Empowering the social sector within the corridors of power

Angus Crowther spent the better part of his ministerial career working within the social portfolios of education, communities, disability services and seniors, as well as being an advisor within an economic super portfolio covering infrastructure, agriculture, trade, and tourism. In these portfolios he worked on small grants schemes through to major infrastructure programs and bilateral agreements of more than $4billion. Angus also spent time working through the process for State budget bids as well as bilateral agreements between the States and Commonwealth governments, often liaising directly with parliamentarians from government and the opposition.

Since leaving politics, Angus has worked with a variety of social sector and purpose-led organisations and leaders, supporting them to create and embed systems for effective government engagement and advocacy. Angus has experience supporting clients in every state and jurisdiction in Australia, having helped clients achieve sector firsts in the delivery of ministerial policy statements through to improved funding certainty and associated outcomes. Underpinning these successes is Angus’ ability to connect with people, understand their mission, and work alongside them to accomplish their goals and objectives.

A proud member and advocate of the LGBTIQ+ community, Angus was Co-Convenor of Rainbow Labor in Queensland before making the move to Sydney. Angus’ personal journey, coupled with his experience working in social portfolios supporting marginalised and disadvantaged Australians, engendered within him a deep and enduring sense of compassion and empathy. Angus is driven by these experiences and is highly motivated by the work he does to support the important social and societal change being driven by his clients.

Tanck was the next step in Angus’ desire to play a part in contributing to a better future; by empowering social sector and purpose-led leaders to better compete with the lobbyists and private interests that occupy the corridors of power. Read on to learn more about Angus’ journey as a change maker!

Describe your career trajectory and how you got to your current position: 

I initially began by studying arts at University, but quickly moved into management as I gained an interest in both what was happening in my community but also in the wider world around me. This really led me to politics – which is all about understanding the motivations, behaviours and actions of people. It was there that I then learned more about policy and the intimate details of how politics, particularly in Australia works.

After working in political positions for some years, I decided that I wanted to take my management background and experience and the kind of values that had interested me throughout my career and create a solution for organisations that are doing good things in the world – to help them level up what it is that they’re doing in their engagement not just with government, but with the stakeholders that surround it as well.

This led me to co-founding Tanck with my business partner, Neil Pharaoh. 

Can you tell us a bit more about the work you’ve been doing with Tanck?

The work that I do is focused on trying to understand the needs of people and organisations that are trying to make a positive difference in our communities, in Australia and globally.

Understanding what it is that they’re trying to do enables me to help them in the formulation of the strategy that’s going to support them in influencing government decision makers, not only politicians and public servants, but also the stakeholder groups that exist as well.

It’s also about influencing sectors more broadly – be they industry groups, unions or philanthropy – so that they can pull together all of these people to get their attention on the issue that they’re trying to solve – and then solve it!

So, it’s a lot of discussions, coffees, and phone calls with people, it’s a lot of reading submissions and reports and understanding all these aspects so that I can then convey back to the people that we work with our best advice to get the best outcomes. 

Take us through a typical day of work for you?

A workday for me consists of catching up on emails and reading the news, first thing, to see what’s happened overnight and see what the issues of the day are going to be from a general perspective, but also what’s going to play out in the political sphere and in the different sectors that we pay attention to as well. We then catch up with our clients for one on ones where we see them for an hour and hear from them about what’s happening at their end within their organisation and their sector. We work to synthesise the external environment and the internal environment for our clients and then work with them to formulate an understanding. 

I also make sure to check in on our team, both about work and what may be happening in their lives as well – which is an important part of our culture at Tanck. Making sure that we’re all leaving room for things outside of work!

I also make sure to take time to take care of myself, to be able to support our clients and the important missions that they’ve got. This looks like cooking my own food, going to the gym, scrolling on social media (sometimes – though I try and minimize that!). I make sure I balance that with lots of reading of books as well. 

What is the biggest challenge you’ve encountered in your career, and how did you overcome it? 

There have been two main challenges I have encountered in my career. The first was focusing on tuning out all the voices of the people who wanted to tell me about their version of their measure of success and tuning into my own version of success. What does a good life look like for me, as opposed to what others expected of me.

The second challenge was finding and surrounding myself with people who shared my vision and values in relation to achieving the goals that I had for myself, and the industry at large. Having the courage to step outside my comfort zone and find the people who believed in my big ideas, and could help me run with them, was a really important step to getting where I am today.

If you could go back in time, what piece of advice would you give yourself as you first embarked on your career?

Be thoughtful about what you actually want, pay attention to the things that motivate you and follow your heart more earnestly. I think to be successful; you really have to go after the things that you care about and that matter to you, otherwise you’re just doing what other people expect of you. Life can be hard and if you’re doing something that you don’t love and that you don’t care about, you will only make things harder on yourself. 

How do you unwind after work?

Lots of things! I love to go to the gym, read books (particularly science fiction and fantasy) and play video games. I also have a huge collection of indoor plants and the upkeep keeps me quite busy, but it’s really satisfying to watch them grow and flourish!

What was the last thing you watched, read or listened to?

Two podcasts from “The Mindscape” podcast – one was speaking about whether it would be possible to have a colony on the moon, and the other was discussing AI and other large language models. Recently I have been reading Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, and the last show I watched on Netflix was Bodies.