Gather and Grow

Gather and Grow is NSW Treasury’s flagship engagement series for the First Nations business sector. It brings Aboriginal businesses, NSW Government buyers and industry partners together in culturally safe, grounded and opportunity-focused events.

Whether you’re a First Nations business owner looking to work with government, or a government agency wanting to connect with suppliers, Gather and Grow helps people connect, learn from each other and build real opportunities.

What Gather and Grow is

Gather and Grow started in 2022 as the Meet the Buyer series. In 2023, it evolved into Gather and Grow to reflect a stronger focus on:

• listening and two-way engagement
• Aboriginal culture-led and informed approaches
• two-way capability building
• community-led and informed outcomes.

Today, Gather and Grow runs across regional NSW and metropolitan centres. It’s an important part of how government works with Aboriginal businesses and our commitment to growing the NSW First Nations economy.

Why it matters

Gather and Grow is more than an event series. It supports:

• self‑determination and economic prosperity
• stronger, long-term partnerships
• better access to government supply chains
• respect for culture, Country, community knowledge and decision-making.

The program celebrates the strength, skills and innovation of Aboriginal businesses across NSW while helping government do business in more informed and culturally safe ways.
 

Who it is for

First Nations business owners

Gather and Grow is for Aboriginal business owners who want to:

• understand how the NSW Government buys goods and services
• meet government buyers, head contractors and project teams
• learn about upcoming work and procurement pathways opportunities
• understand and grow capability and connections
• build long‑term relationships.

You don’t need to be ‘procurement‑ready’ to attend. The events are about yarning, learning, listening and growing at your own pace.

NSW Government, industry and partners

Gather and Grow  also works for:

• NSW Government agencies
• local councils supplying to NSW Government
• procurement and policy staff
• supply chain buyers
• infrastructure and project teams
• Aboriginal business support organisations and employment providers.

The events provide a practical way to engage with Aboriginal businesses, share opportunities and support the Aboriginal Procurement Policy.

What happens at Gather and Grow events

Each event is determined and shaped by place, community, local priorities and key project.

We begin by honouring Country, Elders, local – and sometimes neighbouring – nations. Cultural protocols set the tone for open, respectful conversations. They also help non‑Aboriginal people grow their cultural understanding, so we all work better together.

Most events include:

• opportunities to yarn and connect
• supplier showcases
• structured networking
• briefings on upcoming projects and tenders
• subcontracting and supply chain opportunities
• information on training, education and employment.

Events are safe spaces for yarning, learning, creating real pathways, and networks into NSW Government supply chains.

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Video transcript

Gather and Grow - Western Sydney

Today's about bringing people together, creating connections between buyers and suppliers for New South Wales Government procurement opportunities.

Gather and Grow is an event that has naturally evolved out of the Meet the Buyer series.

We're really proud to be able to bring together our mob and buyers, whether they be from government or tier one, to be able to yarn up about different opportunities across the state of New South Wales.

Well, it's really important to have a presence at these events because we work with Aboriginal businesses day in and day out when we're building our major infrastructure projects.

So even though we come to these and we know a lot of mob already here, it's important to keep building on those relationships because that's the whole point of gather and grow.

We're hearing from businesses that we always work with, but they're giving usnew information saying,"Hey, did you know that we've just done this," or "we've worked on this bid," or "we've worked on this project and we've had these really cool outcomes?"

And even though we already know them, sometimes it's just easy to have those conversations when we're here.

I think it's, you get an opportunity to chat to people that I don't think you would get that opportunity otherwise.

You can't just callup those organisations and start having a chat usually. So I think they're pretty valuable and it's pretty relaxed environment as well. So you don't feel like, it's not intimidating, it's very friendly like.

Yeah, it's really important for Aboriginal businesses to be in the room with people that have decision-making powers like Treasury, like Transport for New South Wales. They're the ones that are making decisions on what contracts that are gonna go out.

The best way for Aboriginal businesses to do that is to promote themselves and say, "This is our offering," and hopefully you get an opportunity to work on their projects. Today was a really great opportunity to speak to the right people.

So like any big government organisation, there's so many pillars, there's so many decision-makers, you need to get the right one and today that happened for us. I think it's important to provide these opportunities to connect industry with Aboriginal businesses and just remove all those barriers.

So just to allow those organic conversations to happen and to just be transparent about what we have coming up, how they can enter the procurement process and answer any questions that they have. There's so many agencies here that are looking at procuring goods and services, construction, ICT. There's a number of Indigenous businesses out here in the other room here, several hundred people here, which is great.

So doing this face-to-face in the local community really adds value.

Creating real opportunities

Gather and Grow supports the Aboriginal Procurement Policy (APP), which plays a key role in growing First Nations businesses across NSW. Gather and Grow helps create more  opportunities for Aboriginal businesses to showcase their capability and be seen, respected and considered for inclusion in government work.

The program reduces consultation fatigue by bringing agencies and partners together in one place sooner.

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