Annual Report 2025
The Scale of the Problem
Music gets them in the room.
Mentoring changes their lives.
The challenges facing young people aren’t getting smaller. Family violence, housing instability, the mental health crisis, and educational disengagement are all intensifying. Without intervention, trajectories are tragically predictable.
But with the right support, everything changes.
Musicians Making A Difference (MMAD) is a frontline youth organisation working with young people experiencing mental health challenges, disengagement, trauma, homelessness, and social exclusion. We use music as the gateway - something compelling enough to get a young person through the door when nothing else has worked - and creative mentoring as the pathway to genuine change.
Think of it this way: music connects and engages; mentoring is the scaffolding. Together they become something more than either could be alone - a space where a young person who has been told they don’t matter starts to believe that they do.
Backed by some of the world’s leading musicians, and long-term global and local partners, MMAD delivers frontline and online creative support across Australia. We work where the need is greatest, with the young people most likely to be left behind.
Every young person deserves someone who believes in them and the opportunity to live their potential.
How Change Happens:
Three elements. One transformation.
MMAD’s approach is built on the interaction between three things - music, mentoring, and mental health - working in a deliberate sequence.
Every hour invested at MMAD activates an amplification effect. A young person who discovers their worth changes not only their own trajectory, but also their family’s story, their future children’s story, their community’s story.
Transformation isn’t linear. There are setbacks and struggles. Some young people need multiple attempts before they’re ready to commit. This work requires patience, persistence, and unwavering belief that every young person deserves someone fighting for their future. That’s what MMAD provides.
17,655 reasons this work matters.
In 2025, MMAD delivered creative mentoring engagements to 17,655 young people - each one a moment of connection, creativity, and care. Of those, 3,145 received intensive wraparound support: sustained, relational, deep-impact work that stays with a young person through crisis and out the other side.
When young people start one of MMAD’s programs, their wellbeing scores typically sit in the ‘struggling’ range - reflecting the trauma, instability, and disconnection they’re carrying. By the end of their program journey, we see an increase in the average from 57% to 68%, moving them into the ‘thriving’ range. This represents a young person who can finally sleep at night and believes they have a future worth building.
Personal Growth measures a young person’s belief in their own capacity to change and develop. When they arrive, many participants have internalised the message that they’re broken, hopeless, or beyond help. The increase from 67% to 79% represents something profound: young people believing they can learn, grow, change, and create the future they want.
Numbers tell us what changed. Stories tell us what it means. Jackson, Sam and Jake represent thousands of young people whose lives look fundamentally different because MMAD was there.
This is what ‘thriving’ looks like.