Insight that communities shape, share, and benefit from

VCNITY provides grassroots cultural organisations with a digital home to connect and collaborate with their communities.

Then, we help local councils and agencies commission research from these organisations, creating a new source of funding.

Community creates. Community owns. Organisation licenses insights.

Test the app

Partnering with us

Where it all began

The Creative Co-Design methodology was developed during my PhD project at QUT, where I collaborated with LGBTQIA+ people to create costumes. It has since been validated across numerous projects and diverse communities. Rather than asking participants to describe their needs in abstract terms, Creative Co-Design invites them to ideate, make, and narrate those needs within a structured, culturally safe process.*

The methodology is freely available for any facilitator to use, adapt, and build on. VCNITY is developing a train-the-trainer resource, facilitation guides, activity templates, and coaching materials to help the Creative Co-Design capability grow across the Australian community sector, independently of any single platform or project.

Our past projects worked with:

LGBTQIA+

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders

Creatives

Youth

Neurodivergent

PhD Project: 2021

Nine LGBTQIA+ participants attended eight costume-making workshops. The project culminated in a photoshoot, after which the whole group attended a party in costume.

Key emerging themes included how creative co-design enhanced personal sense of identity and fostered collective community building.

Select past projects

2023 project: Inala Wangarra: Sparkle Mob

Workshops for Inala-based LGBTQIA+ Aboriginal youth. Focused on identity expression and representation. Culminated in a NIDOC Day fashion show. 11 participants increased visibility for queer youth within their community.

09-01-24 Brisbane Festival Be Iconic Morgan Roberts 428.jpg

2024 project: BE ICONIC

Workshops in multiple community centres, including neurodivergent focused workshops. Delivered in collaboration with the Brisbane Festival. 70+ participants walked the catwalk. 250+ attendees

2025 project: Fashioning Queer Identities

Project for Brisbane-based LGBTQIA+ people. A multi-disciplinary, co-designed art project. 25 artists-participants across eight workshops, a pop-up exhibition attended by over 100 guests.

The Problem

The people most affected are the least consulted

Hard to reach communities

Decision-makers, councils, planners, and developers’ community's research is incomplete.

Refugee communities, First Nations organisations, CALD groups, and people in regional areas rarely appear in standard engagement surveys.

Lost knowledge

Community organisations hold the deepest knowledge of the people they work with and the trust to access their insights.

These experiences and solutions are missing from the conversation.

Weak insights & weak communication

Current research infrastructure doesn't extend far enough.

Even when communities are consulted, there is no feedback, no change, and no reason to participate next time.

VCNITY is built to fix this!

Some key pain points community researchers face

4/287

complaints responses halted a council-approved public art project.

city-wide engagement teams covers all research for the entire municipality.

18 year olds

Youth under 18 are consistently unreachable through standard channels across every council surveyed.

3–4 months

Engagement projects require 3–4 months, yet project leads routinely expect 2–3 weeks.

City Council research officer

"I would like a database for every single resident and how they would prefer to be engaged with... I'm talking dreams. This is not real.”

Our Purpose

Some key pain points community organisations face

Community organisations in the Western suburbs of Melbourne alone include 10+ interconnected groups, 7 Indigenous leadership bodies, and hundreds of regular participants, from populations councils consistently fail to reach

Insights from sessions, workshops, and programs evaporate with no system to retain them

Funding silos prevent organisations with aligned goals from combining delivery; two programs wanting to work together cannot without triggering grant variation risk.

The Solution

VCNITY connects hard-to-find communities with the researchers who need to hear them.

When City Councils need to understand how LGBTQIA+ people experience public space, they run a survey.

Most impacted community members never hear about it or engage. Meanwhile, the community organisations that know the stories, needs, and local issues are excluded.

Recent research confirms what community organisations already know: the gap is systemic, not accidental*.

VCNITY was built to address this gap.

Our Purpose

Poor Engagement can be Damaging

1

Disconnected Communities

Poor past experiences increase disengagement, reducing trust (Mugagula, 2025).

2

Perfunctory Engagement Causes Disengagement

If engagement doesn’t read as authentic, it can damage public image (Quick & Bryson, 2016).

