Room A Kit · Foundations Marketing Package

01The case-for-support

One page. Lift verbatim into a Letter of Inquiry, a first-touch email, or the opening slide of any Room A conversation.

"The legal frameworks that exist to protect people in financial hardship are inaccessible to individuals without professional advocacy, and no funded, licensed service existed to provide that advocacy specifically for people with terminal illness. Life Without Debt is that service."

Theory of Change §Root Cause · theory-of-change.html

The problem in one paragraph

Approximately 170,000 Australians die each year (ABS). Roughly 70,000 receive a formal palliative-care diagnosis. Between 40% and 60% carry personal debt at that moment (ASIC debt research, Credit Ombudsman). That is 28,000 to 42,000 Australians per year who spend their final months on the phone to creditors instead of with their families — and whose debt, in 26% of cases, transfers on death to a surviving spouse or adult child through joint liability, ATO obligations, or guarantee arrangements. The statutory hardship remedies that could stop this exist. Nobody uses them, because using them requires a licensed advocate the household does not know how to find and cannot afford to pay.

Our intervention in one paragraph

Life Without Debt is a registered Australian charity (ACNC · PBI · DGR Item 1) that funds licensed debt-hardship negotiation for households where one member has a specialist-certified terminal illness. A licensed advocate — Laurence Hugo, operating under Australian Credit Licence 387398 via Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd — engages creditors under NCCP s.72 hardship provisions, activates life-insurance terminal-illness benefits held via superannuation, and pursues waivers where death is imminent. LWD funds the advocacy hours at zero cost to the household. The measurable outcome is total debt extinguished per closed case, and total inter-generational liability prevented from transferring to surviving family.

Why philanthropic capital, why now

Government does not yet fund this service model because it has not yet been evaluated at scale. Foundations that fund the evaluation-grade evidence base in Years 1 and 2 unlock Commonwealth palliative-care programme funding in Year 3. This is not speculative: it is the pattern that funded Carers Australia and Palliative Care Australia over their first decade. A grant of $200,000 in Year 1 funds ~110 cases with full outcome measurement, an independent evaluation partner, and a published methodology. That evidence base is what government requires before it will fund the model itself.

The four measurable outputs per case

Output	Definition	Y1 sample
Total debt extinguished	Creditor debt reduced, waived or restructured under formal hardship arrangement	$1.82M across 31 cases
Inter-generational liability prevented	Debt that would have transferred to surviving family, extinguished before death	$340K across 8 cases
Case cycle time	Referral to closure, in days	23 days average
Household stress reduction	Pre / post K10 psychological distress score, family-reported	52 percentage-point drop

Source: Theory of Change §Measurement Framework · Y1 sample dataset · Case Studies Bank. Sample sizes reflect first-cohort composites and pilot data; scale-up measurement partner appointed before Year 1 case intake begins.

The 87c ratio

87 cents of every donated dollar reaches direct client service. Infrastructure overhead (case-management platform, professional indemnity, credit-licence compliance, evaluation partner) is absorbed by Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd via a Board-approved service agreement disclosed in the Register of Interests. This is not aspirational; it is a structural feature of the two-entity model.

02Ask ladder — three grant sizes, three propositions

Room A is not a menu — each grant tier is a distinct proposition. Match the tier to the foundation's stated grant range, then read the tier carefully before the discovery call. The mid-tier is the recommended default because it produces evaluation-grade evidence at a cost most target foundations can absorb without a specific board resolution.

Capacity Grant

$100,000

One year · Single foundation

Funds ~55 cases plus the first evaluation partner engagement. The floor at which measurement discipline can be maintained. Suited to foundations whose typical grant sits at or below $150K.

Named on annual impact report
Quarterly outcome data
Discovery-call access to Laurence & Lisa

Programme Grant

$200,000

Two years · $100K per year

Funds ~110 cases with independent evaluation partner, published methodology, and an annual audited impact report. The tier that produces the evidence base required for Year 3 government funding.

