With the coronavirus pandemic upending the economy, individual businesses, and the lives of all Australians, First Nations Foundation is finding ways to continue to provide financial education and guidance to Indigenous Australians.

Due to travel restrictions and limited community access, we have made the difficult decision not to proceed with the Big Super Day Out event for 2020. We do not take this decision lightly, but the health and safety of our large group of supporters, and the protection of the communities we visit, means we have no other choice.

We fully intend to build on the $24 million in superannuation we have already rediscovered for Indigenous Australians as soon as we can.

However, we’re working on some exciting new initiatives and services to continue our mission of delivering financial education to Indigenous Australians. Like most businesses during this time, we have been forced to pivot our offerings. The decision to delay our Big Super Day Out will allow us to focus our energy into one of our other vital projects.

With this in mind, we are pleased to announce that First Nations Foundation will launch a new, dedicated online resource for Indigenous Australians and their superannuation. This new online destination will be designed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal people, and will offer culturally appropriate information on superannuation, including strategies to help Indigenous people locate, combine, and manage their super.

This is particularly relevant given the current initiative to allow people who have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to access their super early, with nearly 500,000 people availing of this facility already.

The site will include educational videos and articles that speak broadly about super as well as covering some of the finer details of areas that have proven to be common challenges faced by Aboriginal people.

The site will also have calculators and tools and will provide the opportunity for superannuation funds to showcase their commitment to improving superannuation outcomes for the Indigenous community.

We have also watched with concern as the number of Australians pushed out of work has climbed so quickly, and with a recent credit card report indicated that more than 20% of Australians today cannot meet their minimum credit card repayments, we have decided to push our energy into creating a financial wellbeing section of the First Nations Foundation website. This will contain articles and videos on a range of financial basics and ideas, and while our core audience is Indigenous Australians, we believe that the content will be relevant to tens of thousands of people in Australia today.

Both these critical services will depend on support from industry, and we’re delighted to say that we are already speaking with potential partners we need to get them off the ground. However, if you know a business that would be able to help, please put them in touch with us.

Phil Usher