3

Lack Of Feedback, That Causes Disillusionment

Lack Of Feedback, That causes Disillusionment (Quick & Bryson, 2016).

4

Traditional Research And Engagement That Doesn’t Connect

Marginalised communities can experience research as extractive (Bothelo & Bofim, 2023).

How VCNITY makes it works

One platform, two sides, designed to work together

Commission

Clients' organisations define their community research brief.
They are matched with the right community organisations through the platform.
Receive ethical, anonymised data from the platform through insights and reporting.

Engages, connects and reports

VCNITY helps clients commission and discover community groups.
The platform’s experts help organisations develop creative
co-design activities to address the research needs.
VCNITY develops SROI metrics, thematic analysis, and policy-ready data, delivered in easy-to-use formatting

Use Creative Co-Design to gain insights and collect data

Community organisations agree to research commissions, carrying out guided activities with their participants.
Record, report and interview to generate the results.
Benefit from extra funding

How It Works

VCNITY: key goals

Goals

Goal 1: Creative Co-Design

Share Creative Co-Design with Facilitators across the sector.

Creative Co-Design is an effective approach for developing collaborative projects and solutions and for building community.

The first goal is to share Creative Co-Design with facilitators, to share insights, techniques, and successful methods.

The three stages of Creative Co-Design

1

Define shared values and experiences

Participants map shared experiences and priorities through structured icebreakers and group ideation. The facilitator participates as an equal rather than directing. What emerges is a collective picture of what the community cares about, defining commonalities and shared experiences.

2

Collective strategies

Participants move into creative making, based on their preferred medium, whatever fits the community. Working together on a shared task helps in collaborative ideation and innovation, with every voice equally weighted and heard.

3

Creative narratives

All creative outputs become data. Facilitators document what was created and said via the VCNITY platform. Every facet of the process is recorded, uploaded and analysed, delivered to the client as a policy-ready report.

Creative Co-Design

What does a Creative Co-Design session look like?

Participants work through a collaborative creative task guided by a facilitator who contributes as an equal. Ideas emerge through making, doing, and narrating, not necessarily through discussion.

How is it different from a focus group or a survey?

Insights emerge through creative activity rather than direct questioning, yielding intuitive, authentic responses that enable everyone to contribute.

How long does it take?

Creative Co-Design can inform any activity or be integrated into any regular program session.

What materials are involved?

Whatever creative discipline the community already uses. No specialist materials required.

What does a facilitator need?

Familiarity with the community's culture and norms. VCNITY provides step-by-step activity guides. No research background required.

Back to Goals

Goal 2: Digital hubs

Give community organisations a safe digital home.

VCNITY offers an alternative to Facebook and other unsafe, unmoderated social platforms.

The VCNITY Digital Hubs provide a private space for communities to connect, share, and collaborate, with AI tools that enhance shared development, idea-sharing, and peer-to-peer support.

VCNITY is for:

Art groups, Craft organisations, Circus companies, Community outreach organisations, youth workshops, dance classes, knitting circles…

For all creative community groups!

Your new community hub

1

Communication hub

Group announcements, threaded discussions, and direct messaging, all in one private space. Unlike Facebook Groups, your content isn’t subject to algorithm changes, data harvesting, or public visibility.

2

Ideas board

A visual space for planning, co-designing, and sharing creative work, built specifically for the way community organisations work. Map ideas, share images and documents, and keep a record of your creative process over time.

3

Public platform

A public-facing page for your organisation that showcases your work to your participants, partner agencies, and the broader public. Your community’s outputs become visible evidence of the great work you create.

This is what a safe, intuitive hub looks like!

Back to Goals

Goal 3: Enhancing Research Insights

Connect community knowledge with the community researchers that need it

Community organisations have established networks of people that traditional community research often fails to reach.

Through VCNITY, organisations that need to engage with and research their local communities can commission research, generating a new revenue stream for communities while gaining hard-to-get insights.

Client organisations : Commission the research you need

VCNITY gives you the depth of insight that standard consultation can’t reach. We connect you with grassroots community organisations that already have the trust, relationships, and cultural access you need.

You commission the research.

We handle the rest!

