We understand that our centres need strong communities in order to succeed. Our aim is to leverage our position as important community hubs to shape better communities, enhance local connections and deliver positive social outcomes. We do this by strategically supporting issues that impact both our centres and the local community.
The ‘Community Significance’ pillar of our Sustainability strategy is focused around three key programs:
Through a range of community and business partnerships we are leveraging the unique position our centres hold locally, as well as Vicinity’s footprint nationally, to make a meaningful difference for communities across Australia. Our targeted program allows us to remain focused on causes that make sense for our business, driving a long-term commitment and enabling us to have the greatest chance of creating significant positive impacts for Vicinity and our communities.
Click here to download the full infographic.
Vicinity’s community investment program focuses on addressing an important social issue that impacts both our centres and local communities right across Australia – youth disengagement and unemployment.
We are currently in the third year of a three-year partnership with the Beacon Foundation to help deliver this program at a corporate and centre level.
Find out more about how our community investment program is being implemented on the ground, and our community contributions in FY19.
During National Reconciliation Week 2019, we launched our second Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) - our Innovate RAP - to further progress our contribution towards a more equitable, just and reconciled Australia.
Our Innovate RAP aims to increase respect, equality and opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, businesses and communities.
We have committed to deepening relationships, increasing cultural awareness and connecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with employment and business opportunities across our organisation.
We work hard to understand our communities' wants and needs, so that we can respond to ensure we offer an experience that is better, easier and more enjoyable.
We know that high internal engagement levels with Vicinity’s Sustainability agenda and programs is an important driver of overall employee engagement and can help make our people feel proud to work at a sustainable, purpose-led organisation.
In FY19, we increased employee engagement with our sustainability programs by another five percentage points from the previous year to 79 per cent, its highest point ever and above our overall employee engagement level of 68 per cent.
Providing our people with genuine opportunities to get involved in our programs helped drive this result, which included a range of initiatives such as engaging employee volunteering offerings, running campaigns through our workplace giving program to encourage uptake and extensive participation in the delivery of our company-wide fundraising initiative for Beacon Foundation.
In June 2019, our entire company once again united to raise funds for Beacon Foundation, our corporate community partner through Light the Way. Find out more
Social procurement
With a portfolio of Vicinity’s scale and reach, we acknowledge our role as a large employer of service providers across Australia, generating significant economic activity through the operation of our centres.
Social procurement is an important avenue through which we leverage our unique position with our suppliers to help to shape better communities.