Making good things happen.

Make it Happen is a Media on Mars initiative designed to help ensure good projects get off the ground. We noticed that important social and environmental change projects often lack the strategic planning needed to ensure their success. In response, we developed a proactive approach to Make it Happen.

We use our experience and skills as communicators and strategists to support organisations to make sure vital projects become realities. Using a co-design approach, we work with organisations and stakeholders at the genesis of their projects, where we assist with strategy, design thinking and funding support.

The Home Hub

The Home Hub is an online platform that advertises safe and affordable housing. It allows landlords and housing providers to list properties easily, and people to apply for safe, secure homes quickly.

In our current housing system, eligible applicants can wait up to eight years to get into suitable housing. In WA, more than 60,000 households are in need of an affordable home. Yet, despite the overwhelming need for housing, 1 in 6 homes nationally remain underutilised.

The Home Hub recently launched the Homes for Good initiative; a call to action for anyone with an empty property to register it as available for people who need affordable housing. The initiative supports a housing-first approach, connecting people who have vacant homes with people who can’t afford to pay full rent in the private market.

Plastic Free July

Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps people be part of the solution to plastic pollution. The Plastic Free July movement has inspired over 250 million participants in 177 countries. From humble beginnings in 2011, the award-winning Plastic Free July campaign has grown to be one of the most influential behaviour change campaigns in WA.

Media on Mars assisted Plastic Free July with their communications planning for the 2019 campaign as they moved towards funding applications with the Department of Environment and Lottery West. We worked closely with Rebecca in the early stages of these funding applications to ensure that the project planning and budget were well designed and thought through to incorporate strategy, user experience research and an adequate communications and reporting budget’s. Once the project started we worked with the Plastic Free July team and behaviour change consultant – Colin Ashton Graham to design sophisticated, measurable behaviour change campaign. Click here to view the Impact Statement for the Plastic Free July Campaign.

Visit Plastic Free July

The Centre for Accessibility

Media on Mars frequently partners with educational institutes and government departments, and we regularly found ourselves addressing accessibility compliance in tenders. Although the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC, 2014) states that all web content should be accessible, there remains a significant lack of awareness among mainstream organisations as to the need to implement the WCAG 2.0 standard.

We saw the opportunity for promoting digital accessibility, engaging users and spreading the message to a wider mainstream audience. The Centre for Accessibility is our collaborative answer to the accessibility problem. Created in partnership with DADAA and Dr. Scott Hollier and funded in part by an ILC grant from Disability Services, Department of Communities, the Centre for Accessibility was officially launched in June 2018.

Media on Mars developed a communication strategy that promotes accessibility as being about more than compliance. Accessibility is about people. We designed and developed the Centre for Accessibility website and developed a marketing campaign that puts people at the fore. The campaign aims to spread the accessibility message to a wider mainstream audience, as well as engaging accessibility specialists and people living with disability.

Access the Centre

Imagined Futures

Studies have found that young people who leave school early are at greater risk of experiencing long-term unemployment, which can lead to many other risk factors including social exclusion, welfare dependence, reduced life satisfaction and mental health problems. Imagined Futures has been working with at risk young people since 2014 with the aim of keeping vulnerable kids engaged in education.

Imagined Futures has been funded through a combination of state government grants and member contributions, however further funding was required to ensure the ongoing sustainability of their work. Media on Mars helped develop a suite of photography, program video, an elevated brand and a campaign for attracting funding. We helped organise a stakeholder event to share the work of Imagined Futures and promote their collective impact approach.

Visit Imagined Futures’ Pledge Page

Millennium Kids

Millennium Kids is a non-government organisation empowering young people to be active and aware in the environment. The Millennium Kids processes allow young people to identify environmental issues and look at the opportunities to solve these problems, consulting with stakeholders and learning new skills along the way.

Media on Mars has been assisting Millennium Kids to turn their ideas into reality. The latest venture is a reusable bag stand that encourages shoppers to use and return cloth bags. Their pitch to SUEZ Waste Management resulted in funding for two prototypes. Mars assisted Millennium Kids to turn their ideas into a working prototype, a video and a pitch to IGA, local councils and local shops. Once the prototype has been tested Millennium Kids hopes to introduce the stands to as many other independent stores as possible.

“The ‘Make it Happen’ approach that Media on Mars uses not only gave us confidence in our project but it offered a range of perspectives that we may not have considered otherwise. It feels like a partnership; a team of people working to the same end, and allows us to exchange open dialogue, ideas and information.”
— Catrina-Luz Aniere, CEO Millennium Kids Inc

See their work

LORE / LAW

LORE / LAW is a long-term, skills-for-life project of the Law Society of WA, facilitated by Millennium Kids and led by the Aboriginal Youth Leadership Team. The project aims to support a reduction in the high rates of Aboriginal youth contact with the WA justice system.

To address the complex issue, Mars has worked with a steering committee that includes Aboriginal representatives from The Office of the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Family Matters WA, the Association of Independent Schools of WA, Sevenoaks College and representatives from the Department of Justice, the WA Police, Curtin University and the Chief Justice, a non-Aboriginal patron.

In January 2019 the LORE / LAW project was awarded $200,00 funding under the State Government’s Criminal Property Confiscation Grants Program, administered by the Department of Justice. The program will train a group of young Indigenous people so they can work with at risk communities to design programs to address the root causes of youth incarceration.

View the Pitch Deck

The SECCA App

SECCA is a non-profit organisation designed to support people with disabilities in their efforts to learn about human relationships, sexuality and sexual health. Media on Mars developed a new identity and website for SECCA, plus a range of collateral including business cards and stationery, brochures, videos, photography, workshop sheets and email marketing templates.

The largest and most complex of SECCA projects has been the SECCA App. Over three years of collaboration, research, scoping with stakeholders and extensive user testing was conducted before any commitment to final design. Based on this research and continued close consultation with SECCA, Media on Mars developed several interactive prototypes to test and refine user experience and functionality of the app. An illustrator at Media on Mars expanded on the original 200 tiles to create an extensive collection of over 1800 illustrations and 350 photographs.

The SECCA App is a free resource used in education, medical, allied health and justice settings, providing lessons for sexuality education and protective behaviours. The app is the first of its kind that teaches and communicates early and advanced concepts about human relationships and sexuality for people of all ages and abilities, their families and carers.

Learn about the SECCA App or visit SECCA’s website

Previous Projects

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Contact Media on Mars

Making good things happen.

The Home Hub

Plastic Free July

The Centre for Accessibility

Imagined Futures

Millennium Kids

LORE / LAW

The SECCA App

Previous Projects

Save Beeliar Wetlands

Rethink the Link

The Bhutan Project

The Humanitarian Group

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