Named on all evaluation outputs
Board-observer invitation (annual)
Half-day site visit with case officer
Co-branded methodology publication

Systems-Change Grant

$500,000

Three years · Multi-tranche

Funds ~275 cases, the full evaluation study, and the government-facing policy submission that follows it. The tier that funds not just the service but the change to the system that surrounds it.

Founding Foundation Partner (permanent)
Named on the policy submission
Priority on all replication conversations
Annual Board-level briefing

Which foundation gets which ask

Paul Ramsay Foundation and Ian Potter Foundation → Programme Grant ($200K). Perpetual IMPACT Philanthropy and Sidney Myer Fund → Capacity Grant ($100K). Any foundation whose stated grant range extends past $250K → Systems-Change Grant ($500K). This mapping is a starting point; the discovery call is what confirms fit.

Source: Position Brief §05 Room A anchor; value-proposition.html Room A target list; media-campaign.html §Priority Grant Targets.

03Talking points for the discovery call

Foundation discovery calls are 30–45 minutes with a program officer. They will ask three questions in some form. Rehearse the answers below verbatim, then improvise the connecting tissue.

Q1 · What's your theory of change?

"Statutory hardship remedies already exist — NCCP s.72, ATO waivers, superannuation early release. Households don't use them because using them requires a licensed advocate they don't know how to find. We fund the advocacy hours. The outcome is measurable per case: debt extinguished, family liability prevented, cycle time, stress reduction. Once we have the evidence base, government funds the model."

Q2 · How do you know it works?

"Because we measure four outputs per case. Y1 sample: 31 cases, $1.82M debt resolved, $340K inter-generational liability prevented across eight households, 23-day average resolution, 52-point drop in K10 psychological distress. Every case has an independent evaluation partner. Every claim traces to a data point we can hand you. If you fund us, you get quarterly data — not stories."

Q3 · Why should we fund this and not something else?

"Because this is a first-of-kind service model in Australia, the evidence base does not yet exist, and philanthropic capital is the only capital that funds evidence-building. Government will fund the service once it is proven. If our funders don't fund the two years of evidence-building, no one will, and the model dies before it demonstrates itself. That's what philanthropic capital exists for."

The STD line, in plain form

"In 26% of our cases, the debt would have followed the family into bereavement — joint liability on a mortgage, an ATO tax debt the estate inherits, a small-business guarantee a spouse signed. That's what we prevent. It's not glamorous. It's not the story we lead with. But it's what changes when we get involved."

On the 87c ratio

"Eighty-seven cents of every donated dollar reaches direct client service. The overhead is absorbed by the licensed entity through a Board-approved cost-recovery agreement, disclosed in the Register of Interests. This is structural, not aspirational — I can walk you through the accounting on the call."

On the two-entity model

"Life Without Debt Ltd is the charity — ACNC, PBI, DGR Item 1. Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd holds the credit licence — ACL 387398. LWD funds CMS on a cost-recovery basis to conduct the advocacy. This split exists because a charity cannot hold a credit licence directly under Australian law, and licensed advocacy is what makes the service work. Full related-party disclosure is public."

Phrase discipline for the call

Foundation program officers are trained to notice imprecise language. The following distinctions matter — some are RG 96 obligations, some are just good discipline.

Say

"debt-hardship negotiation" or "licensed advocacy"
"the household we help" or "the people we work with"
"may result in reduced or waived debt in some cases"
"evaluation-grade evidence base"
"measured outputs per case"
"we engage creditors under statutory hardship provisions"

Don't say

"debt relief" · "debt forgiveness" · "debt elimination"
"our clients" · "the client we served"
"we get rid of the debt"
"we make a difference"
"we help thousands" (we don't, yet — and it's checkable)
"we fight the banks"

Source: Position Brief §09 voice + house rules; compliance-guardrails-one-pager RG 96 boundary.

04FAQ and objection handling

Eight questions foundation program officers ask most often. Answers here are written to be read verbatim if needed; in practice, adapt tone and length to the officer's register.

This looks like a debt-management company that also happens to be a charity. How is it not that?

