About Diversity Now Australia

Diversity Now Australia began with a frustration we kept hearing from every direction. Employers told us they wanted diverse teams but kept losing diverse staff. New migrants told us they'd been welcomed at the airport and ignored ever since. Parents told us their kids learned about "harmony" once a year and exclusion the other 364 days.

So a group of educators, community workers and business people in Melbourne's north decided to build something practical. Not another awareness campaign — actual programs that change behaviour: hands-on training for workplaces, free workshops for everyday people, cultural events where neighbours genuinely meet, and peer support for people carrying the weight of exclusion.

Today we're a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), working from our base at 44 Mahoneys Rd, Thomastown. Our annual reports and financial statements are publicly available on the Charity Register.

We're proud to be small, local and personal. When you call us, you reach a person. When you fund us, you can see exactly where the money went.

We're governed by a voluntary board of directors with backgrounds in law, education, community services and finance. The board oversees strategy, risk and compliance, and ensures we meet every obligation of a registered charity.

Our finances are tightly controlled: program spending is budgeted and tracked, donations are receipted, and our accounts are reviewed annually before lodgement with the ACNC. Anyone can inspect our record on the Charity Register — we link it from every page of this site.

Our facilitators and volunteers follow a written code of conduct covering respectful practice, cultural safety and confidentiality — especially important in our peer support groups, where people share personal experiences.

Exclusion is expensive — for the person passed over for the job, for the business that loses their talent, for the neighbourhood that stays divided. Research is consistent: diverse and inclusive teams perform better, and real contact between cultures reduces prejudice faster than any campaign.

But inclusion doesn't happen by itself. It takes structured training to change workplace habits, deliberate events to build cross-cultural friendships, and safe support for people carrying discrimination. That's exactly what our five programs do — and what your donations keep free.

When you support Diversity Now Australia, you fund change you can actually see: a workshop that shifts a culture, an event that makes neighbours of strangers, a group that reminds someone they belong.