What No One Tells You about Justine Colyer

Securing financial support for the Engaging Young Leaders on Aged Care and Community Boards has proved to be both an act of resilience and an act of pure joy.  I recently had the great privilege to experience an act of joy.

This happened when Justine Colyer contacted me to ask how she could provide financial support to the program.  I was surprised as The RISE Network has been a Community Partner of the program since 2014 and Justine has been an advocate and contributor every year.

I misunderstood what Justine was asking – what she wanted to know was how she could personally make a financial contribution to the program.  Justine wanted to know how she could “Pay Forward” to others.  How she could use workplace giving to make a direct contribution from her own salary.  

Over the course of our conversation I started to understand what drives Justine to be so generous. She explained that in her leadership journey she had been given a number of opportunities. This meant she now had the capacity to give back financially to a cause that aligned with her own values.

In exploring what her values are, it was easy to see that Justine firmly believes

• If you have the capacity to do something you also have the responsibility
• When you invest in human potential you are investing in our community
• Young people have a lot more to offer than just IT knowledge and it is imperative that you support, encourage and mentor them so they can step up.
• Leadership is about having clarity about who you are competing with. It is not about competing against another person or organisation…it is about competing to ensure that the community sector can step up to the enormous challenges we face – the big issues of homelessness, mental health, disability and aged care to name a few  
• There is a lot of room on top of the mountain – you have to help others get to the top
• When you help others you grow and you develop

What was also crystal clear from my conversation with Justine are her core strengths of optimism, zest, curiosity, commitment to social justice and her humility.

So what is it that no one tells you about Justine Colyer? It is that she didn’t want me to write this with her name in it. She wanted to do her workplace giving anonymously. I encouraged her to let me share her workplace giving so that others might follow in her footsteps.

Workplace giving is where you make a regular donation from your pre-tax pay to a charity. It’s a simple and effective way to make the world a better place, you too could help sponsor a young person to receive a scholarship for a place of the Emerging Leaders in Governance Program.

Like Justine, you too could be a difference maker! 

For more details contact me at nicky.h@southcare.org.au or 9480 6233