New Leader To Help Deliver The Club’s Community Aspirations

The Swan Districts Football Club recently appointed Kara Donnellan as General Manager, Community to help drive the club’s new community focussed strategic vision.

In 2017, Swans reset its purpose, vision and values. The new purpose of the club is to build community and develop people. The vision is to be a well-connected and community-engaged football club which improves social outcomes and the sense of wellbeing within the wider Swans community. And the club’s values are to act with integrity, everyone matters, raise the bar to be the best you can, and we fly together.
 

The club is transforming from a traditional narrow focused football club to a broad community enabler. This new strategic direction will build relevance and financial sustainability by developing a new business model creating new revenue streams.
 

Kara has been the Manager of the club’s successful V Swans community and education program in the past year and prior to that the V Swans High Performance/Justice Program Manager. She’s also the current and inaugural captain of the Fremantle Dockers AFLW team and the Senior Coach of the Swans new WAFLW program.
 

She will now oversee an expanded community division at the club that includes new community outreach programs throughout Perth’s eastern suburbs together with the many longstanding club education and community programs throughout the Pilbara under the name of V Swans.
 

Kara will be responsible for the club’s broad and rapidly growing community engagement strategy. This includes building community partnerships, creating new programs and growing existing ones, sourcing funding and program delivery.
 

New programs to be delivered in 2019 include:

• Making Your Mark, working with Indigenous youth at risk of disconnecting from community.
• A Youth Engagement Program connecting with teenagers at risk.
• An Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Program engaging with people with disability in schools and Integrated football clubs helping them better connect with mainstream community.
• Junior Football Clubs including providing 380 Auskick kids with new playing jumpers, providing food hampers helping clubs provide meals to kids in need and an increasing number of school and junior club player WAFL and WAFLW player visits.
• A new Community Office Hub in Onslow located adjacent the Swan’s Powerhouse Youth Centre providing office accommodation for the club’s local community staff.