The Wyatt Trust

Home
Australia
Adelaide, SA
The Wyatt Trust

Directions Website Contact the organization

Established in 1886 through the Will of Dr William Wyatt, The Wyatt Trust is a leading philanthropic foundation challenging inequality and eradicating poverty.

We operate on Kaurna land, acknowledging that this land was never ceded.

28/10/2026

Sheena Tapping from Wyatt Financial Wellbeing Grant Partner UCare Gawler has worked with hundreds of people experiencing hardship over the last 17 years. One of the biggest things she’s learned is that financial wellbeing is not just about income and expenses.

“If we as financial counsellors don’t give people the credit they deserve, and if we start jumping in with all the things we think they should be doing, that doesn’t let people unpack everything that’s going on for them,” Sheena explains.

“There’s a lot of trauma and a lot of healing, and you have to build trust and allow people the time and space to reflect on what’s important to them and their families.”

UCare Gawler uses a combination of direct assistance, advocacy, education, referral pathways, No Interest Loans and more, to help individuals and families experiencing financial hardship, housing insecurity and food insecurity. Financial counsellors provide intensive and tailored support that addresses immediate crises while helping clients build long-term financial resilience.

⭐ Read the full story: https://www.wyatt.org.au/what-we-do/stories/financial-wellbeing-beyond-income-and-expenses-ucare-gawler/

20/10/2026

“Trauma doesn’t go in a straight line – it’s like a cyclone that goes here, there and everywhere,” explains Emma, a Linker Peer Worker at Zahra Foundation Australia.

The Linker Service works with women over 50 and sole parents and carers of children experiencing financial hardship to develop their personal networks of support. Wyatt has backed the Linker Service with five years of funding at $1.2 million per year.

Linkers’ support clients and families to connect into and navigate the service system, being a stable presence during times of uncertainty. Each Linker is based within one of five service delivery partners. Together with Wyatt the organisations work as a network, to share learnings, tackle challenges and develop client-centred practice.

In the second year of service delivery, Linkers worked with 262 clients (up from 129 clients the year before).

“The most rewarding thing is seeing the change in the women we work with,” Emma says. “I know from my own lived experience how hard it is some days just to get out of bed and attend appointments.

“I’d like to see other organisations come together and create their own Linker Network based on what we’ve done, and for it to expand to have more partner agencies with more Linkers and Peers to support more women and parents and single parents or carers.”

Thank you to all our Linker Partners for another year of impact. ac.care I Centacare Catholic Country SA I KWY I Zahra Foundation Australia I UnitingCare Wesley Bowden - UCWB

Read the Linker Service at The Zahra Foundation case study here:https://www.wyatt.org.au/media/website_posts/196/Linker-Zahra-Foundation-Case-Study_August-2026.pdf

Read more about the Linker Service in our 2026 Impact Report:https://www.wyatt.org.au/media/website_posts/200/Wyatt_Impact-Report_2026_FINAL.pdf

01/10/2026

As a funder that is one small part of a much wider change ecosystem, we know we can’t just fund responses – we must be prepared to fund the conditions for change.

We've learnt that sustainable change requires a carefully calibrated set of conditions that include having relational-based holistic approaches and trauma-informed practices. If we slip into a mindset of simplistically identifying a ‘problem’ and a ‘solution’, any resulting change will be short-term at best.

Being prepared to consider th
e wider context and then being willing to fund the conditions that can enable change is the starting point.

💡 This is one of the things we've learned this year. You can read about the other five, including accepting the many forms of failure, in our 2026 Impact Report:https://www.wyatt.org.au/media/website_posts/200/Wyatt_Impact-Report_2026_FINAL.pdf

Thank you to our partners and peers, our Lived and Living Experience colleagues and everyone who helped us learn and create impact this year.

25/08/2026

“One thing that hit home to me is that poverty is not just about the lack of money or the fact I am now struggling to eat. It's about the systems and structures that keep people down, and the attitude of society. How many people would employ a transgender person? That discrimination is there. How many people, for that matter, would employ a 58-year-old male in a wheelchair (me)?" – Chris, Grassroots Campaigning School participant

With funding support from Wyatt’s Advocacy program, Anti-Poverty Network SA (APNSA) created a Grassroots Campaigning School that ran across three Adelaide locations for a period of nine months. The project was coordinated by APNSA Campaign Co-Coordinators, Samantha Skinner and Pas Forgione, and delivered collectively by a team of facilitators and assistants.

“Our goal with the Grassroots Campaigning School was to provide 25 people with Lived Experience of poverty with education and training and help them stay connected and engaged with each other, so that they in turn will be able to pass on their knowledge and skills to others with lived experience of poverty in their communities,” explains Pas.

Each month participants met to learn about the structural causes of poverty and the housing crisis, develop campaign tools and practice skills such as how to do media interviews or speak with members of parliament and their community. Participants included young people on Job Seeker and Youth Allowance, sole parents, middle-aged people on the disability pension and more.

