Welcome to Country aims to champion the growth of wealth and success within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We want to support economic self-sufficiency, improving self-determination, and preserving and passing on culture. We are driven by social impact. 

We recognise that First Nations’ people have been excluded from economic opportunity and independence. In 2019 Welcome to Country created our bespoke marketplace for First Nations’ entrepreneurs to access greater economic opportunities and to build a flourishing economic network.

We hope to celebrate and recognise the valuable contribution of Aboriginal       and/ or Torres Strait Islander peoples with the goal of generating revenue and creating brand awareness. 

We are a First Nations’ led national organisation, from our Board, to our Leadership Team and staff members. We are proud of this representation and will continue along this path. Our head office is located in Warrane (Circular Quay, Sydney) on the Country of the Gadigal People. 

As a small social enterprise, Welcome to Country recognises it cannot achieve the impact it seeks alone. Welcome to Country supports our valued operators and suppliers to more easily reach consumers and, we hope, build in collaboration. We deliver a competitive marketplace to support our suppliers in selling their experiences and products and connect to our key stakeholders and partners. We are so proud of having a diverse and inclusive workforce with varied and extensive career journeys.

Our journey so far has been exciting and, we believe, impactful. For the first 18 months, Welcome to Country was a project of First Australians Capital, where through a range of discovery phases and workshops, the business model, along with key objectives and the brand was developed. Since then our primary philanthropic partner has been, and continues to be, Indigenous Capital Limited.

In 2022 our CEO Desmond Campbell started at Welcome to Country and as he puts it; “We are a young social enterprise operating in a complex but exciting ecosystem of empowering First Nations’ people to have control of their destiny. As the CEO,  I’m proud to be working with such strong entrepreneurs, business leaders, and cultural leaders.

“We will continue to grow Welcome to Country to meet the demand of ethical and meaningful trading, at the same time building capacity of the industry to be more inclusive and recognise the positive impact of First Nations’ entrepreneurship.” 

In March 2019, Welcome to Country incorporated independently and a small team was assembled to accelerate its development. Since our national launch the business has continued to build momentum and we could not be more excited to see where the next part of our journey will take us.

We are proud that in FY22 we have seen over $1,00,000 revenue to First Nations’ entrepreneurs directly or through their preferred business partnerships listed on our platform. At the end of March 2023, we have 188 businesses on our platform with 253 experiences and over 3000 products.