CEOs lead organisations into the future, but very few make it their life’s mission to change trajectories for young people. Vicki Condon AM has. She tells us why she founded Raise and her hopes for the future.
Where it all began
After finishing school in Adelaide, Vicki jumped straight into a reception role at Honeywell. Quickly progressing to a secretarial role, she made the big move to Sydney at age 19 to work for the Honeywell Managing Director (MD). This proved to be a pivotal move, with the MD mentoring his bright young assistant and encouraging her to ‘do more’. “Mentoring at its best” says Vicki.
“No one in my family had gone to uni. When I was young, my dream was to be a nurse and write children’s books” says Vicki. This prompt to ‘do more’ led to focussing on other ways to support people, with enrolment as a mature age student in a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Gender Politics, Human Resource Management, and Entrepreneurial Studies.
This quickly led to a move to the Honeywell HR department where Vicki worked for a long time. “I love supporting people and I value building sincere, close-knit relationships.”
After meeting her husband and having three children, Vicki took long service leave and then worked from home while raising them. Once they were all at school Vicki re-assessed her career goals and commenced a Post Grad Diploma in Counselling, specialising in adolescent development. This led to a move into the Outreach Team at TAFE – working with kids who’d been expelled or suspended long term.
“I loved working with these young people, sitting in the mess with them and helping them find new ways. It made my heart sing” she says. While the TAFE mentoring program provided to them was great, it only went for 10 weeks, and Vicki could see the benefits of providing longer mentoring support.
The founding of Raise
“In 2008 I wrote a business plan for the mentoring program I felt would deliver the support young people needed, but hadn’t yet found the confidence to put the plan into action. Our family then lost a 14 year old friend to suicide. That was all the push I needed to turn the business plan into Raise and I registered the charity the day of the funeral” says Vicki.
Witnessing the impact
Vicki tells us that, after 17 years, she’s more passionate than ever. “The thing that keeps driving me is the young people and their stories, and the knowledge that our program is truly changing, even saving, lives. In challenging times, I visit one of our programs or speak to one of our Program Counsellors and look at the life trajectories of the young people. They’re so different to where many of them could have ended up.”
“The reward is seeing those young people. The one story that I hold strong in my heart was at a graduation celebration of a group of mentees. Raise had been operating for a few years, and I was standing at the back of the room quietly watching the speeches. Twenty weeks earlier these teens had walked into the program, most feeling uncertain, lacking confidence, feeling lost. There they were now, looking confident, making speeches, owning the room. I was feeling so proud already, and then a young person stood up and said ‘I don’t talk much and I don’t want to do a speech. But I just want to say thanks to my mentor because without them, I wouldn’t be alive.’ That stays with me” she says quietly.
It is moments like this which keep Vicki driven and committed.
The challenges
Vicki goes on to say “there’s an interesting push and pull in our organisation, we work hard to offer the program to as many young people as we can. The need is so great. To fill that need we’re forever pushing. Pushing to find the money to fund the programs, pushing to find volunteer mentors, always pulled to do more. What keeps me going is that every year we help another 2,500+ young people, and train over 1,000 more mentors, connecting them to their community. Lives and futures have been changed because of Raise.”
The future
Not one to rest on her laurels, Vicki tells us “I’m always looking to the future, planning ways to offer as many trained and trusted mentors to young people as cost effectively as we can. The next vision for Raise is to support 5,000 young people every year by 2030. Half in schools and half online.”
Vicki tells us the key will be expanding the Raise village, finding more people willing to support this essential service and to bring more mentors on board more easily. “I am always so inspired by our mentors. Some come back year after year and they are the backbone of our village. We have some mentors who have mentored more than 15 young people! We’re always asking people for time, treasure, and talent – and we have mentors who give all three year after year. It is part of their life. They are such an important part of our village.”
When asked about her personal plans ffor the future, Vicki is clear. “Even when I am no longer the CEO, I will always be mentoring at Raise. I’d love to go back to delivering our programs with young people as one of our Program Counsellors. Whatever I do I will always be supporting the Raise village.”
