ICAN E-News is celebrating its tenth anniversary of providing monthly updates on our activities, partner announcements and consumer tips. What started out as a PDF publication sent to a small consumer and financial literacy community has grown into a web based newsletter with a community of over 400 people who have helped to expand its reach through their email and social media networks.
ICAN has also grown considerably over the past ten years, starting out as a consumer education project housed under the Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council, to becoming a not for profit company providing financial counselling and capability services from Townsville to the Torres Strait. ICAN’s commitment to supporting the development of Indigenous financial counselling across Australia has also increased the readership nationally.
ICAN collated data provided by the 81 NEW E-News subscribers in 2014, to get an understanding of whom our community is. 50% of 2014 subscribers were based in Queensland followed by NSW (18.5%) and Vic (12.3%). 68% of 2014 subscribers work in Indigenous and mainstream community organisations, with 21% working in consumer regulatory bodies/government agencies. 76% of new subscribers were female and 38% identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
Of all the stories we produced in 2014, our most read, related to ICAN’s updates and achievements (64.5%) followed by stories from our community partnerships. We’d like to say thank you to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) who provided ICAN with the initial funding from TPA Consumer Trust to build a website and start this community e-newsletter in July 2005. See you next E-News and thanks for reading!