FAQ

Amity National is an enterprise development firm working with Aboriginal communities and organisations to build enterprises that are commercially sustainable and culturally sound. We are not a single service. We coordinate the governance, compliance, resourcing, commercial positioning and institutional access an enterprise needs, and we sequence them so they arrive in an order that works.

Yes. Amity National is 100% Aboriginal owned and Aboriginal led.

Amity National is 100% Aboriginal owned. Supply Nation accreditation is held separately within our partner network, by entities accredited in their own right rather than through us. Where your requirement is for an accredited supplier, we will identify by name which entity holds the accreditation, confirm its current status, and set out how the work would be contracted. We do not present another entity's accreditation as our own.

Amity National leads every engagement. Where specialist, regulated or technical work is required we bring in qualified providers, and where delivery sits with a partner entity in our network we identify that entity by name and state the nature of our relationship with it. Partners are proposed because they fit the work, not because they are in the network. Nothing is passed to anyone else without your knowledge, and we remain accountable for how their work integrates into the whole.

Our office is on Whadjuk Noongar Country in Perth. We work across Western Australia and nationally. Where an engagement sits on another group's Country, we work to that Country's protocols and take direction from the people who hold authority there.

The practice behind Amity National has been working in Aboriginal enterprise and community development since 1988. The current company carries that practice forward.

Amity National is Aboriginal owned and Aboriginal led, under the direction of Dean Collard and the firm's principals. The relationships, cultural standing and institutional access the firm works through are held personally by them and exercised on behalf of clients. You will meet the people leading your engagement before you commit to it, not after.

Amity National is a proprietary limited company. We are engaged and paid for the work we do. We are not a funding body and we do not distribute grants. The difference matters to how an engagement runs. A funder decides whether you qualify. We work for you.

We consider engagements with non-Indigenous organisations on application. Our work is Aboriginal enterprise development, and where a non-Indigenous organisation's objectives align with that, whether through supply chain development, joint venture preparation or social enterprise establishment, we will look at it. Approach us with what you are trying to achieve rather than a general expression of interest.

Yes. References are provided at proposal stage rather than published here, because whether a client is named is the client's decision and not ours. Ask for them when you ask for a proposal and we will arrange the introductions we have permission to arrange.

It means taking an enterprise from an idea a community holds to a trading business that stands on its own name. In practice that covers purpose and ownership, the legal structure, governance the community recognises as legitimate, testing whether the commercial proposition is real, building the operating capability, opening the doors that lead to contracts and capital, and then transferring the running of it to the people who own it.

It is the sixteen-part structure we work through, grouped into four stages. Define and establish settles purpose, ownership, governance and the commercial proposition. Prepare and strengthen builds the operating capability behind that structure. Connect and activate opens institutional and commercial access and puts the enterprise into the market. Transfer and endure moves functions across to the enterprise until it no longer needs us. The sixteen parts are the specific pieces of work inside those stages. The framework exists so nothing gets missed, and so you can see at any point what has been done, what is underway and what is still ahead.

No. Most enterprises arrive with some of the work already done, sometimes well. We assess what is in place, confirm it holds, and start where the gap is. Charging a community for work it has already completed would be indefensible.

No. A significant part of our work is with enterprises already trading that have hit a ceiling. Usually the ceiling is structural rather than commercial. Governance that worked at three people does not work at thirty, or the entity type chosen at registration now blocks the contract in front of them. Existing enterprises typically enter the framework at stage two or three.

We do not provide regulated advice. Where an engagement requires legal, tax, audit or financial services advice, we identify what is needed, coordinate appropriately qualified advisers, and integrate what they produce into a package the enterprise can actually operate. We are also not a substitute for management. We build capability. We do not run the business.

Decision makers who can decide, access to whatever documents already exist, and honesty about what has not worked before. The last one saves the most time. We do not need the situation tidied up before we arrive.

Both, and the balance is set with you. Some work genuinely can be done by video. Governance design, ownership conversations and anything involving Elders should not be, and we do not pretend otherwise to save a flight.

Yes, and the scope of what we can support varies by industry. Some sectors we work in directly. In others our contribution is developing and preparing the suppliers rather than delivering the contract. Tell us the target, the sector and the timeframe, and we will tell you what we can genuinely support and what we cannot.

The engagement is designed to shrink as your capability grows and to end in graduation rather than withdrawal. At agreed intervals we set out which functions have transferred fully, which are still shared and which remain with us, with dates against the next transfers. By the end, the enterprise holds its own relationships, runs its own compliance and is known in its market under its own name.

Readiness is not a prerequisite. Most of stage one exists precisely because communities arrive with a clear intention and no structure around it. Bring the intention. The structure is the work.

Send an enquiry through the form on this site with a short description of where the enterprise is now and what is in the way. We will come back to you to arrange a conversation. If we are not the right fit we will say so in that conversation and, where we can, point you to who is.

Engagements are scoped and priced individually. The price follows the depth of work required, which is established through an analysis at the start rather than estimated from a phone call. You receive the scope and the price in writing before any work begins, and the price does not move unless the scope does, in writing, with your agreement.

Most engagements are paid in fees, scoped and agreed in writing before work begins. In some engagements, and only where it is the right structure for the enterprise, part of our position is taken as equity or a share of revenue. That is negotiated openly at the start, never introduced part way through, and never presented as a condition of being helped.

