Unfunded, volunteer-run charity takes home more Gold Awards than any other organisation or agency at the Communication and Public Relations Australia’s National Golden Target Awards 2026.
Sydney, 21 September 2026: Volunteer-run charity, Advocacy Australia, has taken home three Gold awards and one Silver from five nominations at the 50th Communication and Public Relations Australia’s 2026 National Golden Target Awards (GTA’s) —Winning more Golds than any other organisation, not-for-profit (NFP), government body or PR agency.
The 2026 awards celebrated 50 years of Australia’s longest running and most prestigious awards for the communication and public relations industry, recognising the leading campaigns, practitioners, teams and organisations that set the benchmark for Australia’s communication profession.
Achieving an almost complete clean sweep in NFP award categories, Advocacy Australia led a highly competitive field to take three Gold and one Silver across campaign, professional, team and leadership honours.
- GOLD: NFP Campaign of the Year: Asbestos Awareness Month 2025, Advocacy Australia & Asbestos Education Committee
- GOLD: NFP Professional of the Year: Alice Collins, Advocacy Australia
- GOLD: NFP Team of the Year: The Collins Girls – Clare & Alice Collins, Advocacy Australia
- SILVER: Leader of the Year — NFP: Clare Collins, Advocacy Australia
- FINALIST: Small Budget Campaign: Asbestos Awareness Month 2025, Advocacy Australia
With three Gold awards, Advocacy Australia won more Gold than any other organisation, and with one Silver, the four awards placed it equal-highest for total awards (Gold, Silver, Bronze), alongside mega agencies, We Are Different and In The Media PR.
Among the organisations and agencies with five or more finalist nominations, Advocacy Australia achieved the highest award conversion rate at 80% and converted 60% of its nominations to Gold. For an entirely volunteer-run ACNC registered charity, having no government funding or corporate sponsorship, and operating without the equivalent budgets, resources or teams that communication agency giants, corporations, government bodies and major charities have at their disposal; Advocacy Australia continues to punch well above its weight among industry heavyweights.
Advocacy Australia’s co-founders, mother and daughter team Clare and Alice Collins (The Collins Girls), said the award results were still sinking in.
“Despite being finalists in five categories, we went into the 50th Golden Target Awards feeling incredibly fortunate just to be in the room and considered among the industry’s finest,” said Clare Collins, Founder and Chair of Advocacy Australia.
“We genuinely didn’t expect to come home with four awards, let alone three Gold because the calibre of the competition was exceptionally high.”
Alice Collins, co-Founder and Secretary of Advocacy Australia said, “To have our unique team, professional work, NFP leadership, and our national Asbestos Awareness campaign recognised in four highly competitive fields makes our achievements in the 50th Anniversary incredibly special.
“These awards recognise the different aspects of what we do in practicing PR for good. But ultimately, they all come down to applying strategic, impactful communication that educates communities and delivers advocacy giving victims a voice, that together delivers meaningful change.”
The NFP Campaign Gold recognised the national work of Advocacy Australia and its Asbestos Education Committee for Asbestos Awareness Month 2025, which was delivered largely pro-bono on extremely limited funds and resources.
In 2025, Advocacy Australia’s Asbestos Awareness Month campaign continued its national leadership role in delivering life-saving awareness and education despite operating on a micro-budget. It generated 955 of 1,121 monitored asbestos education media clips nationally, representing an 85.2% share of voice against heavily funded and well-resourced federal and state government campaigns to achieve an estimated media reach of over 11.4 million. More than 422,000 asbestos education videos were viewed and over 21,500 potentially lifesaving education resources were downloaded during the campaign period.
For Clare and Alice, they hope these awards will do more than recognise what they’ve already achieved.
“Everything we consistently deliver without government funding or corporate sponsorship, is driven by passion, skill and an enormous amount of determination by volunteers dedicated to saving and changing lives,” Clare said.
“We hope this recognition opens doors to essential funding and partnerships to help us continue to build on what we already achieve year-on-year —delivering asbestos education to save lives and giving a voice to victims of serious crimes who’ve been silenced by systems that have failed them.”
“If this is what we can achieve with limited funds, imagine what we could achieve if we had the resources to expand our work in preventing exposure to asbestos fibres that kills over 4,000 Australians annually (three times the national road toll), and advocating for equity and the rights of victims of heinous crimes,” she said.
Funding would enable us to reach more Australians with our life-saving asbestos education message and develop our victims’ advocacy programs through increased capacity to support the many victims and families seeking our help.
