Where purpose meets place

At HBF, purpose has a strong sense of place. It is grounded in the organisation’s Western Australian roots, carried through the communities HBF supports across Australia, and in the everyday ways employees are encouraged to take part in something beyond their own role.

The work itself may happen in offices, branches, contact centres or digital spaces. Yet the impact reaches much further than that, into families, schools, neighbourhoods, and communities across Western Australia and beyond.

It comes to life through a colleague running for a cause that has reshaped his family’s life, teams making sandwiches for children they may never meet, and people using their time and energy to support the places and causes that matter to them.

That is where purpose starts to feel real. Close enough to know by name, practical enough to take part in, and shared enough to remind people why our work matters.

A reason close to home

For Ally McDermid, Manager Performance, Insights & Operations, HBF Run for a Reason is more than an event on the calendar.

Last year, Ally shared his family’s story after his son Cooper was diagnosed with Norrie Disease, an extremely rare genetic condition that affects vision and causes progressive hearing loss. Alongside his partner Claire, Ally has since helped establish Norrie Disease Foundation Australia, creating a national network of support and advocacy for families navigating the condition.

In 2025, Cooper’s Crew became the third-highest fundraising team at HBF Run for a Reason, raising around $18,500 for the Lions Eye Institute.

In 2026, the team returned with an even deeper sense of purpose, fundraising directly for Norrie Disease Foundation Australia. With the foundation total currently sitting at $12,700, it is already a remarkable result for a small charity working to accelerate research and provide more immediate support for families.

The scale of the cause is significant, with the Foundation working with Ear Science Institute Australia in Perth and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital to help establish a local clinical trial arm for Australian families as global research into preventing hearing loss in Norrie Disease progresses.

Yet the story remains deeply human. Cooper is now 19 months old, walking, loving music and turning his favourite song at daycare into what his family describes as an impromptu “flash mob” of dancing children.

That is what makes purpose tangible. It becomes real through people, families, and stories. In this case, it has a team, a running shirt, a starting line, and a community ready to rally behind them.

For HBF people, Cooper’s Crew shows how a workplace connection can become part of something much larger. Ally’s willingness to share his family’s experience has helped raise awareness, build support, and give colleagues a reason to show up that is tied to one of their own.

A bite-sized act with impact

Other kinds of community connection start with something more ordinary in shape, though no less meaningful in purpose. A table full of bread, a pair of gloves and a group of colleagues ready to help.

Across HBF, employees took part in a Sandwich Showdown supporting Eat Up, helping make lunches for children who go to school without food. Perth and Brisbane turned it into a friendly competition, with Brisbane making 1,187 sandwiches and Perth bringing strong turnout, energy, and enthusiasm, even when the bread supply capped them at 950.

Underneath the fun is something more serious. Children learn better when they are not hungry. Families and schools are often carrying more than others can see. A small act, repeated hundreds of times, becomes meaningful very quickly.

That is one of the ways community impact can feel real at work. An hour in the day where people from different roles and locations step away from their desks and do something useful together.

HBF supports that connection through volunteering days each year, giving employees time to take part in HBF-led activities and contribute to causes they choose themselves. Eat Up is one example, with onsite sessions bringing people together around a simple, practical need.

Other teams have given time to organisations such as Dress for Success, Little Things for Tiny Tots and The Zambrero Foundation, showing how volunteering can be shared across the business while still feeling personal to the causes people care about.

In that sense, volunteering is not treated as something separate from work. It becomes part of how people are encouraged to show up.

That same spirit is carried by HBF Angels, an employee-led group that helps turn care into action through donation drives, fundraising activities, and support for charitable causes across Australia. It gives people another way to rally around the issues that matter to them, and to bring others with them.

Giving that goes further

Community connection also shows up in the choices people make about the causes they want to support.

Through HBF’s Workplace Giving program, employees have been able to donate to Australian charities, with HBF matching every dollar donated since the program began in 2019. Together, it has contributed more than $500,000 to charities across Australia.

In the past six months alone, HBF colleagues have supported more than 10 charities through Workplace Giving, including Brainwave, Eat Up, Men’s Talk and Zero2Hero. Each cause tells its own story about what HBF people care about, from children’s health and food security to mental wellbeing and suicide prevention.

Zero2Hero brings that impact especially close to HBF’s Western Australian roots. The WA-based charity works to improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing, with a focus on education, early support, and suicide prevention. Through support from HBF colleagues, Zero2Hero has been able to expand school programs and bring vital mental health conversations into more classrooms across Western Australia.

That is where workplace giving becomes a way for people to stand behind the issues they care about, and for that care to reach further than it could on its own.

Small steps for a shared goal

The same idea sits behind HBF’s approach to wellbeing. It becomes more meaningful when people can take part in it together.

Ahead of HBF Run for a Reason, employees were invited into a four-week Movement Challenge designed to help teams build momentum and feel the benefits of movement in everyday life. Teams could form across roles, locations, and departments, with weekly activities exploring how movement can support sleep, mental health, nutrition, and connection.

On paper, you could call it a step challenge. In practice, it gives people a shared reason to check in, encourage each other and build wellbeing into work.

There is something organic about that for an organisation focused on health. Wellbeing is not only a message HBF takes to members or the community. It is something employees are invited to experience for themselves, whether they are training for HBF Run for a Reason, joining HBF Balance on Strava or simply finding a small way to move more during the week.

Purpose people can take part in

When purpose meets place, it becomes easier to understand what impact actually feels like.

At HBF, people choose to give their time, energy, and care. That is what makes purpose feel real here. Instead of being something the organisation owns, it's something our people carry with them.