Reconciliation Australia is especially interested in ways to measure the relationship between Reconciliation Action Plans and the contribution they make to closing the gap in the life expectancy between Indigenous people and other Australians.

The large majority of Australians believe that it is unacceptable that an 11-year gap exists between the life expectancy of Indigenous people and other Australians (ABS, 2009; Reconciliation Barometer, 2009). Since 2006, large numbers of people have become engaged in activities designed to ‘close the gap’, and this concept has come to mean more than the life expectancy gap alone. It is important to note that Aboriginal people generally regard the mantra of closing the gap as a means to an end. This end also encompasses wellbeing, happiness and belonging, in addition to longevity, not just for themselves as individuals, but for their families as well.

However, to many Australians, the concept of closing the gap resonates well as a simple message and has compelled thousands of people to ask ‘what can I do?’. In response to this question, Reconciliation Australia developed a program in 2006 to enable people to turn good intentions into action through organisation-wide Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs). The RAP program has so far engaged 334 organisations from many sectors, employing 1.4 million people (14 per cent of the Australian workforce) to choose actions which are mutually beneficial to Aboriginal people, the wider community and the organisation itself, within their area of expertise.

Many of the organisations currently implementing a RAP want to understand the impact their actions have at the national level. These actions include, for example, employing and developing Indigenous people, contracting with Indigenous organisations, strengthening relationships and respect through cultural awareness and mutual mentoring and establishing better relations with local communities.

Leaders in these organisations want to know that their chosen actions are executed with high quality and appropriate participation, are achieving necessary scale and that they are contributing positively to closing the gap. Indigenous community leaders and organisations equally want to know that community aspirations have influenced the selection of actions.