“We hope this recognition of Advocacy Australia’s commitment to our purpose will show potential partners what we’re already achieving and what could be possible with the right support behind us,” Clare said.
Advocacy Australia’s performance is particularly notable competing with some of the most heavily shortlisted mega agencies and organisations vying for recognition in 2026. Advocacy Australia, Ogilvy PR, Herd MSL and HAVAS Red each had five nominations; We Are Different and BBS Communications Group had six each; In The Media PR had seven, and Ogilvy PR and Ogilvy Health combined led the overall field with an impressive eight nominations.
For Advocacy Australia, the 2026 industry award results build on previous successes in Golden Target Awards, including in 2025 having won three-of-three award nominations for its Justice for Biddy campaign (Silver – NFP Campaign and Bronze – Public Affairs and Advocacy), while The Collins Girls received Bronze in the NFP Team of the Year category.
Twelve months later, The Collins Girls’ delivery of their award-winning work demonstrated consistency progressing from Bronze to Gold, and Advocacy Australia’s NFP Campaign result progressed from Silver to take Gold.
The 2026 win also takes Alice and Clare Collins’ vital work in asbestos awareness and education to nine industry awards since 2012, including seven Golden Target Awards and two international awards —An AMEC Communication Effectiveness Award and a Global Alliance World Public Relations Forum Communication Award for excellence.
The 2026 awards saw Alice Collins named 2026 Professional of the Year — NFP, while Clare Collins won Silver for Leader of the Year — NFP, behind SSI’s Dane Moores, who went on to receive the National Leader of the Year honour.
“For us, these awards are about much more than trophies. They recognise the important causes and communities we advocate for and most importantly, the people and families who trust us with their deeply painful stories,” Alice said.
“We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved for victims of serious crimes and for asbestos education thanks to the support of our Board, Victims of Crime Committee, Asbestos Awareness Ambassador — Cherie Barber, Asbestos Education Committee, our dedicated, award-winning volunteers and our donors. We hope this recognition helps us find the financial support we so desperately need to enable us to do even more.”
-ENDS-
INTERVIEW, SPONSORSHIP & PHILANTHROPY REQUESTS
- media@advocacyaustralia.org.au Clare Collins 0414 821 957 Alice Collins 0414 686 09 advocacyaustralia.org.au
- Media Centre: Download photos https://bit.ly/AdOz-GTA
ABOUT ADVOCACY AUSTRALIA – advocacyaustralia.org.au
Advocacy Australia is an independent registered Australian charity formally established in 2020 to advocate for people, causes and communities and drive positive social change through advocacy, education and strategic communications.
Entirely volunteer-run and receiving no government funding or corporate sponsorship, Advocacy Australia works across two key areas: national asbestos awareness and education with its Asbestos Education Committee and, victims’ advocacy with its Victims of Crime Committee to support individuals and families affected by serious crimes, trauma and systemic failures.
Its work focuses on using strategic communications to raise awareness, give people and communities a voice, improve access to trusted information, and advocating for victim equity and meaningful change.
Advocacy Australia is registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) with Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
ABOUT THE NATIONAL GOLDEN TARGET AWARDS
The Communication and Public Relations Australia (CPRA) Golden Target Awards are Australia’s longest running and most prestigious national awards recognising excellence in communication and public relations. Established in 1976, the awards celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2026, marking half a century of recognising the campaigns, practitioners, teams and agencies setting the benchmark for the Australian communications profession.
The national awards recognise excellence across the breadth of the industry, including agency, corporate, government and not for profit communications, with categories spanning campaigns, individuals, teams and agencies.
Entries are judged against industry criteria, with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards recognising excellence across the categories. The program’s highest honours are its Platinum Awards, including National Campaign of the Year, Excellence in Measurement and Evaluation and National Leader of the Year. The 2026 Golden Target Awards Night was held at the Sheraton Grand Sydney, Hyde Park on 17 September, bringing the industry together to celebrate 50 years of Australian communication and PR excellence.
CLARE COLLINS — LEADER OF THE YEAR, NFP — SILVER
As Founder and Chair of Advocacy Australia, Clare Collins leads a largely unfunded national charity working across victims of serious crime advocacy and asbestos harm prevention. Her leadership centres on building trusted relationships with victims, parliamentarians, legal and clinical experts, journalists and volunteers, while guiding the organisation through complex, sensitive and often traumatic matters.
During the judging period, Clare’s advocacy helped secure the first NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the forensic division of the Mental Health Review Tribunal – the first in its 35-year history. She authored and presented Advocacy Australia’s White Paper to the NSW Attorney General, led the organisation’s subsequent inquiry submission and continued supporting victims through parliamentary, media and coronial processes. She also chaired the Asbestos Education Committee, strengthening Advocacy Australia’s standing through specialist partnerships and delivering national public health education.
