Our Partners

Why become a Ganbina partner?

We rely on support from the philanthropic and corporate sectors to operate our program.

We are incredibly grateful for the support of our partners, both past and present, which allows us to fulfil our mission and vision of true and lasting socio-economic change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ganbina has a great track record, and as a result, people believe in Ganbina and they want to be part of what Ganbina does.
Leonard Vary
CEO, Sidney Myer Fund

Corporate, philanthropic and community partners

Ganbina is an independent registered charity that relies on funding from the corporate and philanthropic sectors and individual donors to carry out its work. More than 80% of organisations and people supporting Ganbina renew their initial partnerships with us more than once.

Advance Your Business
Annie & John Paterson Foundation
ANZ Bank
A & L Phillips Foundation
Australian Communities Foundation
Australian Philanthropic Services
Allenby Foundation Pty Ltd
Bank of Melbourne
Bowden Marstan Foundation
Colonial Foundation
CGU / IAG Insurance
Envato Foundation
Ganbina ticks all those boxes and is really hitting the mark in terms of making positive, lasting change.
Vedran Drakulic
Chief Executive Officer, Gandel Foundation

Education partners

Ganbina works closely with all primary and secondary schools in the Goulburn Valley region and several universities and further education providers in both regional and metropolitan areas.

Ardmona Primary School
Bourchier Street Primary School
Congupna Primary School
Gowrie Street Primary School
Grahamvale Primary School
Guthrie Street Primary School
Kialla Central Primary School
Kialla West Primary School
Kyabram P-12 College
Lemnos Primary School
Mooroopna North Primary School
Mooroopna Park Primary School
The Ganbina staff also support students by providing information about work experience, traineeships, and part-time employment.
Ken Murray
Former Principal, Wanganui Park Secondary College

Employment partners

Many businesses in the Goulburn Valley region and Melbourne are long-term partners with Ganbina. These businesses provide work experience for Ganbina participants who are still at school through industry tours, professional networking opportunities, and jobs.

ANZ Bank
Aquamoves
Autobarn
Bakers Delight
Bunnings Warehouse
CatholicCare Sandhurst
Charcoal Chicken
Coles Supermarkets
Commonwealth Bank
Davies Quality Cabinets
Delahey Builders
Fryers Food Store
It’s great to help young Indigenous people get off to a great start in their careers.
Paul Trewan
Manager, Officeworks Shepparton

Partner FAQs

Ganbina is unique in Australia in that it engages with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth throughout their crucial development years, from primary school through to secondary school, to tertiary or jobs training and into sustainable employment and career paths.

This holistic approach ensures that our children and youth receive consistent and long-term support from the age of 5-25-years-old. Our support ends at 25-years-old because this marks the end of adolescence and the completing of the education, employment and training life cycle each Australian child goes through.

Most importantly, Ganbina has one single purpose in mind – to help our children and youth realise their full potential – and we never waiver from that purpose. Everything we do, from our strategic planning, to our program development, to our day-to-day activities, is aligned to that purpose.

While we 100 per cent believe in what we do and our approach, we ensure to continuously evaluate the results and impact of our program by regularly commissioning independent, third-party evaluation reports. In fact, in a 2018 study by the Centre for Independent Studies found that Ganbina was one of only three Aboriginal programs that were conducting high quality evaluation out of 1082 Indigenous programs reviewed.

High quality and regular evaluation has allowed us to understand what is and is not working in our program and if need be, we have refined and adjusted our program over more than 25 years, to reach a point where we now have the most successful Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school-to-work-transition program in the country.

You can read our evaluations in full here.

Programs targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities typically lack long-term, stable support due to changing government priorities. The cyclical nature of funding tied to election cycles often disrupts continuity, making it harder to achieve sustained impact. This inconsistency can worsen intergenerational disadvantage, especially when programs lose momentum or abruptly end.

Ganbina’s Jobs4U2 program is committed to long-term, sustainable change by focusing on education and career development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth. By investing in two generations over a 50-year period, the initiative aims to break the cycle of disadvantage by creating a cultural shift where completing Year 12 and pursuing further education or careers becomes the norm. This approach not only addresses immediate needs but also fosters a generational impact, ensuring lasting change for future communities.

The program was founded in Shepparton, which is home to the largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Victoria outside of metropolitan Melbourne. It is estimated that one in 10 Shepparton residents are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

In the late 1990s until the early 2000s when Ganbina was founded, it was estimated that 8 in 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Shepparton were unemployed. Therefore there was a great community need for a program like this.

Ganbina then made a 50 year commitment to the Shepparton Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, which we are still in the process of fulfilling to this day.

However, once we realised the program was successful, we knew we did not want to keep this model to ourselves. Instead we wish to share our model with other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that can benefit from our model for their own children and youth.

In 2018 we started an Expansion Program in Queensland and aim to have several Jobs4U2 model operating across the country. You can read more about our Expansion Project here.

On average 88.7% of Ganbina's participants graduate Year 12

Get involved