VCNITY is for:

State and Federal government agencies: Policy-ready community insight from the populations most affected by your legislation.

Urban planners and place-makers: Engagement evidence from those who actually live in the neighbourhoods you're designing for.

Property developers and housing authorities: Documented community consultation demonstrating genuine social licence to operate.

Community development consultancies: Access local lived experience to generate innovative insights and ideas.

Infrastructure and transport authorities: Feedback from communities most affected by infrastructure decisions.

Social policy teams and research units: Community knowledge transformed into structured, analysable data, ready for your evidence base.

Ethical, in-depth research that helps communities and research clients

Here's how it works in practice:

Safe data management

All data collected through VCNITY is anonymised before it leaves our hands. Participants are never identifiable in any report. Community members' information belongs to their community, not to the commissioning clients or us.

We don't sell raw data; we don't share it beyond the purpose for which it was collected; and we comply with Australian privacy standards.

Smart analysis, safely done

VCNITY uses AI to transform collected insights into structured, policy-ready reporting, faster and more accurately than manual analysis alone. The data does not enter public AI systems. Every report is reviewed by a human analyst before delivery.

Build your facilitators, not just your income

For community organisations, every VCNITY commission includes step-by-step activity guides, opt-in coaching, and access to a library of Creative Co-Design tools developed through our research and work.

The new skills facilitators build through their work with VCNITY will positively impact community organisations long after the commission ends, turning every project into a capability investment.

How community organisations participate in research

How it works

Community organisations pay a flat $15 per month for access to the VCNITY platform and all hub features.
Research commissions are optional; organisations choose whether to participate and decline any brief.
Payment is per commission, typically ranging from $500 to $2,000, depending on scope and participant numbers.
A typical commission involves one to three facilitated activities with existing participants, completed within four to six weeks.
Each session requires approximately one hour of the facilitator's time, plus a brief data submission via the platform.
VCNITY matches commissions to organisations based on community type, location, and capabilities, with no cold approaches to irrelevant work.
All commission briefs are reviewed by the VCNITY team for ethical standards before reaching community organisations.
Payment is made upon data submission; no waiting for the final client report.

Community Returns and Ownership

The shared artefact

A collective creative output; a map, installation, design collection, or story archive that the community made together and owns. Something they built that is permanently accessible, shareable, and theirs.

Closing the Loop

A plain-language return of findings sent to every participant: what was heard, what it means, and what will change. A genuine conversation that closes the loop.

IP ownership

Creative outputs belong to the community. First Nations communities retain full cultural authority over what they produce. The organisation licenses insight; it does not own the community's creative work.

Any commission involving First Nations communities complies with the AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research, including community-level consent, culturally appropriate facilitation, and the right to withdraw data at any time.

Reporting that is insightful and useful

Typical reporting includes...

1

Executive summary

Brief, key findings and recommendations for a time-poor reader.

2

Project overview

Commission scope, participating organisations, session numbers, timeline, and methodology.

3

Community profile

Anonymised demographics and cultural context of participating communities.

4

Thematic analysis

Three to five key themes, each supported by anonymised participant quotes and facilitator observations.

5

Data visualisations

Simple charts showing participant reach, demographic distribution, and theme frequency.

6

SROI analysis

Social value generated; inputs, outputs, outcomes, and the headline ratio.

7

Recommendations

Three to five clear, actionable recommendations mapped directly to the client's original brief.

8

Close-the-loop summary

A plain-language version of findings written for the community participants themselves.

Back to Goals

Get to know me

I'm Dr Ehud Joseph, founder of VCNITY

My PhD at QUT explored how queer communities negotiate identity through creative co-design, and my organisation COLLAB has delivered community programs across Brisbane with Brisbane Festival, Melt Festival, and Aboriginal community centres. That work taught me that lived experience is expertise, and that expertise deserves to impact communities' lives. VCNITY is the infrastructure I wish had existed throughout it all.

VCNITY's Advisors

Technical build

Soumya Nampoothiri

Project management

Austyn Mitchell

Cyber security

Toks Ojo

UX and UI

Grace Wong

FAQs

Why should we build our Digital Hub on VCNITY?

Every other digital platform is unsafe, difficult to enforce privacy on, and sells your data to third parties without your knowledge or consent.

