Julia Keady On Changemakers Managing Wellbeing To Prevent Burnout And Help Fulfil Their Impact Mission

Julia Keady is Founder and CEO of Benefolk (formerly The Xfactor Collective), a certified social enterprise and B Corp that is fiercely dedicated to changemakers.

Benefolk connects not-for-profits, charities and impact-focused businesses to the very best support and expertise from a trusted and proven network of consultants and professional service providers. Through the Benefolk Foundation - the only Australian charity focused on the wellbeing of those who volunteer and work in the social sector - the organisation provides resources and undertake advocacy to help all social changemakers achieve their mission without burning out.

Before starting Benefolk, Julia was the inaugural CEO of Australian Women Donors Network (now Australians Investing in Women) and has also worked as a consultant and advisor to many charities and philanthropic foundations. She has also served as a Director on several organisations so knows the challenges of being a changemaker. She set up Benefolk to have the support she wished she’d had in her years as a CEO.

Julia discusses the importance of founders managing their wellbeing to prevent burnout during the entrepreneurship journey, and how this ensures long term sustainability for businesses to create positive impact.

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 passion for social enterprise and leadership?

[Julia Keady] - I started my professional life as a journalist 30 years ago, and people can work out my age from this! I was always reporting on and admiring the social sector, and from that perspective I was curious about how humans work and how humanity is evolving. Fast forward, I came into the social sector 15 years ago by doing my Master's in philanthropy and social investment. Prior to that I hadn't worked in the sector, but I came back from the U.S. and was excited by the things I had seen bubbling away there in social ventures and collective giving. Because of this, I came back to Australia to see if I could be a part of the sector here. There were not many career options at that time because I was more drawn to working in the intermediary space. I did try to get into working in social enterprise within intermediaries at that time, but there wasn't anything going on. I ended up in the women's philanthropy movement, and my first leadership position was with the Women Donors Network (now Australians Investing in Women). It was also my first network intermediary role, and I guess that's where I became exposed to the potentiality and lift, we can get through networked intermediaries and infrastructure.

After that I ended up building out a consultancy, and eventually I ended up winding that back to being a solo consultant. I was seeing so much burn out from the perspective of providers in our sector, and over that time, I started layering different things I saw as unmet needs and thought an organisation like Benefolk could address some of those issues.

As the Founder and CEO of Benefolk, tell us about the organisation's purpose and what impact you’re looking to create?

Our purpose is tight, and we often just say we're here to help changemakers achieve their mission without burning out. Those two things side by side are important to us. We sometimes describe ourselves as a capability and capacity building intermediary with a special focus on wellbeing in the social sector. It was always important to me that if I was going to start something in the sector and be a founder we would start something where we would have a high level of independence. I wanted to build an organisation over time that could fly the flag for the well-being of changemakers, so we can call in the things we want to see, and call out the practices, mindsets and behaviours that are not serving changemakers.

There are three impacts we're looking to create through Benefolk, and one is healthier, happier leaders who are feeling more supported, less lonely, and less stressed. From this we know that's going to have a beautiful flow on effect to beneficiaries. Secondly, we want healthier, and happier social impact providers (especially solo operators and small business owners) to feel more supported by being a part of this community. Thirdly, there is an impact created by the communities’ overall wellbeing; it creates an uplift across our ecosystem.

How can we make mental health and wellbeing a greater priority? How do we start to evolve the practices, mindsets and behaviours that don't serve us and focus on governance prioritising well-being outcomes?

These organisations will be unashamedly governed for the well-being outcomes of their people.

How might founders find balance in their life, and what can they do if they're feeling low on energy to prevent burnout?

I'm learning more about this every day myself; things around boundaries and balance. One thing I have noticed about myself and something I encourage other people to be conscious of is letting a cause take over your life. Identity is complicated, there's you as a founder and what you care deeply about, but that is only one identity. On top of that there's your identity. I'm certain I drove everyone mad in the early years of building Benefolk because it's all I talked about, and in some ways, the identity of Benefolk and the identity of Julia Keady meshed. When those two identities start to mesh, it becomes difficult to create boundaries. Protecting my identity and being able to know that Benefolk is important, but Julia Keady's also important was crucial. I started to think about what I am going to do to look after me. The other thing is surrounding yourself with the good people who will pull you up.

Give people permission to tap you on the shoulder when they see you’re pushing yourself too much. I had to move to this system over the last couple of years, because sometimes we can be warriors and keep going even though it's not kind to ourselves or the teams we're leading.

The third thing I say to people is if you can partner, learn how to collaborate, because you'll go much further and have a much larger impact by having that partnership approach and mentality. That will help alleviate the burnout that can happen for yourself and for your colleagues.

How have seen the business for good landscape change in Australia, and where are there key opportunities to help mainstream this movement? If leaders don't have optimal mental and physical well-being, how can they drive organisations seeking to create change?

The sector has changed a lot in the time I've been around. Over the last 15 years we've seen the growth of the social enterprise ecosystem. It's just being embedded in so many areas which is great. With the B Corp movement, it would be wonderful to see those two worlds come together. I often say to people use the B Corp framework as a way for building your business. Even if you don't do the certification for a couple of years, I'd love to see the B Corp framework used for every not for profit and charity that is established. I'd love to see every not for profit and charity in Australia become B Corp’s themselves, because having been through it I was very excited to do our B Corp certification. We looked on a micro level at how we are creating businesses that are good for people. We make assumptions that not for profits and charities are doing this, but I was quite surprised when I joined the sector to see it isn’t necessarily looking after its people.

