If you have any questions about our media releases or would like to connect with a member of our team, please reach out to us.
Boronia Lyddieth
Email
From napkin sketch to global impact: Deakin marks 15 years supporting humanitarian leaders worldwide
Media release
1 September 2026
As more humanitarian crises unfold around the globe, Deakin’s Centre for Humanitarian Leadership (CHL) is marking 15 years of support for the leaders on the frontlines with a call for partners to help expand the Centre’s reach.
With government funding shrinking and aid agencies stretched across multiple countries, CHL Director Professor Mary Ana McGlasson says private donations are needed now more than ever to invest in the people already leading at a community level.
‘We have hundreds of millions of people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and less and less money and resources to help them,’ Professor McGlasson said.
The consistent theme is that where there is good leadership, you have better outcomes for communities.
Director, Centre for Humanitarian Leadership
CHL offers evidence-based, practical leadership training that puts affected communities at the centre of decisions – and it all started with a humanitarian, an academic and an idea scrawled on a napkin.
In 2011, humanitarian aid worker Stephen McDonald from Save the Children Australia walked through the doors of Deakin University to meet with Associate Professor Phil Connors. The idea they landed on that day – that field experience and academic rigour belong in the same room – became the founding proposition of what is now CHL.
The ripple effect of that founding partnership has gone on to impact millions of people around the world, building the leadership skills of thousands of humanitarian workers to lead action on the ground in the communities they know best.
Group CEO of Save the Children Australia, Mat Tinkler said that leadership isn’t only for CEOs and board directors.
Humanitarian needs know no boundaries – we need capability in humanitarians from all walks of life and all languages.
Group CEO, Save the Children Australia
‘These are staff from some of the toughest places – Gaza, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan. The skills and capabilities they gain through CHL give them confidence when they're back in the field making some of the important decisions that they've got to make daily.’
CHL was built with seed funding from the Australian Aid Program and the expertise of partners such as World Vision and Oxfam. When the IKEA Foundation invested over USD $7m to establish the Graduate Certificate of Humanitarian Leadership, CHL went global.
‘We can't do anything without partnership and without donors,’ Professor McGlasson said.
‘2025 tested the Centre, and the sector. The USAID funding freeze forced us to pause our Francophone programs, impacting nearly 100 students and participants across West and Central Africa and Haiti who work on the frontlines of some of the world’s most complex crises.
‘While traditional funding may be limited and inflexible, philanthropy fuels innovation and reach, piloting new ideas and scaling proven programs into new regions.
‘CHL was made possible through great ideas and the generosity of donors, taking it to the globally impactful organisation it is today. In an era where government funding has collapsed, CHL’s future relies on the ongoing generosity of our donors to continue its work.’