StreetSmart Australia

Each Winter, we’re proud to support StreetSmart Australia: a small but mighty not-for-profit helping people across Australia who are experiencing homelessness, housing stress, poverty, food insecurity, or escaping domestic and family violence.

We’ve worked with StreetSmart for many years now, supporting their CafeSmart campaign as a roaster partner since 2015. It’s one of those initiatives that just makes sense to us: cafes, roasters and coffee drinkers coming together to make a practical difference in their own communities.

But our support for StreetSmart doesn’t stop there.

Through our Community Initiatives Fund, we’ve donated a total of $13,852 to StreetSmart Australia – separate from the funds raised through CafeSmart. This ongoing program sees us donate 5% of profits from Eco Warrior coffee and merch sales to community organisations doing important work across Australia.

For us, it’s all part of the same bigger picture: using coffee as a way to support people, strengthen communities and help direct funds to the organisations doing the work where it’s needed most.

StreetSmart Australia exists to support people who are facing homelessness and hardship by backing the small, local organisations doing the work on the ground.

These are often the teams providing practical, immediate support – meals, emergency relief, safe housing pathways, material aid, outreach, mental health support and more. They’re often underfunded, stretched thin and working directly with people in crisis.

What we love about StreetSmart is the way they keep it local. Funds raised through campaigns like CafeSmart are redistributed back into the communities where support is needed most, helping grassroots organisations respond quickly and flexibly.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, StreetSmart backs the people who understand their local communities and are already showing up for those who need support.

Across Australia, smaller community organisations are seeing growing demand from people experiencing hunger, housing stress, homelessness, poverty and crisis.

StreetSmart’s 2025 CafeSmart Impact Report found that 51% of grant recipients reported an increase in demand between 10–50%, while 45% were based in regional communities outside capital cities.

That matters, because these local organisations are often the first point of support for people doing it tough. They’re the ones providing meals, food relief, emergency accommodation support, basic essentials and connection at the moment people need it most.

Many of them are also operating on incredibly lean budgets. In 2025, 20% of CafeSmart grant recipients were volunteer-run with no paid staff, and 51% had fewer than 10 staff.

That’s why targeted community grants can make such a meaningful difference. They help small, local teams keep doing what they do best: supporting people with dignity, care and practical help.

CafeSmart funding supports a wide range of community needs, from food relief and emergency aid to housing support and social inclusion.

In 2025, StreetSmart reported that CafeSmart funding was used across four key areas:

40% improving food security and reducing hunger
27% providing emergency support and basic essentials
17% helping people access, set up and maintain safe, secure homes
12% enhancing health, wellbeing and social inclusion outcomes

The grants supported people on low incomes, rough sleepers, people living in cars, tents or unstable accommodation, domestic and family violence victim-survivors, social and public housing residents, boarding house residents and post-release prisoners.

StreetSmart also reported that 37.4% of CafeSmart 2025 grants supported young people aged 12-24 and children under 12, while 21.9% supported older people aged 55+.

In addition to our ongoing Community Initiatives Fund support, we were proud to take part in CafeSmart as a roaster partner.

Last year, 25 Locale cafe partners joined the campaign, collectively raising $3,723.32 for StreetSmart Australia.

A huge thank you to every cafe that jumped on board, poured coffees, rallied their customers and helped spread the word.

Special shoutouts to some of last year’s top fundraising venues:

Dancing Duck & Co raised $570.30
May Street Larder raised $318.00
Little h Cafe raised $229.00
Black Lab Coffee raised $225.00
Blondie Bar raised $215.52

Every coffee, donation and conversation adds up – and we’re so grateful to the cafes who helped turn a everyday coffee moment into something with real community impact.

Across Australia, CafeSmart 2025 was a huge year.

With 823 cafes taking part, the campaign helped StreetSmart distribute $177,400 in grants to 113 grassroots organisations, supporting 7,460 people and creating an estimated $674,120 in social impact value.

That’s the power of the coffee community when everyone chips in. A dollar from a coffee here, a donation there, a cafe crew getting behind the campaign – it all builds into something much bigger.

To get your cafe involved this August, get in contact with your BDM for more info or click here to sign up!