What grows next?
The problems that matter most to future-shaping organisations are arriving together: housing, a warming climate, the erosion of trust, and a technology that is rewriting the terms of life and work. The people who lead on purpose are trying to meet them all at once, with a second ledger to account for and too little company.
On 27 and 28 May 2027, three hundred of them will gather in Melbourne to find the ideas worth growing, and the company to grow them in.
- When
- Thursday 27 and Friday 28 May 2027
- Where
- Naarm | Melbourne. Venue to be announced.
- Who
- 300 humans who lead and work on purpose, from government, business, social enterprise, philanthropy, science, the arts and finance
- The convenor
- Humans of Purpose, a certified B Corp, convening international and local people since 2015
Why Deep Now?
Two days to slow down, think deeply about the time we are in, and leave with both renewed resolve and the company to act on it.
We are living through a stretch of change that is moving faster than most of us can keep pace with. Technology is reshaping how work gets done and what it is for, institutions that once felt stable are being rebuilt or set aside, and the pressure to keep up has become the background hum of working life.
For people whose work is anchored in purpose, this lands hard. Funding shifts, expectations rise, burnout is common, and the people doing the most to tend to communities are often the ones left most stretched and most alone with the weight of it.
At the same time, this moment is opening up real opportunity. When the old assumptions loosen, there is room to ask what work, leadership and organisations are actually for, and purpose-led people are well placed to answer. Deep Now begins from that tension, and from the belief that the questions in front of us are too big and too human to be worked out in isolation.
And beyond the personal, gathering is a salve for our shared humanity, a way of remembering that we belong to one another and that the future gets shaped by people who are present, listening and willing to work it out together.
What the gathering does
Most gatherings carry ideas from a stage to an audience. Deep Now is curated to find those ideas as much in the audience. The people in the room already hold the beginnings of answers, and those answers are usually small, local, unfinished and unconnected. The gathering is designed to do three things with them.
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Surface
Drawing out the problems people are living with and the ideas they are testing.
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Connect
Crossing the three threads, so that a person working on housing meets a person working on energy, and a technologist sits beside a public servant.
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Take root
Giving those ideas the conditions to grow, and the people carrying them the company to keep going.
Both the head and the heart are required. The head says whether an idea is sound, and the heart says whether we are willing to do the work that follows. That is why the program places poetry beside policy, circles beside workshops and long lunches beside debates.
We will not solve climate change, housing or the governance of artificial intelligence in two days. We will improve the odds that the right ideas meet the right people and survive their first year, and that the people carrying them keep going.
Coming soon
2027 Program & Speakers
The program is built around three threads and one anchoring question: what grows next? Speakers will be announced here. Join the waitlist to hear first.
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Enough
Growth in a post-growth economy.
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Intelligence
The threats and opportunities of AI.
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Kinship
The human connection.
Partner with us
We are inviting a small number of organisations to stand beside the gathering. Partners do not buy a banner. They take a defined role in the program, they are the only partner from their category at their level or above, and they spend two days and an evening with the people doing the work they most want to be part of, and known for.
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The right room
Three hundred people who set strategy, allocate budgets, shape policy and choose partners. You will meet people you would never meet at a sector-specific event.
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A role, not a logo
Partners present at the gathering, a thread or the evening. You welcome people from the stage and take part in the conversation. We keep editorial control of the program and the speakers, so the room trusts it.
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The category is yours
Each package is exclusive within its category, at its level or above. If you are the bank, the law firm or the technology company in the room, nobody else is.
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Real stakes, shared
Your organisation is carrying wicked problems of its own. Deep Now is where you meet the people and the ideas that can help, and where your name sits beside the work.
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Beyond the two days
Partners stay connected to what grows through the Humans of Purpose podcast, Collective, newsletter and social channels, and through the follow-up after the gathering.
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Company for the people who carry it
Leading on purpose is demanding and often lonely. A partner that helps build a room in which these leaders are held up by each other will be remembered by every person in it.
Who is convening
The people behind Humans of Purpose have been convening purposeful people since 2015. We have worked with internationally renowned leaders, among them David Whyte, Sarah Wilson and Tim Leberecht, and our podcast has hosted more than 450 purpose-driven leaders in conversation. Deep Now brings those conversations into one room.
- 15,000 Unique monthly podcast listeners. A top 10 management podcast in Australia
- 5,500 Email subscribers
- 5,200 LinkedIn followers, Humans of Purpose
- 5,000 LinkedIn followers and connections, Mel Greblo
- 3,000 Instagram followers
As reported by Humans of Purpose | October 2026. The channels overlap, so the numbers should not be added together.
Ways to partner
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Founding Partner
1 available · category exclusive
Present the whole gathering, and the year of conversation around it.
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Principal Partner
1 available · category exclusive
Present the thread that matters most to you.
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Program Partner
2 available · category exclusive
Present a thread, and bring a practitioner into it.
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Evening Partner
1 available · category exclusive
Host the evening: a performance, a shared dinner and a ceremony.
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Community Partner
4 available · category exclusive
Be visible across the gathering and the lead-up.
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Supporter
4 available
Back the gathering, and the people in it.
One conversation, then a decision.
Talk to us for about half an hour, confirm availability in your category, and agree the package. Partnership terms, including payment and cancellation, are set out in a written agreement.
If the present is two hundred years long, as the sociologist Elise Boulding argued, then the ideas we help grow in two days in May will outlast most of us. Place your name beside them.