourne research and advocacy association. We run original research on the questions that shape migrant and multicultural life in this country, campaign on what it finds, and train young people to carry the argument themselves.
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.
Decisions get made about housing, aged care, family violence, student welfare and settlement support, and the communities most affected are usually quoted rather than counted. Their case gets made on anecdote, against opponents who arrive with numbers.
So we start with the research. We ask the questions nobody has bothered to survey, publish what we find, and then argue it in public — in submissions, in the media, and with the decision-makers who need to hear it. Where the evidence does not support a claim, we do not make the claim.
And we build the people who will do this next. Our training work exists so that young people from multicultural communities can run this themselves: gather the evidence, write it up, put it on the record. That is the point of the whole exercise. An organisation that has to be spoken for has not finished its job.
We are an incorporated association run by a volunteer committee, based in Melbourne and working across Victoria.
What we do
Research produces the evidence. Advocacy puts it to work. Training decides who is able to do this in ten years. Storytelling keeps the record that all three draw on. They are not four separate things we happen to do — they are one sequence.
Original surveys and reports on the questions that shape migrant and multicultural life and have never properly been asked — published in full, method and limitations included, whatever the findings turn out to be.
Taking what the research finds to the people who can act on it — parliamentary and departmental submissions, public campaigns, and briefings for journalists who want the numbers rather than a case study.
Practical workshops for young people and community groups on research, writing, media and how to make a case in public. Our training arm exists so the next round of this work does not need us.
Recording first-generation migration histories before they are lost — oral histories, podcast series and short documentary made with the people whose lives they describe, and kept as a public record.
Advocacy
Advocacy is the part of this organisation that has to be a commitment rather than a service. So here is what we are committing to, in public, before we have anything to lose by it.
Campaigns are measured in parliamentary terms, not press releases. Fewer issues, argued for longer, is the only version of this that changes anything.
Every campaign we run rests on research anyone can read and check, including the parts that complicate our own position.
We work on issues, never for parties, and we will criticise or support any government on the merits of a decision. Being predictable about who we praise would make us worthless to the communities we work for.
Campaigns start with a group that raised the issue, and that group signs off on how it is described. We are not a spokesperson service.
Submissions, correspondence with departments and funding sources go on this website. If we cannot defend an argument in the open, we should not be making it in a committee room.
The young people in our programs are named authors and named speakers on the work they do. Youth involvement that stops at the launch photo is decoration.
The first areas we expect to work in: the treatment of international students in housing and employment; family violence services that migrant women can actually use; social cohesion and the reporting of race; and the isolation of older people in migrant families. Members decide the priorities at the annual general meeting — and the first research project gets chosen there too.
How we work
Projects start with a group that wants something answered or made, and they hold the final say over how their community is described.
Sample size, question wording and who paid for it are published alongside every finding. Research nobody can check is not research.
Every project should leave a community group able to do more on its own than before we arrived — that is the measure we hold ourselves to.
Volunteer-run, low overheads, no work taken on that we cannot finish. We would rather do three things properly than ten badly.
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.
News & notices
Notices to members are also sent by email. Write to secretary@communityaidaustralia.org.au if you are a member and are not receiving them.
Get involved
Membership is open to anyone who supports our purposes. Members vote at general meetings, can stand for the committee, choose the research we take on, and set the priorities. The annual subscription is set by members at the annual general meeting — nothing is payable before then.
We are particularly looking for people with accounting, research and survey design, policy writing, grant writing, audio or video production, or community organising experience. We need a treasurer and a vice-president before 10 October.
If you run a community organisation and want a question researched, your people trained or your issue taken to government, 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.