The Rally for Riverland Project was initiated by Riverland’s three regional councils in response to an identified need to take a more coordinated, unified and evidence-based approach to advocacy and related activities; and leverage an expanded network of stakeholders to effect change.

FRED worked with the regional councils and their strategic partners to develop an evidence-based Community Wellbeing Indicators Framework that established a means of understanding the wellbeing dimensions of the community. We then undertook extensive community and stakeholder engagement and secondary data collection to evidence community need – and documented findings in a comprehensive evidence report. This informed the development of the Rally for Riverland Strategy with articulates seven key priority areas for advocacy; provides a detailed and rich description of key issues and their possible impact on the community; articulates the community’s aspirations for each priority area; and suggests possible regional responses.

Both the Evidence Report and Rally for Riverland Strategy have provide Riverland Councils with an evidentiary backbone for the development of future business cases and funding submissions; and to support better service/program planning with robust, timely and holistic data.

FRED worked with our Elected Members, staff and stakeholders to develop a advocacy strategy based on an evidence report. A clear strength of the Fred consulting team is their ability to collect, analyse and present data in a meaningful way. Our project was regionally based, across three councils and our Regional Development Australia unit.  There were challenges in working with stakeholders that had diverse views, however Kylie and Lydia were able to work effectively during our engagement sessions to progress our project in a positive way. Both Kylie and Lydia are excellent facilitators, able to lead a group with definite opinions and defend an evidence-based position where needed. Their flexibility in working with people from diverse organisations, strength in data collection and analysis and ability to create a meaningful report that will be the basis for our regional advocacy strategy sets Fred Consultancy apart in their field. Kylie, Lydia and Sarah have been a pleasure to work with and I am pleased to be able to commend their work to you.

Tim Pfeiffer, Director Corporate & Community Services Renmark Paringa Council