Community and Engagement masterclass with belinda gibbons of UOW

The Leadership Illawarra Program is proud to have University of Wollongong Sydney Business School as one of our partners (along with The Illawarra Connection and Regional Development Australia – Illawarra), and one of the numerous benefits of this partnership is access to the University’s teaching resources. There are three UOW Masterclasses over the two-year course of the LIP and Saturday marked the final of these for the 2018-20 LIP: ‘Community and Engagement’ with Belinda Gibbons (the other two are ‘Governance’ and ‘Leadership’ – both of which are eligible for credit points towards a future MBA at UOW).

As is customary at the moment, we congregated on Zoom (special mention here to Belinda and the UOW team for the seamless delivery across multiple platforms throughout the session, including Google Jamboard and Mentimeter).
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This was an interactive, discursive class focused on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – how they align with our personal values, our organisation’s values, how the two intersect and the challenges that exist in implementing them.

​On the subject of Engagement we were encouraged to think about the ‘who, what and how’ we engage in our organisations, how different organisations decide on their individual engagement strategies and most difficult to answer of all: ‘Is it enough?’

The subject of philanthropy and corporate giving was discussed, and it was fascinating to hear about this subject from the point of view of both the donor (represented by our corporate LIP members) and the recipient (our NFP members). Having established that it’s not straightforward or simply ‘transactional’, it led to a discussion on the importance of value-alignment in these relationships, and the multifarious benefits of ‘giving’ to all parties (whether that be cash or voluntary hours).

Grateful thanks to Belinda and the team at UOW who made this masterclass possible, and if you want to cheer yourself up about the state of the world, click here and complete the short questionnaire – you will surprise yourself!

​Posted by Beth

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