Early in the Covid-19 crisis, the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) announced its commitment to supporting its existing Partners (grantees) to survive and thrive through the shocks they may be experiencing as a result of the pandemic. PRF established an internal Taskforce, Sustaining our Partners, to lead this effort.

The project

SVA Consulting was engaged to provide expert advisory support to the Taskforce and individual Partners to better understand the immediate financial and operational impacts of Covid-19 as well as any potential new opportunities to increase their impact. As a result PRF has been able to provide timely and targeted support to a selection of Partners to enable them to continue to deliver the impact they are focused on.

The SVA team supported the Taskforce in its work with Partners, both tactically, to address the immediate needs driven by Covid-19 as well as strategically, to enable Partners to adapt and thrive in the changed external environment brought on by the health and economic impacts of the pandemic.

The objective

To support PRF’s Partners to survive and thrive through the crisis to ensure they continue to be able to deliver the impact they are focused on for people and communities experiencing disadvantage across Australia.

The role we played

PRF, through the Sustaining our Partners Taskforce, engaged us to provide specialist targeted support to Partners experiencing financial and operational vulnerability as a result of Covid-19 as well as those Partners who might be well-positioned to take advantage of a specific strategy opportunity to increase impact as a result of the pandemic.

To do this, the SVA team, together with key PRF staff:

  • Conducted high level financial due diligence across a large number of potentially vulnerable Partners to identify who might be at immediate financial risk due to Covid-19 and to provide supports to those in need
  • Worked intensively with a small number of Partners to understand the potential ongoing impact of Covid-19 on their work, to identify the supports they need to continue their work, including the provision of direct advisory support where valuable
  • Project managed the Taskforce’s work including assessing Partner needs, identifying and developing appropriate supports in partnership with Partners and other key internal and external stakeholders
  • Assisted PRF to identify learnings from the Taskforce’s work which will be embedded in the Foundation’s processes going forward as well as to share with the social sector more broadly.

Project impact

The immediate impact of the Taskforce’s work ensured that all Partners sustained through the immediate Covid-19 crisis with a small number of partners being supported through both financial and other business advisory efforts. A number of other partners working in health and medical research were supported through grant extensions to ensure they were able to deliver the targeted research outcomes despite the disruption that Covid-19 has brought to their work. Some partners were supported to capture strategic opportunities to influence government policy created as a result of Covid-19.