CASE STUDY
Establishing a mental-health-informed cultural programme at state scale.
Client: A national theatre & performing arts company with a 50+ year institutional history.
Region: Western Australia
Date of completion: October 2022
Services:
Commercial & strategic partnerships
• Partnership strategy development
• Market & ecosystem mapping
• Brand & cultural fit assessment
Events & experiential design
• Programme & workshop design strategy
Philanthropy & cultural investment
• Philanthropic & government funding strategy
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$260k AUD secured
to deliver a first-of-its-kind, 18-month mental health-informed cultural program statewide.
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Multistakeholder orchestration
across organisational leadership, state government, NGOs, research partners, and community groups.
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1,600+ participants
across metropolitan, regional, and remote Western Australia.
THE OPPORTUNITY
To translate a decade of arts education delivery into a fundable, evidence-backed wellbeing programme aligned with newly shifting government and NGO funding priorities.
For over ten years, the organisation had delivered large-scale arts education workshops for young people across Western Australia, reaching diverse communities through singing, performance, technical theatre, and creative expression. While the programmes were creatively strong and operationally mature, they had not previously been designed or positioned through a mental health or social-emotional wellbeing lens.
At the same time, state government and major NGOs were pivoting funding priorities toward preventative mental health and community wellbeing outcomes for children and young people. Without a clear evidence framework or assessable mental health rigour, the organisation risked being structurally misaligned with the very funding streams now critical to sustaining and scaling its impact.
The underlying constraint was this: the work could not proceed without external funding. Securing it required credibility across three fronts simultaneously: alignment with public mental health priorities, confidence from major funders, and internal capability to deliver programs responsibly at scale.
CONTEXT OF BUSINESS & CONDITIONS
50+ year legacy arts institution with national standing.
10 years of continuous arts education programmes.
Delivery footprint across Perth, regional centres, and remote communities.
First time engaging child psychology researchers to inform programme design.
First instance of formal mental-health-aligned funding applications at this scale.
The challenge was not in creating new programmes, but translating existing cultural value into a language funders, policymakers, and communities could trust.
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Before intervention
Arts workshops delivered with creative excellence, but without formal mental health frameworks or funder-ready evidence.
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After intervention
A state-scale, evidence-informed cultural programme designed to meet mental health funding criteria and deliver measurable wellbeing outcomes.
THE INTERVENTION
Structured and secure funding pathways, negotiating with state government bodies, and authoring the grant and partnership proposals required to unlock multi-year funding.
Aligned programme design to funder logic, ensuring credibility across public health priorities, cultural mandates, and community outcomes.
Designed mental health frameworks in consultation with a leading child psychology research institute, creating assessable structure across all workshops and ensuring alignment with recognised wellbeing standards.
Built internal delivery capability, embedding mental health training for teaching artists and practitioners, many of whom were casually engaged performers.
Mapped community need and access, identifying low-ICSEA regions and shaping pricing, subsidy, and rollout strategy across metropolitan, regional, and remote WA.
Established the programme as an 18-month pilot, with governance and feedback mechanisms designed to strengthen, iterate, and scale the model beyond the initial funding period.
THE IMPACT
$260k AUD secured as an initial funding pool to pilot the programme for 18 months, establishing a validated funding structure that directly informed subsequent reinvestment and renewal negotiations. The programme became the strategic foundation for all future arts education funding and partnership activity.
The organisation repositioned its arts education function as a credible contributor to public mental health and social wellbeing outcomes, aligning its work with emerging state and NGO funding priorities and strengthening its legitimacy with funders and policymakers.
Leadership gained a clear, shared framework for decision-making, enabling more confident choices around programme design, access and subsidy models, regional prioritisation, and the balance between creative ambition and duty-of-care obligations.
Delivery risk was materially reduced through the integration of evidence-backed mental health frameworks and practitioner training, increasing funder confidence and supporting the safe scaling of programmes involving children and young people across diverse communities.
New internal standards were established that outlived the pilot itself, shaping how future programs are designed, evidenced, funded, and governed well beyond the 18-month period.
NOTE
This case study reflects work that Principal & Founder Rachel O’Brien led in embedded strategic roles and demonstrates the approach now offered through this consultancy.
When cultural organisations can evidence social and economic impact with the same rigour as creative excellence, funding opportunities abound.
Ready to translate cultural value into scalable community impact?
Let’s create great work together.