Welcome Dinners connect newly arrived people with established residents through meaningful meals in local homes. The Welcome Dinner Project takes a personal approach, inviting people of all cultural backgrounds to share their food and their stories in a space of love, respect and listening, so that they feel valued, discover their connection to the broader community and are animated to take action from that space. Welcome Dinners are a crowd-sourced activity in intercultural learning, utilising readily available community resources to remind people of our common humanity and ignite a movement for lasting positive change.
The Welcome Dinner Project now operates in every State and Territory of Australia and the number of events delivered has grown each year since the inception of the Project in 2013. Each State has its own Coordination team and volunteers who plan and facilitate Welcome Dinners and other events for that State.
The Founder of the Welcome Dinner Project, Penny Elsley, has operated as the National Coordinator since its inception in 2013. The growth of the Welcome Dinner Project in recent years has lead to the creation of this exciting new role to take the Project into its next phase.
The National Manager will be responsible for HR, finance, strategy, OHS, collaborative partnerships, team building, national meetings and retreats, mentoring, communications, legal and compliance reporting – all at a national level. The National Manager will also be available for media and communications events and other opportunities to continue to share the story of the growing movement and our message of welcome and inclusion, as well as garnering further support for our resourcing needs.
The National Manager will work with the Board of Directors, as well as the State Coordinators to ensure the vision and purpose of the Welcome Dinner Project is being continually brought to life, while nurturing the cohesion and generative nature of the movement nationally.
This role will commence initially on a volunteer basis and transition to a paid role once funding is secured. One of the most critical responsibilities of this role is to work closely with the newly established Welcome Dinner Project Funding Team to develop and implement a national funding strategy for the Project to ensure its sustainability.
We’re looking for a passionate, self-motivated, socially aware person who’s ready to support an incredible team of dedicated staff and volunteers who are already making a huge impact in their communities. Outstanding collaboration, communication and coordination skills are essential to this role, as well as the agility and creativity to discern and embrace emerging possibilities. We connect digitally, therefore this role can be performed from any capital city in Australia. We are also open to this role being fulfilled as a job-share or small team. This role is part-time and will require on average 2.5 days per week in total which can be worked flexibly across different days, taking into account that evening meetings and weekend events will be required regularly.