Inclusive governance is not a program we run. It is a practice we build decision by decision, from front line services to the board room.
If nothing changes, nothing changes
For a sector built on the premise of dignity and self-determination for people with disability, our own leadership tables still look remarkably homogenous. Boards, executive teams and CEO offices across the NFP sector largely remain spaces where lived experience of disability is talked about rather than represented within. Inclusive governance is how we solve this gap.
When a board or executive is discussing supported independent living or complex supports, the presence of people with lived experience of disability changes the questions that are asked, the assumptions that get tested, and the options that are considered. Advisory input is valuable and we rely on it heavily, but it is not the same as harnessing lived experience in decision making authority.
The gap remains at the executive and board level where strategy is set, resources are allocated, and hiring decisions are made. Until people with disability are routinely appointed as CEOs, senior executives and non-executive directors based on their expertise and on equal terms, the sector will continue to ask people with lived experience to inform decisions rather than make them.
Achieve delivers complex services with ease and dignity that are always centred on the lives of the people we support. This emphasis has not happened by accident. It is built on decades of listening, and investment in evidence-based programs like our Disability Employment Catalyst, My Life My Say, Quality Champions, and our partnership with IHA. Each of these initiatives exists because we identified a systemic barrier to genuine inclusion and decided to remove it rather than manage it.
We’ve applied the same logic to prioritising inclusive governance now.
What does inclusive governance mean?
At Achieve, we think it means four things:
1. Paid roles, not volunteered insight. Lived experience is valuable expertise, so it should be compensated as such.
2. Role design based on inclusive access. This includes adapting hours, meeting formats, communication processes, travel expectations, and how decisions are made.
3. Governance structures that hold the organisation accountable to representation over time, not one-off appointments.
4. Senior executives that are willing to actively change their thinking to truly harness the potential of inclusive governance.
Partnering with the Disability Leadership Institute
Achieve has gained so much from our collaboration with the Disability Leadership Institute Executive Internship Program, who are celebrating their 10th anniversary.
This program is not a shadowing exercise or a work experience placement – it is a paid internship for a high potential leader with disability to take on real CEO or executive work inside some of Australia's largest organisations. Finn and I recently spoke to the NFP CEO podcast to share more about this incredible program (listen here).
The Executive Internship Program aligns with how Achieve already approaches systemic change. Rather than asking leaders with disability to prove themselves through a traditional pipeline with systemic barriers, the program places them directly into the executive environment and asks the organisation to adapt. The learning runs both ways, and adaptation is the point.
Engaging Finn O'Branagáin as our Intern CEO over sixteen weeks has sharpened how we think about policy, strategy and organisational culture. Finn is an accomplished playwright and the current CEO of Outloud, a Western Sydney arts organisation that amplifies young people's voices through creative practice. She has brought a combination of creative leadership, executive experience and lived experience that has offered so many invaluable and thought provoking insights. This is precisely what inclusive governance is supposed to do.
Practical changes that organisations can make now
CEOs and senior executives can adopt inclusive governance practices by:
assessing executive and board recruitment to identify barriers to attracting people with disabilities
understanding the limitations of executive roles: are meetings, working hours and travel expectations built around one kind of body and one kind of work week?
remunerating inclusive executive roles at market executive rates
investing in evidence-based programs that remove systemic barriers rather than manage them: Achieve's Disability Employment Catalyst, My Life My Say and Quality Champions programs each started this way
talking to the Disability Leadership Institute: even if you are not ready to host an Intern CEO, the conversation will change how you think about your executive pipeline
asking the people with disability already inside your organisation what needs to change to see themselves in your executive team, and then act on what they tell you.
If not now, when?
The founding families of Achieve did not wait for the system to catch up to their values and aspirations in 1952. We are not waiting now.
I’d encourage every NFP CEO to look closely at their own leadership tables and ask whether they are built for the sector we are becoming, or the one we are leaving behind.