The Lutheran Care team has approached their work with vulnerable South Australians with an extra spring in their step this month, following their hard work and impact on the community being recognised with a prestigious state award earlier this month.

Lutheran Care is the 2024 Not for Profit of the Year, as announced at the SA Premier’s Business and Export Awards in October.

The award acknowledges the invaluable contributions of an organisation driven by a mission to create positive social impact and effect change.

Lutheran Care was selected as the winner from a worthy list of respected finalists in this category, including Variety the Children’s Charity SA, Eldercare Australia Ltd, and Workskill Australia.

Lutheran Care Chief Executive Rohan Feegrade thanked the Honourable Peter Malinauskas, Premier of South Australia, Chief Executive Andrew Kay, and the South Australian Business Chamber for this recognition, as well as Star Discount Pharmacy for sponsoring the award.

“Since 1969, Lutheran Care has proudly served South Australians,” Mr Feegrade said.

“We have grown from humble beginnings to a multifaceted organisation supporting people across homelessness, foster care, family and domestic violence programs, financial wellbeing, and more.”

Recognised for our highly responsive and innovative solution-based approaches to address the growing call for human services and support, Lutheran Care has expanded scope to offer comprehensive support services and more rounded assistance to clients to address immediate needs and build pathways to long-term stability and growth.

“Our mission is not just about offering immediate relief but also long-term hope,” Mr Feegrade said, “we look for out of the box solutions that can have a bigger impact on communities and challenging social issues.”

“At our Leadership table, we often remind ourselves: ‘Growth doesn’t come from playing it safe; it comes from being brave enough to imagine something better and bold enough to make it happen. That ethos captures our organisation’s remarkable growth over the past five years.”

While a portion of Lutheran Care programs receive government funding others such as Emergency Relief and Crisis Support, rely on philanthropic and material donations, funds raised through Op Shops, and reinvestment from Lutheran Care’s fee for service revenue, to keep them afloat.

Mr Feegrade added, “We’ve had to continue being innovative and forward thinking in the sector to find ways to keep up with the need within communities and have done this by diversifying revenue streams. Allowing us to reinvest into overburdened crisis programs, offer pro bono specialist services and quadruple our impact.”

With this the second year in a row Lutheran Care has been a finalist in these awards, Lutheran Care’s nomination this year won recognition from the judges for initiatives such as:

• Lutheran Care’s Chief Executive Officer Rohan Feegrade assembling experienced leaders from family services and foster care agencies to form a Leadership Coalition, which is advocating to government for systemic change and greater funding to strengthen families first and address an exhausted and overcrowded SA child protection system.
• Following a decline across South Australia in Foster Carer availability, Lutheran Care created the uplifting and innovative ‘Be the Village’ recruitment campaign. This was co-designed with our foster carers to inspire and encourage more people to join ‘The Village.’ The three-part ad campaign reached milestones never experienced, including a 3.5 million audience, and inspired more than 200 enquiries.
• As the lead agency in the sector changing Toward Home Alliance homelessness response, Lutheran Care continues to develop high-quality practice across our homelessness programs. In the last year we introduced a Barossa Homelessness Pilot and a Homeless Support Pilot – a pinnacle new initiative to support 845 households sitting on waitlists with further engagement and wellbeing strategies.
• Through Lutheran Care’s Op Shops, sustainability and donations are further maximised, with upcycled textiles made into tote bags and quilts, and lower-quality cottons sold as rags.
• Lutheran Care allocating a percentage of funds from various sources, including fee for service profits and donations for disadvantaged families and individuals to access legal, medical, or other professional services, such as speech pathology free of charge.

“This is a very exciting time for Lutheran Care, as we were also a finalist in the Australian Marketing Institute’s Marketing Excellence Awards for our Be the Village Foster Carer recruitment campaign,” Mr Feegrade said.

“Lutheran Care is an organisation that prides itself on its values-based culture and we are often acknowledged as an employer of choice.

“We tend to focus on the work we do rather than accolades, however it is nice to be acknowledged, and we hope this recognition may help increase awareness of what we do so the families who need help reach out and connect with us.

“We are also so appreciative of our supporters, donors, partners, and collaborations with sector colleagues for the valuable role they play in supporting us to support others.

“Service agencies continue to work tirelessly, and more collaboratively with sector partners than ever before, to maximise impact and the growing need in community.

“This award is not just about Lutheran Care. It reflects the passion and commitment of our team, volunteers, board, and supporters who make this work possible. It is also about the individuals and families we serve—this is for you.”

More than 185 businesses entered this year’s awards, submitting 316 nominations across 26 categories.