Helping businesses support the community

A City of Ballarat strategic partnership with non-profit Runway has empowered local businesses to do good in the community.  

Earlier this year, several local business owners participated in Runway’s program ‘Get READY, Get SET, GROW’. The program is designed for existing businesses that need assistance with getting to the heart of customer problems and exploring opportunities to address those problems.  

The City of Ballarat’s Strategic Partnership with Runway to deliver the program was designed to foster community wealth building — a term that refers to a community’s ability to generate its own wealth for the benefit of everyone in the community.

Some participating business owners, such as Adam Slater from Zero Plastics Australia, are aiming for their businesses to function like social enterprises — a business that does good in the community beyond generating a profit.

Zero Plastics Australia transforms old milk lids into new products to divert them from landfill, while also operating programs to educate students on the impact of plastic on the natural environment.  

With a science background, the work of repurposing milk lids was fairly straightforward for Adam. Operating a business, however, was new territory. After learning about Runway’s ‘Get READY, Get SET, GROW’, Adam signed up.

“I’ve learned so much from the program and it’s changed my approach to a number of things,” he said.

Runway Managing Director Linda Wong said the ‘Get READY, Get SET, GROW’ program was specifically designed to support existing businesses to explore opportunities for growth and improvement.

“It not only provides a theoretical learning opportunity, but also the cohort itself comes together and shares their experiences and supports each other, because they’re all in that same boat,” she says.

The program is delivered over three stages, with each stage building on the outcomes of the previous stage.

The City of Ballarat Strategic Partnership Grant Program provides funding to organisations or businesses to deliver initiatives that meet Council’s strategic objectives outlined in the Council Plan, Health and Wellbeing Plan and other relevant plans and strategies that have been endorsed by Council.

The Strategic Grant Program is not designed to provide funding to partners beyond the life of the funding agreement. As such, the City of Ballarat’s strategic partnership with Runway has now ended.  

For more information about the City of Ballarat’s Strategic Grant Program, see the Strategic Grant Program guidelines. To learn more about Runway’s program, visit the Runway website.  

To read more about the City of Ballarat’s Strategic Partnership with Runway, read the full article in the spring edition of ourballarat.