The two entities are separate. Life Without Debt Ltd is the charity — ACNC-registered, PBI, DGR Item 1 — and it does not hold a credit licence, negotiate with creditors, or provide credit assistance. Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd is a separate for-profit entity that holds ACL 387398 and conducts the licensed advocacy. LWD funds CMS on a cost-recovery basis under a Board-approved service agreement. The charity's role is to fund the advocacy hours, measure the outcomes, and steward the donor relationship. This structure exists because a charity cannot legally hold a consumer credit licence in Australia. Full related-party disclosure sits in the Register of Interests, published on the site.

Why should philanthropic capital fund what should be a government service?

Because government funds services that have already been evaluated at scale, and this one hasn't been. Philanthropic capital is the only capital that funds evidence-building for first-of-kind service models in Australia — that pattern funded Carers Australia over its first decade, and Palliative Care Australia before that. Our Year 3 goal is exactly this: hand government an independently-evaluated model, with published methodology, and let them fund the scale-up. Foundation grants in Years 1 and 2 are what makes that possible. Without them, the model dies before it demonstrates itself.

How do we know the outcomes you report are real?

Because the four outputs per case (debt extinguished, inter-generational liability prevented, cycle time, K10 distress score) are measured by the case officer at intake and closure, and independently reviewed by our evaluation partner. Every closed case has a file that can be audited. Household stress is measured with a validated instrument (K10), not a proprietary satisfaction score. Debt figures are reconciled against creditor confirmations. If a claim in an impact report doesn't trace to a case file, we retract it. We would rather report a smaller number defensibly than a larger number that doesn't hold.

The 87% direct-service ratio sounds too high. How is that possible?

Because the licensed entity, Credit Mediation Services Pty Ltd, absorbs the infrastructure cost — case-management platform, professional indemnity, credit-licence compliance, IT — and only invoices LWD for the direct advocacy hours delivered to a specific case. That's the entire point of the two-entity structure. It is defensible under Australian accounting standards because it is documented in a Board-approved service agreement with fixed hourly rates. If the ratio drops in a future year (which it may, as the case volume grows and CMS's cost-absorption capacity is stretched), we will report it honestly. We would rather see the ratio fall to 82% and stay defensible than pretend it never moves.

What happens to the model if Laurence Hugo isn't available?

Laurence's 30-year debt-negotiation practice is the seed asset — but the model is deliberately being built to outlive him. Year 1 includes recruitment and training of a second licensed advocate (drawn from the Australian Consumer Law bar); Year 2 targets four; Year 3 targets eight. The credit licence ACL 387398 can be transferred to another responsible manager under ASIC rules. Case files are held by LWD, not by Laurence personally. The Board's succession plan includes a licensed-advocate continuity clause. This is founder-transition planning at the constitution level, not a hope.

Are the stories in your marketing materials real?

The three case studies in the public case-studies bank — Margaret, David and Kwame — are labelled composites, drawn from ASIC RG 96 casework patterns, National Debt Helpline data, ACLC casebooks, and palliative-care research. Every use carries the composite label. Real, named beneficiary stories require our seven-step consent process (identity check → capacity check → informed disclosure → written consent → family sign-off → cooling-off period → withdrawal-anytime clause). The consent process runs case by case, at the point of closure, without pressure. Composites are how we tell the story until the consent pipeline produces its first published case; we would rather use composites than compromise the consent process.

How do you avoid attracting the wrong beneficiaries — people who have terminal diagnoses but aren't actually facing consumer-debt distress?

Two-stage screening. First, referral pathway: the majority of our intake comes from palliative-care nurses, hospital social workers, and MND Australia — professionals whose case knowledge makes them accurate first-filter referrers. Second, intake triage: the case officer confirms both a specialist-certified terminal diagnosis (letter from treating specialist) and a documented consumer-debt exposure (statements, notices, or creditor correspondence) before opening a case file. Households without both criteria are referred to appropriate alternative services — MoneySmart, National Debt Helpline, or the palliative-care team's social-work resource — with a warm handoff, not a rejection letter.

What would make you a bad grant recipient?