ALICE COLLINS — PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR, NFP — GOLD
Advocacy Australia Co-founder, Director and Secretary, Alice Collins leads the organisation’s strategic communication, media relations, digital delivery, research, governance, campaign execution and evaluation. Working entirely pro bono, Alice specialises in turning complex legal, clinical and public health information into clear public interest communication while protecting the wellbeing and dignity of people with lived experience.
Her work during the judging period included developing media and stakeholder strategies for major advocacy matters, supporting victims to participate safely in public processes, strengthening Advocacy Australia’s governance and evaluation systems, mentoring volunteers and contributing to the profession through guest lecturing at Western Sydney University. Her entry also highlighted the rigorous research, ethical judgement and disciplined campaign evaluation behind Advocacy Australia’s work, demonstrating how sophisticated communication practice can deliver national impact despite extremely limited resources.
THE COLLINS GIRLS —TEAM OF THE YEAR, NFP — GOLD
Mother daughter team Clare and Alice Collins form Advocacy Australia’s two-person operational team, supported by a volunteer board, specialist committees and volunteers across Australia. Their roles are deliberately complementary: Clare leads victim relationships, political engagement, research and specialist committees, while Alice leads strategic communication, media, digital delivery, evaluation and governance.
The GTA Team of the Year entry focused on how that partnership enables a very small organisation to operate across complex national advocacy and public health portfolios with minimal funding. It also highlighted Advocacy Australia’s volunteer culture, including mentoring, psychological safety, flexible participation and a 100% volunteer retention rate, with most volunteers having remained with the organisation since 2020. Together, the team combines lived experience, specialist expertise and disciplined communications practice to deliver measurable outcomes across advocacy, policy engagement and community education.
ASBESTOS AWARENESS MONTH 2025 — NFP CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR — GOLD
Asbestos Awareness Month continues to be Australia’s leading national asbestos awareness and education campaign to save lives.
In 2025, the campaign was designed to keep asbestos safety education prominent nationally despite operating without government funding and on a fraction of its former budget. Research identified a need to make asbestos risk more immediate and personally relevant to homeowners, DIY renovators and tradespeople, using new data, lived experience and practical safety information.
The campaign combined national media relations, ambassador Cherie Barber, the lived experience of Phil and Leah Smith, targeted digital advertising, community service announcements, stakeholder participation and Betty the Asbestos Education House. On a final budget of $14,148, it exceeded its core objectives, achieving 85.2% national media share of voice, 955 media items, more than 11.4 million audience opportunities and increased use of asbestos education resources. More than 422,000 asbestos education videos were viewed and over 21,500 potentially lifesaving education resources were downloaded during the campaign period. The campaign demonstrated how the evidence led strategy, trusted voices and tightly integrated channels could compete with significantly better funded government and NFP campaigns while still delivering practical public health education at national scale.
2026 GOLDEN TARGET AWARDS LEADERBOARD: 2+ GTA WINS
| Winner | Platinum | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total Won | Finalists | Conversion* |
| Advocacy Australia | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 80.0% |
| SSI | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 100.0% |
| We Are Different | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 66.7% |
| Sefiani, part of Clarity Global | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
| Agent99 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
| Ogilvy Health / NSW Health | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 66.7% |
| Bumpp / The Shepherd Centre | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 100.0% |
| ICON Agency | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
| Keep Left | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
| TasWater | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
| Adhesive | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 75.0% |
| Hughes | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 66.7% |
| In The Media PR | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 57.1% |
| BBS Communications Group | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 50.0% |
| Ogilvy PR | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 60.0% |
| Cube | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 66.7% |
| Herd MSL | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 40.0% |
| HAVAS Red | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 40.0% |
| Palin Communications | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 50.0% |
| Enthral / IHG Hotels & Resorts | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 100.0% |
*Conversion = Gold + Silver + Bronze category awards ÷ finalist nominations. Platinum is not included in the conversion numerator because CPRA does not shortlist separately for Platinum; those honours are selected from the award field. CPRA describes Platinum as the three honours at the top of the overall program. Table includes all organisations receiving two or more honours, ranked by Gold, then Platinum, Silver and Bronze. Organisations are listed as CPRA names the entrant, with jointly entered work credited to both named parties. Compiled by Advocacy Australia from the 2026 Golden Target Awards shortlist and winners lists published by CPRA, as at 19 September 2026.