Because a community with a strong proposition and no working capital should not be shut out of establishment support for that reason alone. Taking a position lets the work proceed and ties our return to whether the enterprise actually succeeds. It is not our default and it is not right for every enterprise. Where we propose it, we will also set out what a fee based version of the same engagement would cost, so you are choosing between two known options rather than accepting the only one offered.

Yes. Amity National and its principals hold interests in other Aboriginal enterprises, and in certain non-Aboriginal social and charitable enterprises. Where a position is taken in an enterprise we have helped establish, it is proposed, negotiated and agreed in writing before the work starts, and only where the enterprise has taken independent advice on it. Relevant holdings are disclosed at the start of an engagement, and again if a situation arises where a holding could bear on advice we are giving. Ownership of a community enterprise is the community's to decide. Our position on that has not changed because we sometimes participate.

It can, which is why we deal with it in the open rather than hoping it does not come up. Three rules apply. We disclose relevant interests before an engagement begins. Where we recommend an entity we hold an interest in, we say so at the time of the recommendation and we present alternatives. And where an interest would compromise advice on ownership or governance, we do not give that advice, we bring in an independent adviser to give it. A firm that says it has no conflicts is either very small or not telling you everything.

Use the free programs where they fit, and we will tell you when they do. What they generally cannot do is carry an enterprise through establishment as one connected piece of work. They are time limited, they are delivered by advisers who rotate, they usually address one element rather than the sequence, and none of them can open an institutional door on your behalf. Where a free program will get you what you need, taking our fee for it would be wrong. Where it will not, the gap is what we are for.

Yes. Grant and funding submissions are a defined part of what we do, priced individually according to the complexity of the program and the state of the applicant's supporting material. A straightforward application against a program you already qualify for is a small job. A submission that requires the governance, financials and evidence base to be built first is a different job, and we will tell you which one you are looking at before you commit.

Often. Enterprise establishment work is fundable through several State and Commonwealth programs and through corporate and philanthropic partners. We identify what your enterprise is eligible for during scoping and tell you what the realistic prospects are, including when we think an application is unlikely to succeed.

You can. The engagement agreement sets out the notice period and the basis on which work already performed is invoiced. Deliverables completed to that point are yours, and we hand over the working material rather than holding it. Where part of our position has been taken as equity or a share of revenue, what happens to that position on early termination is written into the same agreement in full, before either party signs. We do not leave that question to be negotiated at the moment it matters.

The community or organisation that establishes it. Ownership is settled at the beginning, in writing, including who holds the enterprise, on whose behalf, and what pathway exists if that holding ever needs to change. Ownership settled early is protection. Ownership settled late is a dispute waiting for an occasion.

It stays yours. Nothing is shared without permission and nothing is used without attribution. We will not put you into a partnership on terms that would let a commercial party acquire what was only ever meant to be licensed, and we say so during negotiation rather than afterwards. Culture carried into the market on the community's own terms is the only version of this work worth doing.

We set the relationship out plainly in the governance documents rather than leaving it to goodwill. Which decisions rest with the board, which rest with cultural authority, and how the two meet are questions best answered while they are still administrative. Left undocumented, they become personal disputes at the worst possible moment.

That is common and it is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to do stage one properly. Disagreement about purpose, ownership or benefit is far cheaper to resolve before registration than after trading begins. We work through those questions in the open, with the people who hold standing to answer them, and we document what is agreed.

Not without written permission, given specifically and after the fact rather than as a clause buried in an engagement letter. Some clients are happy to be named. Others have good reasons not to be. Both are normal.

Yes. Commercial information, community matters and cultural knowledge disclosed during an engagement are held in confidence, and that obligation continues after the engagement ends. It is set out in the engagement agreement rather than promised verbally. In practice that means access is limited to the people working on your engagement, your material is not used for any purpose outside it, and it is not provided to any third party without your written instruction. Where you require specific conditions on storage, handling or data location, those conditions are agreed at the outset and confirmed to you in writing. Cultural material is held under whatever additional conditions you set, and those conditions travel with the file rather than lapsing when the engagement ends.

Yes. Amity National holds professional indemnity and public liability cover. Certificates of currency are provided on request, and are supplied as a matter of course with tender and procurement submissions.

Some do. An enterprise can be structured correctly and still be beaten by a market, a contract loss or a change in funding, and any firm implying otherwise is selling something. Two things follow. First, we structure for it in advance, which is why ownership, liability and what happens to assets are settled at establishment rather than assumed. A community that closes an enterprise cleanly, keeps its assets and keeps its people out of personal liability has lost a business, not a decade. Second, we stay for the wind down where we are wanted. Closing something properly is part of the work.

Not by services delivered. By the standing of the enterprise afterwards. Whether it wins work without us in the room, whether it is counted among the participants in its industry rather than the beneficiaries of it, and whether the people running it are the people who own it.

Reporting obligations are agreed at the outset and are met by the enterprise, not by us on its behalf. Building the capability to report is part of the work. What is reported, and what remains community information, is settled before the first acquittal rather than argued about at it.

Because the structure is built before the money arrives rather than after. Governance, ownership, compliance and the commercial proposition are settled and documented at establishment, which is where most funded enterprises fail, and the engagement is designed to end. You are funding an entity that will still be trading when the funding stops.