EthosGov / Portfolios Pilot
The portfolio view Education Directors have never had.
A 60-day pilot, funded by your state's innovation programme, that stands up a working portfolio surface across five schools and one Education Director.
Funded by
- South Australia Go2Gov
- Victoria CivVic Labs
- Commonwealth BRII
The problem
Twenty-five schools. One Director. A 2am phone call that was never going to stay quiet.
Directors hold a portfolio of schools in Excel, email, and memory. Patterns that were always visible become visible too late.
The fortnightly data refresh the Principal resents and the Director cannot avoid, because the data lives nowhere else.
The conversation is retrospective when it should be coaching.
This is a solvable problem. It has not been solved because no one has built the scaffolding that makes upstream legible without adding to what the Principal has to produce.
The 60-day shape
What a 60-day Portfolio Pilot looks like.
Phase 1 of 3 / Days 1 to 14
Scope and stand up.
Five pilot schools onboarded onto EthosGov at the site level. Data audit. Agreement on what 'visible in time to act' means in your context. Director and Department leads mapped. First dashboard concepts reviewed.
Phase 2 of 3 / Days 15 to 45
Surface and observe.
Portfolio Dashboard and Storm Mode surfaces stood up on live site data. Director uses the surface in the fortnightly cycle. Signals tracked: what the Director saw before it became a call. Fortnightly debriefs with the pilot cohort.
Phase 3 of 3 / Days 46 to 60
Evidence and decide.
Evidence pack produced: what the pilot surfaced, what changed in the Director's week, what the Principals did differently, what the Department now sees. Decision point: proceed to the 12-month Portfolio Partnership, or close the pilot.
Sixty days. Five schools. One Director. One clear decision at the end.
Funded by your jurisdiction
Your state's innovation programme is designed for this.
Innovation procurement exists because normal procurement cannot move at pilot speed. EthosGov runs the Portfolio Pilot as the 'Unmatched Solution' inside the programme that fits your state. The state fund covers most or all of the pilot cost. The department provides the access and the challenge definition. EthosGov provides the build.
South Australia
Go2Gov (Research and Innovation Fund)
- Funding ceiling
- up to AUD 200k
- Fits the pilot because
- Proof-of-concept with a SA government agency as first or reference customer. The 60-day pilot is the canonical shape.
Victoria
CivVic Labs (LaunchVic with DPC)
- Funding ceiling
- up to AUD 165k per challenge plus 30k acceleration
- Fits the pilot because
- Challenge-based accelerator. The Education Department can nominate a portfolio challenge.
New South Wales
MVP Ventures and Test and Buy Innovation
- Funding ceiling
- MVP up to AUD 200k; Test and Buy via info.buy.nsw
- Fits the pilot because
- MVP grants for market-ready products. Test and Buy reforms procurement for innovation.
Queensland
Advance Queensland initiatives
- Funding ceiling
- varies
- Fits the pilot because
- Queensland Procurement Policy allows innovation carve-outs. Challenge-based engagements available.
Western Australia
Innovation Pathways and Innovation Booster Grant
- Funding ceiling
- Booster up to AUD 50k; Pathways grants vary
- Fits the pilot because
- New Industries and Innovation Fund supports innovation pilots with WA agencies.
ACT
Innovation Connect (ICON) via CBRIN
- Funding ceiling
- AUD 10k to 30k matched
- Fits the pilot because
- Matched-funding grant for early innovative partnerships.
Tasmania
Industry Growth Program and Enabling Business Grant
- Funding ceiling
- up to AUD 50k for research; others vary
- Fits the pilot because
- Commercialisation and growth projects inside priority areas.
Commonwealth
Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII)
- Funding ceiling
- Feasibility up to AUD 100k; Proof of Concept higher
- Fits the pilot because
- Challenge-based. Federal agencies nominate challenges. Education departments can lead.
EthosGov co-applies with you. We handle the innovation-fund application language, the technical scope, and the compliance. You hold the challenge.
What changes from Monday
What the pilot leaves behind, in three roles.
- For the Education Director
You stop holding twenty-five schools in your head. The signals you have been building in your memory live on one surface. The fortnightly meeting moves from status report to coaching conversation.
- For the Department
You see a roll-up composed from the live data the sites are running on, not a PowerPoint assembled from twenty-five PDFs. Innovation procurement gives you evidence to decide whether to scale.
- For the Principal
You stop being invisible upstream. The coaching conversation starts on evidence, not on a re-ask. The time you would have spent rebuilding the report becomes time you spend with students.
Why EthosGov
Why we are the one running this pilot.
EthosGov is built for public-sector education from the ground up. Australian procurement rules, Australian data sovereignty, Australian time zones.
The portfolio surface is built from the site-level data each school is already producing. We do not ask Principals to produce a new report.
EthosGov is led by a team with fifteen years of experience in education consulting across school systems, government, and executive coaching. We know the difference between a dashboard and a working surface.
Apply
Apply to the Pilot.
We are accepting applications for five pilots across FY26. Apply in five minutes. We will come back inside two business days.
Prefer a conversation first? Book a Governance Review.
If you are earlier than a pilot, read the twelve-month partnership brief.
Read the Portfolio Partnership