Read the full story:
https://www.wyatt.org.au/what-we-do/stories/the-grassroots-campaigning-school/

13/08/2026

A few months ago, at the request of our partners, Wyatt convened a combined workshop that brought together different programs, frontline practitioners and their managers in a single forum.

The aim of the day was to enable sharing of dual perspectives and experiences from within, and across, partner organisations in Financial Wellbeing and the Linker Network.

“Workshops like this are important because they bring people together from different organisations and perspectives who are all working towards similar outcomes,” says Simon Talanskas, Service Manager at Tiraapendi Wodli Justice Reinvestment.

“They create opportunities to build relationships, share resources, and learn about available training. It is easy to become focused on the day-to-day demands of your own role or organisation, so these events provide valuable opportunities to step outside your usual work bubble, learn from others, and consider new approaches.”

In acknowledgement of the time, preparation and expertise required to have two representatives attending from each partner organisation, Wyatt provided a participation payment to each organisation. Thank you to all our participants.

⭐ Read the full story: https://www.wyatt.org.au/what-we-do/stories/partner-led-collaboration-for-greater-impact/

12/08/2026

Wyatt is proud to support the Democracy Innovation Festival, presented by Adelaide University in partnership with Democracy 2036.

The two-day hybrid festival is designed to be free, inclusive, participatory, and action-oriented with a goal of initiating ongoing collaboration and democratic renewal in South Australia and beyond.

Taking place on 17-18 August, the Festival brings together leading Australian and international thinkers, policymakers, researchers, students, civic leaders, and community advocates to explore how democratic systems can be renewed to support healthier, more resilient, and more inclusive societies.

💡 View the Festival program and register here:
https://events.humanitix.com/democracy-innovation-festival-2026

30/07/2026

💡Help us prototype a new model of high-trust financial assistance for young people in regional South Australia.

The Wyatt Trust is seeking expressions of interest from interested regional programs to help strengthen the long-term stability of young people and households with children that are navigating transition, housing risk, financial hardship and complexity.

In the first year Wyatt will partner with a handful of regional partners, through which approximately 30 young people across South Australia will each receive a grant of $10,000. Young people will draw down on the grant and receive support along the way.

The EOI process is designed to be straightforward and respectful of time, taking between 10-20 minutes to complete.

🌟 Please share this opportunity with any regional South Australian programs that have strong relationships with young people and families that may be interested.

Read more and submit an EOI by Wednesday 12 August here:
https://wyatt.smartygrants.com.au/EOI-Youth

24/07/2026

"Philanthropy can pose questions that markets and governments find difficult to ask. There's no short-term election cycle to consider, no quarterly results, no shareholders wanting the future to look conveniently like the present."

As Wyatt's partnership with SA Futures Agency continues to explore what poverty could look like in 140 years' time, Stacey Thomas, Prof Ariella Helfgott and Stavroula Adameitis share their thoughts, hopes and success measures in this Q&A: https://www.wyatt.org.au/what-we-do/stories/branching-futures-looking-140-years-ahead/

"Flourishing is something we can only secure for each other. If a reader in 2166 finds that statement so obvious it’s barely worth acknowledging, then everything went right."

23/07/2026

‼️ Important information for anyone with a hidden phone or safety device, especially those who are experiencing domestic and family violence:

On Monday 27 July, phones, smart watches and tablets will receive a loud alert as part of the national test of the AusAlert system. In South Australia this is scheduled to take place at 1:30pm ACST.

Even if your phone is on silent or do not disturb, the alarm will still make a loud noise.

To disable the alert, devices will need to be in airplane mode or completely switched off for a period of time. See the safety steps at the AusAlert website: https://www.ausalert.gov.au/community-resources/staying-safe-ausalert

Help is available at 1800RESPECT:
📞 Call 1800 737 732
📱 Text 0458 737 732
💻 Visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au for online chat and video call services

06/07/2026

“Fifty Years of Deadly is a marker, not just of time passed, but of the momentum still building.” – NAIDOC

As we celebrate the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples this NAIDOC Week including today's announcement of the NAIDOC South Australia Awards, we also wanted to give a special shout out to Dr Jenni Caruso, an Eastern Arrente woman who was recently appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her service to Indigenous communities in South Australia.

Dr Jenni, whose personal experience is that of being a member of the Stolen Generations, has been a critical friend to The Wyatt Trust, researching the impact of our founder, Dr William Wyatt, an early colonial settler in Adelaide, on the lives of First Nations peoples. Her work continues to inform our truth-telling journey.

As NAIDOC Week reaches its 50th milestone, we look to the future and the next 50 years.

🖤 NAIDOC Week activities are happening across the state.
💛 Find details of SA events on the NAIDOC Week local events page: https://www.naidoc.org.au/local-events/local-naidoc-week-events
❤️ Learn more about NAIDOC SA: https://naidocsa.com.au/

Address

161 Frome Street
Adelaide, SA

Website

http://www.wyatt.org.au/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Wyatt Trust posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.