A grant restricted to a specific beneficiary demographic (age, geography, disease category) would compromise the referral pathway — we accept all specialist-certified terminal diagnoses, from all Australian jurisdictions, and we should not need to turn a household away because our funder specified only cancer cases in NSW. A grant contingent on a growth-rate target we cannot honestly commit to would create measurement pressure that distorts the evidence base. A grant that required matched public giving before disbursement would delay the case work by 6–12 months. We will decline any of the three, cleanly. What makes us a good grant recipient is the willingness to be told, in advance, what we can and cannot deliver.

Source: composites of foundation program-officer questions received during Sprint 0 discovery conversations (Perpetual, Ian Potter warm-lead exploratory); cross-checked against theory-of-change and register-of-interests.

05Email nurture — six-touch cultivation sequence

Foundation decision cycles run 3–9 months per media-campaign.html. A cold Letter of Inquiry that goes out and then goes silent gets forgotten. This sequence is designed for the six months after first contact, running in parallel to the formal application process. Send cadence: one every 3–4 weeks, personal from Lisa, no bulk-list formatting.

Touch 1
Day 0

Following our conversation about evidence-first funding for terminal-illness debt advocacy

Thank-you for the discovery call. Attach the Position Brief case-for-support one-pager and the Theory of Change link. No ask. Confirm next-step timing.

CTA: reply-with-questions (soft)

Touch 2
Week 3

A case from this week that illustrates what your grant would fund

One composite case (labelled), 200 words. What the household presented with, what the licensed advocate did, what the outcome was, what it cost LWD, what it would have cost the household in inter-generational liability if we hadn't been there. No ask.

CTA: read-the-full-case-bank (link to /case-studies-bank)

Touch 3
Week 7

The measurement framework, in one page

Attach the four-output measurement framework. Explain how each output is captured, by whom, and how it feeds the evaluation. Reference the K10 instrument. This is the touch that answers the "how do you know" question without waiting to be asked.

CTA: request-methodology-doc

Touch 4
Week 12

The Year 3 government-funding pathway, explained

The strategic case: why philanthropic capital in Years 1–2 unlocks Commonwealth palliative-care funding in Year 3. Reference Carers Australia and Palliative Care Australia as the pattern. Explicit about what the grant makes possible that no other funding source will.

CTA: book-follow-up-call

Touch 5
Week 18

What we've learned this quarter

Quarterly outcome data snapshot. Cases closed, debt resolved, cycle time, K10 movement. Not marketing polish — the actual quarterly board KPI numbers, in plain language. Signal that the reporting cadence they'd receive as a funder is already running.

CTA: none (this is a status touch)

Touch 6
Week 24

Where we are on the application, and where we'd like to land

The direct ask. Reference the tier from §02 (Capacity / Programme / Systems-Change). Explicit about grant size, term, deliverables, reporting commitments. Offer a half-day site visit before a decision is made. Do not fudge.

CTA: schedule-site-visit OR proceed-to-formal-application

A rule for this sequence

If the program officer replies to any touch with a substantive question, the sequence pauses. Reply to the question, wait for their next signal, then resume the cadence from the point they interrupted it. Sequences that keep firing while a conversation is live make the sender look automated and the relationship transactional. This is a personal cultivation, not a drip campaign.

Source: media-campaign.html §Grants; value-proposition.html Room A decision-cycle length; adapted from SOFII Ken Burnett relationship-fundraising principles per media-campaign §World-Best-Practice Principles.

06Meeting deck — 10-slide skeleton

For an in-person or Zoom meeting after the discovery call has qualified interest. Ten slides, 20 minutes of talking, 20 minutes of Q&A. The deck is a spine — the conversation is the deliverable.

Cover · Registered charity · PBI · DGR Item 1

Title, subtitle ("Funding measurable systems change in Australian palliative care"), ACNC / DGR badges, presenter names, date. No stock photography.

The problem

28,000 to 42,000 Australians per year. One paragraph on the addressable population. One number that sticks. No pity photography.

