ABOUT THE FOUNDATION
The Foundation funds programs that build
capable, ethical young leaders in Australia.
Civics, debate, public advocacy, and youth-led community projects — delivered with our partners, non-partisan, and child-safe to best-practice governance standards.
WHAT WE ARE
A grant-making foundation with three deliberate structural choices.
The Odyssey Leadership Foundation is an Australian not-for-profit headquartered in Newcastle, NSW. The Foundation operates as a Public Ancillary Fund (DGR Item 2) under a Named Fund administered by Australian Communities Foundation. By law, the Named Fund can only grant to organisations endorsed by the ATO as DGR Item 1.
The Foundation does not deliver programs directly. It funds high-quality DGR Item 1 partners who do — primarily The Y NSW Youth Parliament Program for civics education, and additional partners across debate, critical thinking, and youth-led community projects working with disadvantaged Australians across NSW.
The directors operate pro bono. There is no fundraising budget. More than 97 cents in every donated dollar reaches a partner organisation. The 2.5 per cent that remains covers the Australian Communities Foundation's annual administration of the Named Fund — audit, compliance, governance, and disbursement.
STRUCTURE
GRANTS FLOW TO
FOUNDATION OVERHEAD
PAF Named Fund
DGR Item 1 Partners
Zero Salaries
Held by Australian Communities Foundation. DGR Item 2 endorsed by the ATO.
Only ATO-endorsed DGR Item 1 entities delivering programs to disadvantaged Australians.
Directors operate pro bono. No marketing or fundraising costs are deducted from donations.
OUR STORY
Why the Foundation exists.
T
he Foundation's founder, Bain Dohne, served in the Royal Australian Air Force from 2006 to 2021.
His final years in uniform included a posting to the ADFIS Defence Abuse Response Taskforce —
a year of structured engagement with the consequences of leadership failure — and a subsequent role as a Personnel Capability Officer in Security Forces, with direct engagement on ADF member welfare and the loss of colleagues to suicide. He was medically discharged in April 2021.
What he saw across those years, and in the civilian sector afterwards, was a recurring pattern: capable, decent young people being placed into positions of responsibility with very little prior formation. Leadership was expected of them; it was rarely taught. The cost of that gap was visible at the individual level — in burnt-out junior officers, in mistakes made under pressure, in good people leaving roles they should have flourished in — and at the institutional level, in declining trust in the leadership of Australian public life.
The Foundation was established to address one part of that gap: the practical formation of young Australians, ahead of leadership rather than after it. The conviction underpinning the work is straightforward — that capability and integrity in leadership are not innate, that they can be taught, and that the country has a finite window in which to teach them well to the generation now in school.
The Foundation does this work through grant-making to DGR Item 1 partners who deliver programs at scale and with credibility. The structural decisions — operating through Australian Communities Foundation rather than as a standalone charity, granting to existing partners rather than building parallel programs, drawing no salaries — are all in service of the same principle: that donor capital should reach the work, not the infrastructure around the work.
WHY "ODYSSEY"
Three concepts from the classical tradition.
The Foundation takes its name from Homer's Odyssey — not for the journey metaphor, but for three concepts the tradition treats as central to good leadership. Each translates directly into how the Foundation thinks about the work.
XENIA.
Care for the stranger.
MÉTIS.
Prudence and Craft.
ANTI-HUBRIS.
Restraint.
The first test of a leader is how they treat the person they have no obligation to. The Foundation funds programs that put young people in front of stakeholders they have no prior relationship with — and asks them to make their case.
Practical wisdom — knowing what to do when the rule book runs out. The Foundation funds programs that build judgment under pressure rather than rehearsed answers: parliamentary debate, structured argument, real public speaking.
The recognition that capability without restraint produces poor leadership. The Foundation funds programs that hold young people to civic and ethical standards alongside the skills — character formation, not just capability formation.
THE BOARD
Four directors. Each has a specific portfolio.
The Foundation operates with a deliberately structured board. Each director owns a defined portfolio, and the board collectively carries the operating and governance responsibilities that, in larger foundations, would sit with paid staff.
BD
Bain Döhne
CEO & Founder
Bain established the Foundation in 2024 after a career split between the Royal Australian Air Force and the civil sector. He served in the RAAF from 2006 to 2021, including a year-long posting to the ADFIS Defence Abuse Response Taskforce and a subsequent role as a Personnel Capability Officer in Security Forces with direct engagement on ADF member welfare. He was medically discharged in April 2021. Bain leads the Foundation's strategy, communications, partnerships, and public advocacy.
MK
Mario K.
Company Secretary
Director of Policy, Programs & Impact
Mario oversees the Foundation’s program portfolio, policy positions, and impact measurement, and serves as Company Secretary. He brings a decade of experience in aviation engineering and technical leadership, with a background spanning capability sustainment and acquisition, sustainment design engineering, operational maintenance management, and the leadership of large technical workforces in complex, safety-critical environments. His role at the Foundation is to ensure that grant decisions are evidence-led, that program outcomes are measured, and that the Foundation’s governance documentation meets the standards expected of an institutional-grade not-for-profit.
IS
Inderpal S.
Director of Operations & Digital
Inderpal leads the Foundation’s operational infrastructure and digital systems. He brings a decade of experience across enterprise IT operations, digital workplace solutions, and end-user technology, supporting state government agencies and large-scale organisations across Australia. His background spans operational support, systems management, endpoint technology, and process improvement in complex service environments. At the Foundation, he ensures operations scale effectively as grant-making grows, and that the Foundation’s digital platforms — including website, communications, and internal systems — remain efficient, secure, and fit for purpose.
MR
Madhukar R.
Director of Governance, Compliance & Cyber
Madhukar oversees the Foundation's governance framework, regulatory compliance, and cybersecurity posture. He brings over a decade of experience in systems design and information processing, with cybersecurity as his primary focus, continually building secure systems, analysing digital risks, and supporting strong governance and compliance through a security‑by‑design approach. His role at the Foundation reflects the operating reality that contemporary philanthropic foundations carry serious obligations under privacy law, child-safety frameworks, and ACNC governance standards — and that those obligations require board-level oversight, not delegation to staff.
HOW WE WORK
The Foundation's grant-making approach, in three principles
The Foundation makes grants on the basis of partner quality, program evidence, and strategic fit — not on the volume of applications or the persuasiveness of a pitch deck. The process is short, considered, and deliberately small-scale.
01
02
03
Partner quality first.
Evidence-led decisions.
Long-term over transactional.
Every grant decision is informed by the partner's published outcomes, the program's evidence base, and the Foundation's assessment of strategic fit with its mission. Grants are sized to the program; there is no formula. Larger grants involve closer ongoing engagement.
The Foundation works with a small number of high-quality DGR Item 1 partners with established programs and track records. It does not run open application rounds, and does not respond to unsolicited grant requests. Partners are selected on the basis of program credibility and operational integrity.
The Foundation prefers long-term funding relationships over one-off grants. The primary education partner — The Y NSW Youth Parliament Program — is treated as a long-term strategic collaboration, not a discrete grant cycle. Where the Foundation funds, it intends to keep funding.