Kristen Lark On Connecting Mission-Driven Initiatives With Communities Seeking To Finance Change

Kristen Lark has been involved with The Funding Network Australia since its inception, first working with co-founder Lisa Cotton on the initial pilot events in 2013 and later serving on the Sydney Leadership Council before becoming CEO in July 2022.

Previously Kristen was TFN's General Manager and has been responsible for driving day-to-day operations, developing TFN’s technology roadmap, enhancing TFN’s event delivery model and building strong relationships with clients, partners and supporters.

Kristen has extensive experience across marketing, stakeholder engagement and communications in the US and Australia and held leadership positions in both the corporate and non-profit sectors. Kristen is a former Senior Vice President & Partner with Fleishman Hillard in San Francisco, where her clients included Visa, Netflix and Dell, and has held senior marketing and communications roles at Compass Group Australia and Good Guys Inc. She is also a certified leadership coach.

Kristen discusses the mutual benefits created by nurturing sustainable connections between mission-driven organisations and individuals willing to Fund Change In The World.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in supporting purpose-driven organisations?

[Kristen Lark] - I grew up in the middle of America. I'm a Midwestern girl, the centre of which is defined as Kansas City, Missouri. If you threw a needle in the middle of America, it'd be right in the middle. Growing up, service was something a part of my everyday life. My dad and my mum modelled this on a regular basis. For me, it was always important to be giving back to the community, and even as I started my first job after university, it was always important to me to incorporate a social commitment aspect. I don't think at the time we were using words like CSR, but that was one of the things I was most known for through some of the campaigns I'd come up. I was always creating some impact in the community.

Later in my career, I became more passionate about this and became interested in creating purpose-driven leaders and understanding what this looked like from a corporate perspective. I had a job where I was building the brand and focusing it around being purpose-driven, and it occurred to me I was trying to push this agenda where I got everyone's head around the idea of being a purpose-driven business. However, I realised I'd forgotten to start with what really mattered, which is:

you've got to have purpose-driven leaders before you can drive a purpose-driven leadership agenda.

That was the ‘aha’ moment for me, going back and looking at how I could use my skills and background to help create purpose driven leaders.

As the CEO of The Funding Network (TFN), what work are you doing and how are you supporting organisations and purpose-driven business leaders?

It is all about igniting grassroots giving. We want to expose as many people as possible to the amazing work of grassroots charities and leaders. We also want to connect and create opportunities for both those leaders in corporate as well as other sectors to be able to get involved with grassroots charities. At the same time, we want grassroots charities to learn from people working in business. TFN's all about bringing people together. We are most known for our live crowdfunding events, but for us, it’s about that idea of networking, and that's what The Funding Network is all about. We are creating opportunities for people to come together, share ideas, learn about, and hopefully support exciting ideas making an impact for people dealing with entrenched disadvantage.

What advice would you give to early-stage leaders of organisations who are on a mission to create a positive impact in the community?

As anyone knows who's starting out (whether it's in a business or a charity), it can be a lonely process. One thing I'm pushing for is for people to find their tribe; look for like-minded people you can share ideas with, but also ones you can connect with and get support from when you're feeling down. That is probably one thing people don't always think about with The Funding Network.

We certainly raise a lot of money for charities, but for a lot of them, it's that celebration of the work they're doing, looking out into the crowd, and understanding that people are there to support what they do which is invaluable.

Finding your tribe and people like you can learn from and share ideas with is something that helps. It’s can make something which is at times a lonely and overwhelming process a lot more sustainable.

Where do you see key opportunities to bring together the purpose-driven business movement and what is needed to take it mainstream?

Collaboration is so important for business and social enterprises today. We must look for ways they can be cooperative and not always competitive. That is one of the great benefits of working in this sector. Especially in the charity space (this can also be applied elsewhere), you don't have to be doing it alone.

You don't have to have the sense you’re going to dominate the market. There are ways to collaborate, coordinate, share ideas and learnings which are important, and that's an important opportunity in this space.

Outside of events, how is The Funding Network looking to create this network of support and connection between different organisations?

One of the things we have is an alumni program where everyone who's ever pitched at a TFN event is invited to participate. We have a network of over 250 alumni, and we frequently curate opportunities for them.

We also frequently have workshops and opportunities for them to connect with each other.

That's one of the things that makes us super excited, to see organisations collaborating on programs and finding new ways to work together and share ideas.

That's even led us now to look at how over the next one to three years we're going to focus on key issues so there are more opportunities for collaboration, sharing ideas and creating cohorts aligned against some of the biggest issues facing Australians today.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently creating positive social change?

It is always hard to narrow it down; we see so many amazing organisations day in and day out. It's so hard to even narrow down the ones which get to pitch at our events! The ones jumping out for me now are those working in that social enterprise space, where they've got a business as well as charitable component. For me, I think of The Beautiful Bunch out of Melbourne. The Beautiful Bunch is a social enterprise florist, and they do amazing flower arrangements, event support and a whole host of other things. It is a great way for people to be able to support those new to Australia, young women who are trying to find work. But also in a practical way, being able to buy your flowers from there is a fantastic way to do it. I love the work they're doing.

I'd say Clean Slate Clinic would be another one, they do home alcohol detox programs, which is both a timely and necessary thing from a health perspective. It’s also a fantastic business model they're running.

Another one is Plate It Forward, where they operate a number of social enterprise restaurants. That's such a great opportunity to go and have a great meal and know the meal you're buying is buying two more for people in need. Those ideas are encouraging people to mix their spend with impact.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

Right now I'm reading Peter Winneke’s book Give While You Live, which is all about better giving in Australia. This is something I'm personally passionate about, and Peter certainly has a lot of fantastic insights in that space.

Another one is an older book, but I'm re-digesting it. It was published maybe five years ago, and it is called New Power. It's about how anyone can persuade, mobilise, and succeed in our chaotic and connected world, and I think it's a great way of looking at how power could be shifted to become more open, participatory and peer-driven.

This is so much of what The Funding Network is about; a lot of the best movements we're seeing in the social impact space are doing this. These ideas are extremely relevant and help us understand some of the things happening today.