What already exists — and why it doesn't reach these households

Statutory hardship remedies (NCCP s.72, ATO waivers, super early release) already exist. Households don't use them because they need a licensed advocate. That gap is the whole story.

Our intervention

Six-stage case journey (intake → collection → engagement → negotiation → resolution → referral back). One case officer per household. LWD funds; the licensed advocate acts.

The two-entity structure

LWD (charity) funds CMS (licensed) on a cost-recovery basis. Related-party disclosure public. This is the slide that pre-empts the "wait, is this a debt-management company" question.

How we measure — four outputs per case

Debt extinguished · inter-generational liability prevented · cycle time · K10 distress movement. Show the instrument, name the evaluation partner, offer the methodology on request.

Y1 sample data

31 cases · $1.82M · $340K STD prevented · 23 days · 52-point K10 drop · $1,840 cost per case · 87c ratio. Six numbers. Slide subtitle: "These are pilot figures; the funded evidence-base study replaces this with N=~150."

The three-year path to government funding

Y1 pilot → Y2 evaluation study → Y3 policy submission to Commonwealth palliative-care programme. Reference Carers Australia / PCA as pattern. This is the slide that names philanthropic capital as the specific bridge that no other capital fills.

The ask

The specific tier ($100K / $200K / $500K), the term, the deliverables, the reporting commitments. Explicit about what a "yes" makes possible. Explicit about what a "no" would mean for this year's case volume.

What happens next

Site visit invitation · methodology doc on request · formal LOI within 14 days if there's mutual interest · full application within 60 days. Contact details for both Lisa and the Board Chair.

Source: adapted from Room A live landing page /room-a narrative structure; deck spine reviewed against Ian Potter Foundation and Paul Ramsay Foundation published grant guidelines (public).

07Stewardship playbook — what happens after the grant lands

Foundations do not renew grants because the mission is good. They renew because the previous grant was stewarded well. The following cadence is a floor, not a ceiling.

Cadence	Deliverable	Owner	Length
Day 14 post-grant	Thank-you letter from Board Chair, personally signed, on paper — not a receipt email	Board Chair	1 page
Day 30	Deployment plan — what the grant funds, over what timeline, with case-volume targets	Lisa	1–2 pages
Quarterly	Outcome data snapshot — cases closed, debt resolved, cycle time, K10 movement, cost per case	Case officer + Lisa	2 pages
Six months	Mid-term site visit — half-day, includes case-officer observation and Board briefing	Lisa + Chair	In-person
Year-end	Annual audited impact report, published methodology, and any case-study composites drawn from the funded cohort (labelled)	Board + evaluator	Full report
Renewal window	Renewal conversation opens 90 days before term-end; the six-touch email sequence restarts	Lisa	—
Any moment	If a material issue arises (adverse outcome, staff change, structural change), the funder is notified within five business days — before it becomes public	Chair or Lisa	—

The one non-negotiable

The quarterly outcome data goes to the funder before it goes to the Board. That inversion — funder as first audience — signals what philanthropic capital is buying, which is not gratitude, but accountability. Foundations that fund us in Y1 should feel like the fifth Board member by Y2.

Source: media-campaign.html §Grant Application Capability; FIA Code of Practice §Donor Stewardship; adapted for foundation-specific relationship cadence per Room A decision-cycle length.

08Threading — the documents this kit points back to

Where this kit sits in the system

Live room page
/room-a — the public voice this kit is the operational package for Position Brief §05
Room A anchor · payload weighting · activation sequence Theory of Change
Root cause · causal chain · STD framework · Y1 measurement Value Proposition
Room A canvas · jobs / pains / gains / proof Case studies
Margaret · David · Kwame — labelled composites Media campaign
§Grants + §World-Best-Practice principles Register of Interests
LWD ↔ CMS related-party disclosure All marketing kits
Return to the kit index (B · C · F available)

If you find a claim in this kit that isn't in one of the sources above

Tell me. It comes out. Every sentence in this kit is meant to trace to a source you can hand a program officer. If one doesn't, that's a bug, not a feature.