VCNITY offers enclosed, safer, and private hubs where every part of the content is yours to define, share, and moderate. Peer-to-peer tools are built in, making for an intuitive, simple experience for users and helping them connect, share, and collaborate.

Do we have to accept research commissions to use the platform?

No. The digital hub is yours to use regardless, for a monthly fee of $15. Commissions are entirely optional and accepted at your own pace.

Who can see our community hub content?

Only your members can access it unless you choose to make specific content public. Your hub is private by default.

How much can we earn from a commission?

Typically, $500–$2,000 per commission, depending on scope, paid upon submission of your completed data.

Can a community organisation commission research of its own?

Yes, internal research can be commissioned. Talk to the team for details.

What support do we get to run a research activity?

Step-by-step activity guides, Creative Co-Design tools developed through our research and ongoing engagement work, and coaching support built into the platform.

What happens to the insights we collect? Who uses them?

Anonymised insights are delivered to the commissioning client in a structured report. Raw data remains within VCNITY and is never shared with clients or third parties.

Do our community members need to create accounts?

No. Members participate through your organisation's hub; they don't need individual accounts.

What happens if our community doesn't want to participate in a brief halfway through?

You can withdraw at any stage of the process or remove specific data until the reporting stage.

Is the platform available in languages other than English?

Multilingual access is on our development roadmap. Contact us to discuss your community's language needs.

How is VCNITY different from a focus group or community survey?

Participants create and make rather than answer questions, offering insights that direct questioning rarely reaches. Community organisations facilitate within their existing trusted relationships, reaching people who may never respond to standard research methods.

What does a finished research report look like?

An executive summary, thematic analysis with anonymised participant quotes, data visualisations, SROI metrics, and clear recommendations, delivered in a format ready for policy, planning, or funding reporting.

How long does a commission typically take?

Four to six weeks from brief to final report, depending on scope and the number of sessions.

How do I know the community organisations are the right fit for my brief? VCNITY matches organisations to briefs based on community type, location, and capabilities. Every match is reviewed by the VCNITY team before a commission is awarded.

How is data anonymised and protected?

All data is anonymised at the point of collection. Raw data is never shared with clients. VCNITY complies with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.

Can I commission research with First Nations communities?

Yes. All First Nations commissions adhere to the AIATSIS Code of Ethics, including community-level consent and the right to withdraw data at any time.

What is SROI, and how is it calculated?

Social Return on Investment measures the social value generated by a project relative to its cost. VCNITY calculates SROI using inputs, outputs, and community outcomes, delivering it as a plain-English ratio in every report.

Is this a community practice project or a technology startup?

Community practice came first. Before VCNITY existed, Ehud was running Creative Co-Design workshops with LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, First Nations, and CALD communities through COLLAB, in partnership with Brisbane Festival, Melt Festival, and Aboriginal community centres. The technology is being built to scale what was already working on the ground.

What evidence exists that this methodology works?

The Creative Co-Design methodology emerged from Ehud's PhD at QUT and was published in peer-reviewed research (Joseph, Ferrero-Regis & Kerr, 2023). COLLAB has delivered multiple funded programs using it, securing $32,700 from Creative Australia and $30,100 from Brisbane City Council. Participant review methods have been approved by the University of Canberra Ethics Committee.

How do communities shape the project rather than just participate?

Participants generate the ideas, create the outputs, and produce the insights themselves. Their creative outputs remain theirs. The platform is being shaped through direct consultation with community organisations, not designed in isolation and handed to them afterwards.

How will other organisations be able to use Creative Co-Design?

Fellowship funding supports the development of a train-the-trainer resource to grow Creative Co-Design capability across the sector independently of VCNITY.

How will the Fellowship funds be used?

Three things in parallel. Testing Creative Co-Design through live paid commissions with real community organisations and real client briefs. Building the MVP digital community hub. Building the MVP research commissioning pipeline. Each informs the next.

How will you know when testing has worked?

Three questions: Did the community organisation find the process culturally safe, manageable, and fairly paid? Did the client gain insight unavailable through standard consultation? Could an organisation without a research background complete the commission confidently? All three need honest yeses before the MVP launch.

