White Box is expanding its work in the disability enterprise sector, growing beyond its Evolve pilot program to a broader strategy aiming to support more disability enterprises to increase and improve work opportunities for people with disability.
Recognition of White Box’s work and its future plans came yesterday with an announcement from Minister for Social Services, Tanya Plibersek, at the NDS conference in Sydney: “Today I’m announcing $2.5 million for the Centre for Inclusive Employment to help supported employment providers take the next steps to modernise their businesses. For providers who are ready to go with business transformation, we will expand the intensive program run by White Box Enterprises.”
“The pilot of this program helped three providers transition, creating 30 new open employment jobs and helping 98 participants earn more. We’ll open the program to six more providers.” said Minister Plibersek.
White Box’s expansion in the disability employment sector comes after two years of hands-on experience, working directly with three disability enterprises through the Evolve program, as well as providing bespoke strategic and business support to others. Together, this work has given White Box a very practical understanding of what transformation actually involves, and where new opportunities lie.
The expanded program of work will be delivered across three key pillars:
- Evolve lighthouse projects – working with a small number of disability enterprises to expand their business models through mergers and acquisitions.
- Evolve capability development - rolling out learnings from the Evolve transformation playbook to disability enterprises nationally.
- Evolve transformation support - providing bespoke transformation advisory services to disability enterprises.
White Box COO Mark Daniels with Minister Plibersek and Dr Louisa Ellum, Director of the Centre for Inclusive Employment at the SHIFT 2026 conference in May.
To support the delivery of this work, White Box is seeking additional strategy and merger professionals who want to apply their commercial skills to creating social impact. Current roles available within White Box’s Disability Transformation team include:
With backing from government and philanthropy, and a growing pipeline of interest from disability enterprises, this is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for White Box.
If you're a disability enterprise curious to learn more, subscribe for updates and announcements about the upcoming EOI process in the coming weeks.