I do think some of those frameworks are actually increasingly about how do we promote those frameworks outside of a certification or a box ticking exercise to say, "here are ways we can engineer organisations from the inside out."

That's something I personally think is wonderful, and I say to everyone that they should become a B Corp, because the process will help you strengthen your own leadership and organisation.

There are lots of other ways we can mainstream this movement here and overseas. In Australia, we have room for growth around investing in the ecosystem and field builders by taking this intermediary-led approach to build it from the inside out.

This is key to us having a healthy sector, and overseas there's much bigger investment in intermediaries than in Australia, which if implemented here would give us an uplift internally.

Externally of ourselves, it's about how do we make it much more attractive to be a purpose-led leader? How do we mainstream how good it is to be a purpose-led organisation where well-being is a priority? It's an attractive proposition not just because I'm doing good in the world, but because in my leadership I'll be working among people, systems, and practices where my well-being as a change maker is prioritised. I think that's a huge opportunity for us, and then there's the whole storytelling piece. How do we get the faces and stories of purpose-led businesses into the mainstream media and narrative? Starting life as a journalist, that's always something I'll default to a little bit, but I think we're good at telling our internal stories to ourselves, but it would be great to see an increase in the number of stories that everyday Australians are reading about purpose-led businesses.

What common pitfalls with founders or organisations have you observed in starting or growing their enterprises, and what things can these leaders improve upon?

I apply this question to myself just as much as anybody else, and I wished someone asked me this when I first started out. With starting an enterprise, I see a culture now which is hyping people up to start something. For me, I saw a lot of founder’s burnout a couple of years in, whether that was people starting a social enterprise or a charity. We need to have more of a culture which is asking people if they want to run a business or become a technician? It is hard to run an enterprise or a charity, so if you're not sure how do we create a space where people can go and spend some time being a deputy to a founder, because then we can give people alternative pathways to the whole entrepreneurship journey.

We don't need people to go out and necessarily start more enterprises, it’s how can we get people playing to their strengths, so we don't end up with organisations and people burning themselves out because they're not playing to their strengths in the community.

We see this a lot at Benefolk, especially with people starting charities; two-three years in they come to us for expertise and advice because they're close to insolvent and looking for a quick fix. They’re asking, “how do we fix this and turn it around?” From the outset it could look like seeing if the impact you want to create in the world could be done by joining forces. Does it need to be a new enterprise, or could it be that you're helping spark or shift something further along as well?

The founder starting an enterprise space is a bit fraught with the mentality of just starting something and scaling. The other thing in terms of growing an enterprise is asking yourself what are you growing? Is it that you want to grow geographically? Is it you want to grow your impact? Is it that you need to be more profitable so you can invest back in the mission? What are you growing and why are you growing? Sometimes I've been caught by this question, and I think we could help people answer that question more effectively. Again, it's about not having that personal cost, because to grow anything you need to invest more of yourself. It could be longer hours and that can have a negative impact on your marriage, kids, and health.

With starting, scaling, and growing businesses, how can we bring a well-being lens to that? How do we protect the good people who want to get up every day and do good for the world?

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come recently creating a positive impact?

My eyes are drawn to two things, the first being anything to do with wellbeing, healthier practices, mindsets, and behaviours supporting changemakers, and the second being the capacity and capability building innovation space. I'm excited by people who are starting to innovate and address the equity and access issues we have with getting access to expertise and advice. 81% of not-for-profits are small to medium, similar to the small business sector in Australia. I’m especially drawn to this whole reframing overhead initiatives that was launched last week at the Fundraising Institute Australia Conference. People are coming out now and adding to the movement, and Dan Pallotta's work with the screening of UnCharitable is interesting also.

This is where my eye is drawn to, because if we can build our many voices we will see some real positive shifts in the next 10-20 years around the wellbeing space.

The other organisation I will shout out is the Australian Leadership Hub. They were originally the Australian Scholarships Foundation, and I love what they're doing there now. They've picked up on this whole wellbeing governance piece, and now there's an award recognising leader who are governing for well-being. There are some exciting projects out there, and you'll probably go back through this conversation and see that I've said the word well-being 45 times! It’s an exciting space in Australia now.

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

I am drawn to books, probably because they help keep me centred because I have a pretty busy brain as you could imagine. I've got three books I've read sitting here in front of me to recommend. My number one go to book for the last 20 years I will always recommend, it’s You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. It’s a beautiful book, she's the incredible woman who founded Hay House Publishing which put a lot of self-development authors on the map. This book has been around for nearly 30 years and it's a diagnostic tool for discomfort in your body. I recommend everyone has it, because what shows up in our body is usually there for a reason. My second recommendation is Dr. Wayne Dyer who passed away a couple of years ago, but he’s again another self-development author. This is a beautiful book I just read half a page of every other day, and it's called Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao. It's 81 ancient Chinese verses, and Wayne Dyer provides an interpretation of these and discusses how we can apply them in our lives. That book shows the real hippie in me, and the final book which I find like intellectual gymnastics is by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He wrote Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which I think is a great book, but the one I'm reading now is Becoming Supernatural. Where I'm up to in this book is the different levels of consciousness, and how we can restore ourselves energetically by understanding our different brain waves and tapping into that. We are so profound as human beings and have much more we can tap into in ourselves. When I get a moment, these are the things I enjoy reading which your listeners will hopefully find helpful.