Community engagement: City of Darebin

Tingwall partnered with the City of Darebin to collaborate with a representative group of Darebin business and economic stakeholders – the working group – to develop a set of recommendations guiding the establishment of a Darebin Business Network (DBN). Over three workshops, the working group collaboratively explored and defined a set of recommendations that outlined the purpose, resourcing, activities, membership, governance and success outcomes of a proposed DBN.

The idea for establishing a DBN emerged from feedback from the Darebin business community during previous engagements to inform the draft Economic Framework (2024). The engagement was undertaken during 2023 and 2024, and during the engagement, Council heard that local businesses were interested in:

• Connecting businesses for peer-to-peer support
• Localising supply chains
• Promoting industry champions/achievements and grant opportunities provided by third parties
• Facilitating business peer-to-peer mentoring to help small businesses learn, grow and scale
• Partnering with local providers to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs; and
• Celebrating local climate and circular economy champions.

As such, the establishment of a DBN was launched as the first lighthouse project of the Economic Framework. The Economic Framework notes the intent to: Partner with local businesses to establish a Darebin Business Network that supports networking, enables small businesses to participate in economic partnerships and scale.