How does the commission model compensate communities fairly?

Payment of $500 to $2,000 per commission is made when the organisation submits its data, regardless of what the client does with the findings. Community knowledge has value whether or not the commissioner finds it convenient.

How does this create a new funding model for marginalised communities?

Most organisations working with marginalised communities are grant-dependent: competitive, precarious, and regularly defunded between projects. VCNITY creates a parallel income stream by paying for the knowledge and relationships organisations already have, treating community knowledge as the economic asset it is.

Why should this be funded now?

The methodology is validated and published. The community practice is documented and funded. The sector relationships are real — City of Ipswich, Brisbane 2032, Scenic Rim, Ministry of Health, Women's Circus, and Footscray Community Arts are already in conversation. What's needed is the bridge from proven practice to an accessible platform. That's what the Fellowship funds.

Please Note:

VCNITY is in active development. We are speaking with community and client organisations across Australia to shape the platform and test the concept. We are also running test projects in the near future. If you’d like to be part of that process, whether as an early partner, a pilot participant, or simply someone who wants to stay informed, we’d love to hear from you.

1 Through primary research, we are speaking with the community and client organisations to understand their needs and pain points.

2 Test the concept: We will deliver a series of projects to test that the process works and delivers on its promise.

3 Minimum Viable Product Launch: Test the concept with a basic, viable model, get feedback, and improve.

4 Launch the platform, ready to connect, collaborate and engage.

Client Organisations consulted so far

my-concepts-for-the-upcoming-2032-brisbane-olympics-and-v0-1u4t0it6xjm61.webp

Community Organisations consulted so far

Contact

Let’s Talk!

Now is the time to bring all of your hard work and outreach efforts into a single student-focused solution.

Reach out, and we’ll send you:

Our detailed app model
Features list
Information about pilot programs and partnership opportunities: Get in touch and help shape the app!

Insight that communities shape, share, and benefit from

Where it all began

Our past projects worked with:

Select past projects

The Problem

The people most affected are the least consulted

Hard to reach communities

Decision-makers, councils, planners, and developers’ community's research is incomplete. Refugee communities, First Nations organisations, CALD groups, and people in regional areas rarely appear in standard engagement surveys.

Lost knowledge

Community organisations hold the deepest knowledge of the people they work with and the trust to access their insights. These experiences and solutions are missing from the conversation.

Weak insights & weak communication

Current research infrastructure doesn't extend far enough. Even when communities are consulted, there is no feedback, no change, and no reason to participate next time.

VCNITY is built to fix this!

Some key pain points community researchers face

Some key pain points community organisations face

The Solution

VCNITY connects hard-to-find communities with the researchers who need to hear them.

Poor Engagement can be Damaging

1

2

3

4

How VCNITY makes it works

One platform, two sides, designed to work together

VCNITY: key goals

Goal 1: Creative Co-Design

The three stages of Creative Co-Design

1

2

3

Creative Co-Design

Get to know me

VCNITY's Advisors

FAQs

Please Note:

1

Through primary research, we are speaking with the community and client organisations to understand their needs and pain points.

2

Test the concept: We will deliver a series of projects to test that the process works and delivers on its promise.

3

Minimum Viable Product Launch: Test the concept with a basic, viable model, get feedback, and improve.

4

Launch the platform, ready to connect, collaborate and engage.

Client Organisations consulted so far

Community Organisations consulted so far

Let’s Talk!

Now is the time to bring all of your hard work and outreach efforts into a single student-focused solution. ​ Reach out, and we’ll send you:

Our detailed app model

Features list

Information about pilot programs and partnership opportunities: Get in touch and help shape the app!

Decision-makers, councils, planners, and developers’ community's research is incomplete.

Refugee communities, First Nations organisations, CALD groups, and people in regional areas rarely appear in standard engagement surveys.

Community organisations hold the deepest knowledge of the people they work with and the trust to access their insights.

These experiences and solutions are missing from the conversation.

Current research infrastructure doesn't extend far enough.

Even when communities are consulted, there is no feedback, no change, and no reason to participate next time.

Now is the time to bring all of your hard work and outreach efforts into a single student-focused solution.

Reach out, and we’ll send you: