For Purpose Investment Partners Innovative Aged Care Platform Grows With Acquisition of Signature Care, Appointment of a Group CEO

Craig Drummond and Bronwyn Pike on patient capital, 40 years of outsourcing, and why the care sector needs to demonstrate what works

7 October 2026 - The care economy is now the fastest-growing part of Australia's economy, our panellists told the audience. It employs more than 15% of the workforce, ahead of manufacturing, logistics, and retail. It is also where most of us make the decisions that matter most: where a child spends their first years of learning, and how a parent is cared for in their last.

Yet much of this sector is still governed the way it began. Around 27,000 separate agencies deliver care services across the country, according to our panellists. Many started as a church congregation or a country town meeting a local need, and many still operate inside the voluntary, charitable governance frameworks they inherited. Layered on top is 40 years of privatisation and outsourcing policy that promised efficiency and innovation and, according to royal commission after royal commission, delivered neither.

That tension is why For Purpose Investment Partners (FPIP) exists. We want to transform how human services are delivered in Australia by combining business discipline with social purpose. We hold ourselves to two measures at once: social impact and financial return. Purpose is core to how we operate. It is why we bring people together across investment, government, and the not-for-profit sectors. We ask what works, what could be better, and how we keep raising the standard so people can flourish.

To launch our Impact Report 2026 at Collingwood Yards in Melbourne on 17 September, our Founder and Executive Chair, Michael Traill AM, put those questions to two leaders who have run and governed large organisations across business, sport, government, and community services. Craig Drummond chairs the AFL Commission, Transurban, and The Ian Potter Foundation. Bronwyn Pike is a health and human services sector leader and a former Victorian Government minister.

The case for patient capital

Michael Traill opened with FPIP's thesis: in these sectors, ownership horizons of 10–15 years produce better outcomes than the 3–5 year cycles of private equity or the quarterly pressure on listed companies.

Craig Drummond agreed. "Generally speaking, for-profit has a shorter-term time horizon, and social businesses need to have a longer-term time horizon," he said. "Sensible social capital, or sensible listed capital, takes a generational view."

He was equally direct about why this matters now: "Governments are running out of money. If you are reliant on government, try to get less reliant on government." That is the gap FPIP's capital is designed to fill.

What 40 years of privatisation taught us

Bronwyn Pike, who spent 11 years as a minister and 10 as chief executive of a major community services agency, was candid about the policy she helped administer. "Royal commission after royal commission has told us that the short-term profit-taking of many who moved into childcare, aged care, and disability has not delivered what was promised," she said. "For the last 20 years we have been very stagnant in our productivity in the care economy. Rather than building up and sustaining existing services, and resourcing them to innovate, we made them compete with each other for a diminishing share of resources."

The market has not fixed the gaps on its own. Childcare deserts persist in growth corridors while affluent postcodes have places to spare. "Government has to get a bit tougher in its planning and its allocation of funds," she said. "It has to be more deliberate about co-location of services."

Her diagnosis is FPIP's starting point: back strong operators, give them the capital and discipline to improve, and stay long enough to see it through.

Demonstrate what works

The closing question came from the floor: how does a fragmented sector accelerate slow-moving policy? Bronwyn Pike's answer was clear. "Demonstrate good practice. Demonstrate what works. Create and provide models that can be replicated."

That is the standard we hold ourselves to. Our Impact Report is one way we demonstrate what works, and what does not, with evidence. Conversations like this one are another. We share what we learn, we stay connected to the purpose behind the numbers, and we build the network of people who can take a proven model further than we could alone.

Read Impact Report 2026 and see photos from the Melbourne launch.

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Georgie Dent and Rob Stokes call for funding tied to quality and long-term settings that let institutional investors back social infrastructure

15 September 2026 - Australia cannot fix its early learning and housing shortfalls without stable policy and sophisticated models that draw private capital into social infrastructure, two of the country's leading advocates told an audience of investors and sector leaders in Sydney last week.

