A full room at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory has helped raise $27,000 for organisations working alongside First Nations communities, backing local knowledge with dollars at the 10x10 Darwin fundraising event.
Held on Larrakia Country on 15 October, the evening brought supporters together for Together Academy, Galiwin'ku Women's Space and Waterlily Healing, giving each organisation a platform to explain its work and invite people to invest in its future.
For Aboriginal communities, there is something powerful about seeing organisations led by our people receive support to keep doing work they understand deeply. Too often, community knowledge is acknowledged in speeches while the resources needed to act on it remain elsewhere.
Together Academy works at a pressure point that receives far less attention than the celebration of a new Indigenous business: what happens when that business is struggling.
The First Nations-led charity provides practical crisis support to Indigenous enterprises across Australia. Through its Indigenous Business Resilience Fund, it helps businesses facing financial hardship find a way forward, including when tax debt becomes overwhelming or cashflow problems threaten their survival.
Its delivery partner, Together Business, provides professional accounting and advisory assistance. The approach recognises that business owners under pressure need culturally safe support they can access without shame, alongside expertise that helps them stabilise and rebuild.
For mob putting everything into an enterprise, timely help can protect livelihoods and preserve the possibilities that business ownership creates for families.
In north-east Arnhem Land, Galiwin'ku Women's Space places Yolŋu women's knowledge at the centre of responses to domestic and family violence.
The organisation supports women and children on Elcho Island through crisis accommodation and ongoing assistance, and is working towards establishing a space in Gapuwiyak. Its work combines Yolŋu and Balanda laws and processes, recognising that effective support must make sense within the cultural and family relationships of the people seeking safety.
Its case management approach is grounded in Gurrutu, the Yolŋu kinship system. Alongside immediate protection, the organisation works towards prevention through community education and conversations with young women about healthy relationships.
That cultural grounding matters. Women should be able to seek safety without having to leave their identity at the door, or explain their whole world before someone understands what support might look like.
Waterlily Healing Indigenous Corporation brings a similarly strong commitment to culturally safe care, with lived experience informing its work in social and emotional wellbeing.
Founded by Karyn Moyle, the organisation supports First Nations people living with the continuing effects of grief and intergenerational trauma. Its work includes mental health and suicide awareness programs, with mentoring and community activities creating opportunities for connection.
Waterlily's approach recognises the importance of culture in healing and the value of people who understand the experiences communities carry. Its vision includes training and mentoring Indigenous facilitators, strengthening communities' ability to lead their own healing beyond an individual program.
The Darwin fundraiser also recognised the people and businesses who helped make the evening possible.
Donors and sponsors included Paspalis, Aviso Specialty, the NT Government Chief Minister's Office, Nightcliff Community Enterprises, Top End Law and Ahvana.
Sharks for Good Jerome Cubillo, Alexie Seller and Dr Guzyal Hill also contributed to the evening.
With momentum building, organisers are inviting people to become part of 10x10 Darwin in 2027 through the 10xer Program.
The program brings together ten volunteers over ten weeks to organise a crowdfunding event supporting grassroots organisations, asking participants to contribute around two to three hours weekly.
For Darwin, the invitation is to turn the goodwill of one evening into ongoing relationships. What follows will depend on who keeps showing up and how they back the people already doing the work.
Their work deserves sustained backing from a community willing to listen and invest beyond the fundraising night.
