Noah Yang - Founder & CEO We Are Mobilise and Forbes 30 under 30 listee
For our third issue of The Purpose List, we are featuring the incredible Noah Yang - Founder & CEO of We Are Mobilise and a Forbes 30 Under 30 listee for 2025. Noah was recognised for his leadership in building innovative, community-led solutions that prioritise dignity, integrity and long-term impact.
We Are Mobilise is transforming how homelessness support is delivered across Australia. Through pioneering innovative, community-driven models, the organisation brings together service providers, donors, volunteers and people with lived experience creating support structures that are both effective and deeply human.
Noah’s work challenges us to rethink how we show up for our most vulnerable communities - not with charity alone, but with systems designed for dignity, accountability and lasting change.
We hope you enjoy the chat with Noah.
TPF: What does being a changemaker mean to you?
N: To me when I hear the word changemaker, I think about people trying to leave the world a better place than how they found it. This could be in many forms, for a lot of people they think impact / charity, of course it could be someone building a business or focused on improving their community. If we all focused on how we could ‘be the change’ in the world that we’d like to see - it would be a much better world we would all live in.
TPF: What is a controversial opinion that you hold about the sector?
N: I believe that as a sector, we have the opportunity to focus more on trying to ’solve’ the problems we’re working towards rather than just ’treating it’. This doesn’t apply to every situation and we of course, need a balance - but if we lifted our aspirations as a sector I believe it has the potential to lead to incredible outcomes. We’re blessed to live in a time with amazing technology, changing sentiment around many social causes and the ability to galvanise movements at the push of a button - this should be the time that we see many of societies ‘old & wicked’ problems move closer towards being solved.
TPF: In simple terms, how do you describe the work you do?
N: We provide funding directly to people who need it, wherever they are across the country. We do this through our network of 45+ charity partners across the country. This support enables us to get people facing or at risk of homelessness into housing, employment and other opportunities.
TPF: What initially inspired you to start on this journey?
N: Back in 2016 I remember walking through the streets of Melbourne, something I’d done countless times before but one night was struck by the thought that there were people sitting out on the street. I called up a number of shops and a bakery got back to us and gave us a couple of bags of bread. I went out with my best mate and started sitting and having conversations with the people on the streets that we were meeting. From there I realised it wasn’t just food nor money they needed but many people described feeling lonely and disengaged from society. From there we took out friends and then more friends and that’s where the Mobilise movement was born!
TPF: What change would you like to see in Australia in your lifetime?
N: That the stereotypes and stigma we have surrounding homelessness are erased. When we think about homelessness we undoubtedly instantly think of the person on the side of the street, scruffy and instinctively many people think - “are there because of their own choices”.
The reality is much, much different. Only 6% of our fellow 122,000 Australians are on the streets or facing ‘primary homelessness’. The other 94% are hidden homeless, experiencing either secondary or tertiary homelessness which may include mothers escaping domestic violence and sleeping in their cars or children who have had to escape an unsafe home and are couch-surfing. There are so many faces to homelessness and what we see time and again is the majority of people facing homelessness are not there by any choices of their own, but by circumstances outside of their control.
TPF: What advice would you give to people if they want to find more purpose in their life?
N: Do more, try more, see more. You’ll never find your purpose by sitting around or waiting for it to just appear. Get out there, travel to that place or have that conversation - you never know what is waiting for you on the other side.
TPF: What’s next for you?
N: This is our year of scaling. We’ve been really focused over the past few years since Nedd Brockmann’s Record Run across Australia in 2022 to establish systems that will make a sustainable impact for years to come. We’ve established a robust charity partner network, developed a tech platform that facilitates funding rapidly and continue to build our evidence based surrounding direct giving in Australia.
It took us 20 months to support our first 400 participants which we achieved in Q3 2025, since then we’ve already supported an additional 600 participants into housing in 5 months which speaks to the scalability of our systems. Up next will be more impact, more people into housing and continuing to challenge the stereotypes surrounding homelessness across the country.
TPF: What advice would you give to people if they want to find more purpose in their life?
N: Our direct giving model is hyper-efficient and has the ability to provide localised support across the country. Donations are the easiest (and most impactful) way to support the cause and help us scale the impact we can deliver.
We’re so grateful for everyone who has ‘Mobilised’ around our cause so far and made this a reality - we will continue working relentlessly to make you all very proud and help those who need it most.