The Parenthood Chief Executive Officer Georgie Dent and Anglicare Sydney Group Executive, Housing and Chief Advocacy Officer Rob Stokes joined For Purpose Investment Partners (FPIP) Founder and Executive Chair Michael Traill for the panel discussion Purpose at Scale: Why social infrastructure investment is critical to our country's future. The event at Yirranma Place, Darlinghurst, on Thursday 10 September marked the launch of FPIP's Impact Report 2026.

Ms Dent said the way Australia funds and delivers early education and care has driven the problems families face today.

"Most families in Australia confront at least one of three barriers. Is there a place available where they live? Is there a place they trust is reliably high quality? Is it affordable? In the best case scenario at the moment, families get one of those," Ms Dent said.

She told the audience that more than 70% of long day care is now delivered by large for-profit providers, that around one in four Australians live in a childcare desert, and that the latest Australian Early Development Census shows almost half of children arrive at school developmentally vulnerable.

"If the early education and care isn't high quality, it's actually terrible for children. Without fundamental reform and a commitment to change how we fund and deliver early education and care, these problems will continue.

"We have to have sophisticated policy options that actually leverage some of the capital that we have in this country with some of the objectives that we have for the country," Ms Dent said.

Mr Stokes, a former New South Wales Minister for Planning, Education and Housing, said governments spend around 1% of their budgets on housing, against 16% to 28% on health and education.

"When you look at Maslow's hierarchy, shelter is right at the bottom. If you provide housing, that saves government money on health and on education," Mr Stokes said.

"Government cannot do it alone. But equally, we can't have policy instability. Once you learn how to do something, just keep doing it and provide that certainty. We take Medicare for granted now. We need a similar approach for housing."

Mr Traill said the discussion reflected FPIP's experience as investors in aged care, skills education, disability services and specialist disability accommodation, where policy and funding settings shape what capital can achieve.

"Our belief is simple. Long-dated investors who hold these assets over the long term, and who aim to make a difference to quality of life, can make a real difference and drive risk-weighted, institutional-grade returns," Mr Traill said.

"Government funding incentives need to be tied far more explicitly to quality outcomes. Where the pricing signals are sensible, as they are in specialist disability accommodation, mainstream capital follows. That precedent is how we get to scale in the sectors Australia needs most."

FPIP's Impact Report 2026, Meaningful Momentum, is the organisation's fourth annual report. It shows more than 10,650 Australians received care, housing, meals or training in the past year from a business FPIP owns or invests in. The not-for-profit fund manager holds $200 million in committed capital across four platforms and is now assessing opportunities in early childhood education and care, and social and affordable housing. FPIP uses the evidence from its portfolio to advocate for change across the social services system.

The report is available at https://www.fpinvest.com.au/impact

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The For Purpose Investment Partners skills education platform, Catalyst Education, has begun trading as For Purpose Education. The transition began on 1 July 2026 and brings the business into closer alignment with the wider For Purpose group.

A name that reflects the mission

FPIP invested in Catalyst Education in 2021 to build a not-for-profit skills education platform and strengthen the pipeline of skilled carers, educators, and support professionals that Australia needs. The new name states that purpose plainly. It also connects the business more visibly to the other organisations we back across aged care, disability support, and community services.

The rebrand changes the name and the look of the business. Its strategy, leadership, and commitment to quality training remain exactly as they were.

The same trusted training organisations

For Purpose Education operates three Registered Training Organisations (RTOs): Selmar Institute of Education, Practical Outcomes, and ARC Training. Together they deliver accessible, industry-relevant training across early childhood education and care, aged care, disability support, health and community services, and business.

In the 2025 financial year (FY25), the business supported 4,100 learners across four states and territories. Of these, 56% were based in regional and remote locations, and 85% of completed learners improved their employment position, compared with an industry average of 65%.

Why this matters

Australia faces a critical shortfall of care workers. Training providers that keep pace with the needs of employers, learners, and communities are central to closing that gap. For Purpose Education has a clear role to play, and we are confident the business is well positioned to grow its contribution.

No change for learners and partners

Nothing changes for enrolled learners, employers, or industry partners. Trainers, support arrangements, partnerships, and funding arrangements all continue as they are.

What comes next

The For Purpose Education website is now live at fpeducation.com.au.

We congratulate the For Purpose Education team on this milestone and look forward to the next chapter.

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