SmartCompany50 rank: 37
Revenue: $3.6 million
Growth: 37%
Founders: Jack Heath, 47
Based: Sydney
Employees: 31
Industry: Health & community services
Website: www.inspire.org.au, www.reachout.com.au
In 1992, Jack Heath’s cousin committed suicide on the family farm in northeastern Victoria.
Three years later he decided to do something about Australia’s then escalating rates of youth suicide, which led to the establishment of the Inspire foundation and the Reach Out program.
The Reach Out website attracts more than 250,000 unique visitors a month, and annual surveys show that 75% of visitors will return if they are going though a hard time.
Heath has just established the Inspire USA Foundation in San Francisco with a view of launching Reach Out there in 2008 with seed funding from News Corp, Macquarie Bank and Bristol Myers Squibb.
Inspire runs two other programs: www.actnow.com.au, which makes it easier for young people to take action on issues they care about, and Beanbag Net Centres, which partners with youth centres in disadvantaged communities.
Heath wants to open in several other countries and move to a franchise model for a global rollout. He says many people in his industry now realise that if they want to address the unmet mental health needs of young people, they must use online service delivery as the centerpiece of their engagement strategy with young people.
