The Surf Life Saving Innovation Fund is designed to invite members of the surf lifesaving community to contribute to the movement via innovative ideas to solve real problems associated with keeping the Australian coastline safe and achieving Surf Life Saving’s overarching vision of “zero preventable deaths.”

With 115 collective years of water and surf safety experience, no one knows and understands the needs and challenges of saving lives on the Australian coastline better than surf lifesaving volunteers – the Surf Life Saving community. The power of the Innovation Fund will be engaging and harnessing the knowledge of almost 190,000 surf lifesaving volunteers across Surf Life Saving Australia and forming a connection with generous supporters.

The Innovation Fund seeks to create new, incremental revenue streams through donors and corporate community partnerships to fund the innovation initiatives. Market research tells us that supporters must first understand our needs before committing donations. Therefore donors will have the opportunity to learn about the challenges that Surf Life Saving is posing to its Surf Life Saving community. It will then be up to supporters to decide which Surf Life Saving project resonates for their charitable donations. 

As we strive for zero preventable deaths in Australian waters, the Innovation Fund aims to deliver improved support to surf lifesavers through innovation and enhanced lifesaving technologies. This will allow Surf Life Saving to enhance and adapt services and develop new products to serve the water safety market.

To register, go to slsfoundation.brightidea.com and click the ‘register’ link under the log in button. Enter your details and you will receive a registration confirmation email. Once you click on the link from the email, you will be able to set a password and complete your registration, which will then grant you access to the Brightidea platform.

You will see the three challenges outlined below for the first year of the Innovation Fund. We are seeking innovative ideas from the membership that will address challenges one and two. As those who know the needs of surf lifesavers best, we look forward to hearing members’ solutions to these challenges so we can work towards tangible outcomes to improve these aspects of Surf Life Saving.

At the same time as challenge one is underway, we will be commencing a pilot program to address challenge three, with the aim to eventually roll this out nationally. The Surf Life Saving Foundation will seek donations from individual supporters and corporate sponsors to fund these challenge outcomes.

An outline of each challenge has been detailed below.

An outline of each challenge has been detailed below.

Project 1 – December 2022:

Enhance lifesaving capability through diversity and inclusive practice.

Surf Life Saving Australia appreciates that to build a strong, skilled and community-connected organisation, ‘diversity’ is broader than the labels of gender, age, language, ethnicity, cultural background, disability, sexual orientation and religious beliefs; it’s a way of thinking and an approach to delivering the best results. How might Surf Life Saving attract and retain more diverse volunteer members and supporters and be more inclusive to expand and grow our knowledge base to sustain our iconic volunteer community service?

How might Surf Life Saving attract and retain more diverse volunteer members and supporters and be more inclusive to expand and grow our knowledge base to sustain our iconic volunteer community service?

Project 2 – February 2023:

Improving volunteer training outcomes for Surf Life Saving members.

Surf Life Saving’s volunteers are essential to keeping Australia’s coastline safe. As society changes, it means that Surf Life Saving needs to deliver its training programs (multi-mode, face-to-face and virtual) in a way that offers fully integrated and immersive learning environments to enhance their training outcomes. How do we develop integrated training modules that cater to a growing number of volunteers who are familiar and comfortable with digital and immersive technology learning programs?

How might Surf Life Saving develop integrated training modules that cater to a growing number of volunteers who are familiar and comfortable with digital and immersive technology learning programs?

Project 3 – December 2022:

To develop a program to measure our SCOPE 2 energy consumption, educate our staff, volunteers and stakeholders in carbon literacy and reduce, certify, and offset our carbon emissions.

Surf Life Saving Australia will appoint nine (9) Surf Life Saving Clubs to take part in a six-month trial of the Zero+ for Schools (Zero Positive) program, aiming to reduce energy consumption and decrease their carbon emissions. This will involve measuring and tracking each club’s energy and fuel usage (water also optional), as well as a range of reporting and education to support the pilot.

If the pilot proves successful and we receive enough support from Surf Life Saving donors, the aim is to make this program available to all clubs.