Good intentions don’t guarantee impact – especially when lived experience is excluded.
The Diversity Collective brings credible lived and learned expertise into Australian workplaces – while supporting the people who hold that knowledge to build sustainable, respected careers.
We don’t monopolise DEI education, we democratise it.
We take a tempered radical approach to inclusion. We believe meaningful change happens when principled work is carried into the systems that shape decisions, without being softened, extracted or neutralised. Our role is to hold the line on human rights and lived expertise, while working strategically enough for change to take root and endure.
The Diversity Collective was born from a recurring pattern.
We kept seeing the same dynamic play out — organisations committed to inclusion, but relying on a narrow circle of visible experts due to limited access and connection.
The issue wasn’t a lack of commitment. Organisations wanted to act on inclusion, but access to the right expertise was limited. At the same time, many practitioners with deep lived and learned expertise lacked the infrastructure, visibility and pathways needed to reach those organisations.
The result was a persistent gap — not of intent, but of connection.
We built The Diversity Collective to close that gap: connecting organisations with credible, practitioner-led expertise, while creating equitable pathways for those practitioners to lead the work, sustainably and with integrity.
Because when the right expertise is excluded, inclusion efforts fall short — and when lived experience is centred, the work is more effective, accountable and enduring.
Marginalised knowledge is, by definition, marginalised. It sits outside dominant systems of visibility, credibility and access.
That means organisations seeking diversity and inclusion support often encounter the same voices, frameworks and providers — while equally (if not more) credible, community-held, lived-experience based knowledge remains harder to access.
The Diversity Collective exists to address this structural gap.
We work with practitioners whose expertise has been shaped through lived experience and professional practice, many of whom come from grassroots and community contexts outside traditional centres of power. Our role is not to translate or sanitise that knowledge, but to create pathways for it to be accessed, valued and applied responsibly in organisational settings.
We also recognise that lived experience involves intellectual and emotional labour. At TDC, that labour is respected and properly remunerated. Practitioners are engaged as experts — not as case studies, storytellers or unpaid contributors.
Our model is grounded in human rights, not market optimisation. We prioritise dignity, sustainability and scaling-impact over optics. We don’t treat inclusion as a product to be owned or sold — we treat it as work that must be held responsibly and actioned collectively.
That’s what it means to support this work without reproducing the systems that marginalised it in the first place.
Working with The Diversity Collective is designed to be clear, considered and accountable.
You share what you’re navigating — whether that’s training, a keynote, coaching, an audit or strategic advisory. We focus on understanding your goals, constraints and the outcomes you’re seeking, not just the format.
Based on your context and the work required, we identify practitioners from our collective whose lived and learned expertise best aligns with your needs. This is a deliberate matching process — not a directory or first-available model.
The practitioner leads the engagement with autonomy and integrity. They are paid fairly for their expertise with an agreed upon portion attributed to our Collective Fund (to support aspiring practitioners) and a dedicated percentage to Pay the Rent.
Our model supports inclusion work that is credible, ethical and sustainable — ensuring organisations receive work that lands, and practitioners are resourced to continue leading change over time.
The Diversity Collective exists to serve two interconnected audiences — organisations seeking meaningful inclusion, and practitioners whose expertise makes that work possible.
We design services that go beyond compliance to culture change.
We partner with organisations ready to move beyond compliance toward meaningful, sustained change.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to inclusion. Organisations operate within different systems, constraints and levels of maturity — and effective work starts with understanding that context.
We take the time to understand where you are now, what you’re navigating, and what outcomes you’re working toward.
From there, we curate the right expertise to meet your needs.
Whether you need a one-off workshop, a keynote or panel contribution, executive coaching, or a longer-term advisory partnership, we will connect you with practitioners who understand the realities of your environment and can design work that lands in practice, not just on paper.
A platform, community and infrastructure to amplify your expertise.
The Diversity Collective supports practitioners with subject-matter expertise and lived experience to access organisational work without compromising autonomy, integrity or care. We handle coordination, contracts, marketing and booking logistics — so you can focus on delivering your work, growing your practice and sustaining your energy.
This is not a bureau or an agency model. We are a collective. Practitioners lead the work, set boundaries around how their expertise is shared, and are paid fairly for both their intellectual and emotional labour — within an infrastructure designed to support collaboration, connection and longevity, extraction, exploitation and capitalism.
If you want to work within the systems we seek to change — without perpetuating their harm or losing yourself in the process, join the collective.
We’re here to change the system, not play into it.
Access to education should not depend on proximity to power, privilege or capital — particularly when that education concerns rights, safety and inclusion.
Accessibility is built into how we work. We offer a range of delivery options — including workshops, online resources and blended learning — alongside reduced pricing, scholarships and sliding-scale options designed to remove financial barriers where they exist.
If cost is a barrier, we encourage you to speak with us. We approach accessibility collaboratively — balancing care, sustainability and impact.
We centre lived experience and focus on what works in practice.
We build agency, not guilt — and support the responsible use of power and privilege to create change.
Every engagement with The Diversity Collective is grounded in these principles. We’re here to support genuine culture change that is grounded in integrity and care, not performative compliance.
Every engagement with The Diversity Collective contributes to our Collective Fund — a shared resource that sustains the infrastructure behind the work and expands access to lived and learned expertise.
The Fund supports practitioner care, coordination and community-building, enabling more marginalised voices and experiences to be resourced, visible and heard in organisational spaces.
It also reflects our commitment to Indigenous sovereignty, with an ongoing contribution to Pay the Rent, supporting the return of land, resources and power to First Nations peoples.
Booking through TDC isn’t just about meeting your immediate needs — it’s a way of investing in a model that builds collective capacity, supports ethical practice, and strengthens the future of inclusion work.
The Diversity Collective was established by Sheetal Deo in response to a structural gap between organisations seeking to embed inclusion and the practitioners best placed to lead that work. Having access to both corporate and community spaces made that gap visible — and highlighted the responsibility to build better pathways between them. TDC was created and intentionally designed to bridge that gap by expanding access to lived and learned expertise, while creating ethical, sustainable conditions for practitioners to lead.
Lived experience practitioners are professionals whose expertise is shaped by direct, embodied experience of the systems, structures and conditions they work within — alongside formal training, professional practice and subject-matter knowledge. Their insight is not abstract or theoretical; it is grounded in reality and refined through practice.
At TDC, lived experience is not treated as anecdote or identity alone. It is recognised as a form of expertise — developed over time, held with care, and applied intentionally to support meaningful change.
The Diversity Collective operates as a platform and community for independent practitioners. Practitioners retain their autonomy and lead their own work, while TDC provides shared infrastructure, coordination and ethical stewardship. Each engagement also contributes to the Collective Fund, which sustains the model and supports community and accountability commitments.
Rather than centralising expertise within a single consultancy, we create pathways for many practitioners to lead. This broadens whose knowledge is visible, valued and resourced — and gives organisations access to a depth and diversity of expertise no single provider can hold.
Not at all. We work with organisations of all sizes and sectors — from ASX-listed companies and government departments to small not-for-profits, schools, and community organisations. Accessibility is built into our model, with flexible delivery options and pricing arrangements available where budgets are constrained.
The Diversity Collective is based in Australia and our practitioners work with clients across the country. Services can be delivered in person or virtually, so location is rarely a barrier.
If you’re located outside of Australia and interested in working with us, we still encourage you to get in touch.
For Organisations
Let's talk about what lived experience informed training could look like for your workplace.
Sign up for updates on events, new practitioners, and resources from The Diversity Collective.
