a new strategic approach to Volunteering - COMMUNITY HOUSING LIMITED
SOcial Impact Advisory & Strategy • FACILITATION
The Challenge
Community Housing Limited (CHL) is one of Australia’s largest not-for-profit housing providers, managing tens of thousands of properties nationwide. In 2024, as the organisation refreshed its Strategic Plan – Putting People First, CHL identified a gap in how it supported and measured volunteering - across staff, tenants, and potential corporate partners
Volunteering was happening informally, yet without consistent governance, measurement, or shared language. The organisation wanted to move from ad-hoc goodwill to a structured, ethical and measurable volunteering model that could enhance employee engagement, strengthen tenant wellbeing and attract new corporate relationships.
The Task
Amplifier Collective was engaged to design CHL’s first Volunteering Strategy, including its principles, framework, and action plan - a piece of social impact infrastructure to embed volunteering as a strategic tool for community development and organisational culture.
Our Approach
Building from a co-design proposal in late 2024, Amplifier worked closely with CHL’s executive, policy and social impact teams through early 2025 to:
Map internal drivers and readiness - including alignment with CHL’s Social Impact Framework and the National Standards for Volunteer Involvement.
Engage teams and leadership through workshops exploring the value, risks, and opportunities across three focus areas:
Employee volunteering (supporting staff to contribute time and skills),
Client volunteering (creating safe and empowering pathways for tenants), and
Corporate volunteering (partnerships with business and industry).
Review national and state policy ecosystems, identifying opportunities to align with the National Strategy for Volunteering 2023–2033 and emerging ESG reporting standards for the community housing sector
Co-design a framework and action plan, detailing governance, risk, measurement, and communication mechanisms.
The Result
The completed CHL Volunteering Strategy now provides:
A national framework to become a recognised Volunteer-Involving Organisation (VIO).
Eight guiding principles based on the Volunteering Australia National Standards.
A clear three-stream structure (employee, client, and corporate volunteering) each with actionable steps, responsible teams, and resourcing guidance.
Integrated action plans linking volunteering to CHL’s four strategic pillars - from improving customer wellbeing to broadening influence through partnerships and advocacy
A practical phased implementation model, including data collection, pilot programs and evaluation measures.
The work establishes volunteering as a measurable dimension of CHL’s social impact performance, connecting internal culture, tenant wellbeing and external collaboration.