Sally Hines, Change Maker

Welcome to Meet the Change Makers, where we feature inspiring leaders making an impact in their field through the application of innovation, creativity and/or human centred design. Change Makers come from all walks of life but have one thing in common; a passion to make a difference!

I’m excited to introduce you to our first Change Maker, Sally Hines! Sally and I met while completing the Williamson Community Leadership Program in 2016, and she was the first person I thought of when I was looking for a leader from the community sector for the panel discussion at the Hive Collective launch in February. Sally is passionate, articulate and not afraid to call things as she sees them!

A leader in her field, Sally really is a passionate advocate for those experiencing homelessness and is committed to using innovative approaches and solutions to make social change.

“Innovation is about coming up with new ways to do new things or better ways to meet existing needs. It’s about questioning, trial and error, thinking differently, feeling uncomfortable and never being satisfied that you have the solution. Innovation is continuous.”

Sally is the Chief Operating Officer of The Big Issue and Homes for Homes, two amazing Social Enterprises operating in Australia. The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting and creating work opportunities for homeless, marginalised and disadvantaged people. Homes for Homes is a new initiative of The Big Issue that will help raise an ongoing supply of new funding for social and affordable houses. 

Many people in capital cities are familiar with The Big Issue because of the strong presence their vendors have right across our cities selling The Big Issue magazine. Each magazine vendor runs their own micro-business, purchasing the magazine (for what is, essentially a wholesale price), and then on selling to their customers for a profit. Pretty cool, huh?

In addition to leading the operations of Homes for Homes (she’s a busy woman!), Sally led the project that delivered customer centric change for The Big Issue through the introduction of digital payments for vendors and their customers. In what was a significant undertaking for the organisation, a lot of time was spent working through a solution that would enable their vendors to keep up with our increasingly cashless society, while also making it portable, lightweight and easy for them to manage. 

Of the change, Sally says “it was important to us that we took our time in making this decision, so that we didn’t just get a solution, we got the right solution. We had learned from previous experience just how important our vendors are in implementing change, especially when it comes to technology that they’ll be using everyday. We engaged extensively with them throughout the process and by the time we were ready to go live we were confident we had a good product and the vendors were comfortable with what this meant for them”.

Sally’s advice to anyone looking to create an innovative culture in their organisation is to “own your own role in the process. Don’t wait until you are appointed a leader, to be a leader. Creating a culture of innovation is the responsibility of all team members”.

You can find out more about Sally, or reach out to her on LinkedIn. I also encourage you to find out more about the great work The Big Issue and Homes for Homes are doing and how you can support them and their mission.