Every single dollar donated through our Voice campaign landing page went directly to supporting local community groups on the ground.
You're invited to join us to celebrate the contributions our community made to this campaign, and to hear from some of the beautiful community groups we supported.
Read on below to see a snapshot of what your donations made possible.
Across the country, we provided grant funding to support over a dozen Indigenous-led organisations to host community forums, marches, stalls, print flyers, host yarning circles, corroborees, and barbecues.
Many of these activities happened alongside major sport and cultural events, and focused on explaining to Indigenous and non-indigenous people alike why the referendum matters and how and where they could vote.
Up on the Gold Coast, the local group we supported organised a launch event with Thomas Mayo and Kerry O’Brien, attended by 250 people.
Off the back of this, they ran a door knocking campaign that knocked on more than 7,600 doors, and had 1,500 persuasive conversations.
I joined them for some of these sunny doorknocking days on the weekends, and was blown away by the energy, positivity and commitment of the volunteers.
Curtin for Yes recruited almost 700 volunteers. To date, the group has worked on exactly 100 campaign events – including door knocking outings, training and large scale town-hall style events.
Independent MP, Kate Chaney, said “The Curtin for Yes campaign has surfaced an amazing group of compassionate, engaged people in our community who believe we can do better as a country.”
Kate told us about one volunteer, John, who is 78 years old and ‘quietly told us that he would take care of his suburb of Daglish. He then proceeded to doorknock every house in Daglish, showing what a difference every person can make in their own community.’
In the small seaside town of Yamba, Clarence says Yes led an amazingly energetic group effort, distributing over 15,000 flyers to letter boxes, and organising at least a dozen events.
Between recruiting volunteers, hosting farmers’ market stalls with T-shirt and sign painting, and distributing flyers, they led a huge ‘Walk for Yes’ march and formed a giant ‘YES’ near their iconic lighthouse.
‘People just loved it,’ said the group organiser, Barbara, ‘It clearly gave them hope and energy. Thanks to your contributions, everyone had a really uplifting event. It was everything we hoped for.’
Down in regional Victoria, Warrnambool for Yes launched their campaign with a Yarn at Uncle Lenny Clarke's community in Framlingham – a former mission, now Aboriginal community.
They knocked on almost a thousand doors, held six Saturday morning street stalls, organised a ‘Walk for Yes’ with 300 locals and a concert for 650.
With 135 volunteers helping on polling day, they’re covering 18 polling booths across the conservative electorate on Saturday.
Bass for Yes in northern Tasmania letterboxed the whole of Launceston, knocked on almost 2,000 doors, and put up signs across the 200 km wide electorate. The group’s meeting room is a hub, a place where people regularly drop by to pick up a T-shirt or flyer.
Thanks also to the extra support we provided, the group was about to take the campaign to Flinders Island; a significant place for the Palawa people of Tasmania, with a 17% Aboriginal population.
The group co-leader Janine said this campaign ‘really brought us together as a community. Our group is made up of people from all different political parties, all working together.’
Yeehaw, a group in Canberra that formed 18 months ago to learn collectively about First Nations wisdom through literature and speakers, turned into an action group committed to helping the referendum.
Our support helped them scale up their calling parties, where people would gather at someone’s house and hit the phones. They hosted events with special speakers around town, grew and organised large groups of volunteers for polling booths.
Yeehaw founder, Michael, shared some of what he has learned over this 18 month journey, and reflected on what we can do after the referendum.
‘We have people in our group who are activated now, who care about this. Everyone who has put effort into [the referendum campaign] to get the constitution changed – we can keep going. Culture matters and we need to keep working on culture. Politics will follow.’
‘What I’ve learned from First Nations wisdom,’ he said, ‘is the importance of connecting to your place and expanding your circle of responsibility. This is what we’ve been inspired to do through reading The Dreaming Path.’
‘That means connecting with the local community, building relationships, connecting with nature and country – that creates that affection so that we stop consuming to the point of destroying our habitat. That’s powerful for the climate and the environment, and it’s powerful for politics.’
‘As Aboriginal speakers have taught us: the stories come from the land, the land hasn’t stopped speaking, we just stopped listening.’
To celebrate the contribution our community made to this campaign, and to hear from some of the beautiful community groups we supported, please join us for an online debrief event on Monday 30 October. Register here.
Kind regards,
Byron Fay
Byron is a climate strategist, former Paris Agreement negotiator and adviser to the Independent Senator Tim Storer. Byron worked for a Biden-aligned Political Action Committee during the 2020 US presidential election, holds a Masters of Public Policy from the University of Oxford, and is a proud descendant of the Dharug nation.