Australia
Mapping a market.
Mobilising a community.
Intelligence before introduction.
UNICEF Australia needed to understand the Muslim giving landscape in a market it had never properly mapped. With 813,392 Muslims across Australia, representing 3.2% of the population according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2021, the opportunity was significant. The challenge was knowing where to start.
WAF built the intelligence from scratch: a comprehensive demographic, financial, and organisational mapping of Australian Muslim communities, followed by strategic recommendations and direct warm introductions to key organisations and individuals.
A market hiding in plain sight.
UNICEF Australia commissioned WAF to map the Muslim faith and diaspora landscape across the country, with a specific focus on identifying the largest opportunities for mobilising Muslim resources for UNICEF programmes in South Asia. The brief covered demographics, NGO income, mosque and school networks, HNWI identification, and Ramadan engagement strategy.
There was no single Australian Muslim audience.
The mapping broke the population down by ancestry, birthplace, age, income and location. What it revealed was not one community but a set of distinct audiences, each with its own institutions, languages and routes to trust.
Scroll the chart sideways to read the full breakdown.
of Australian Muslims were identified as having Southern and Central Asian ancestry, the largest single group in the mapping.
were identified as having North African and Middle Eastern ancestry, a second audience with different languages, institutions and giving habits.
Our mapping identified more than $103m AUD in Muslim giving to international NGOs. A market already giving at scale, simply not yet giving to UNICEF Australia.
From intelligence to action.
WAF delivered a phased recommendations framework across three areas:
PARTNERSHIPS AND OUTREACH
COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
HNWI ENGAGEMENT
Intelligence that led to the table.
WAF's recommendations moved from strategy to action. We made direct warm introductions between UNICEF Australia and key Muslim organisations identified in the research. A WAF representative attended UNICEF Australia's Ramadan iftar, a direct outcome of the partnership and community engagement strategy WAF had recommended.
The groundwork was laid for a long-term relationship between UNICEF Australia and Australian Muslim communities.
There is scope to understand Australian Muslims at a deeper level. WAF built that understanding.
WAF strategic assessment, UNICEF Australia mapping project, 2023