About The Good Machine
The Good Machine is a social enterprise built by one bloke from the Inner West of Melbourne who genuinely believes the world gets better when good people do good things. Not as a slogan. As an operating principle
Who We Are & Where We Started
Andy Fithall didn’t set out to build a social enterprise. He set out to help his community through a pandemic.
On 22 March 2020 — the day after he was made redundant — Andy sat down with his two primary school-aged sons and hit record. The result was In Other Good News, a nightly good news broadcast streamed live from his back room in Kingsville, built as an antidote to the relentless COVID news cycle. His son Reuben (8) was the co-anchor. Sonny (6) was the producer.
People tuned in. They shared it. They said they’d needed it.
From One Broadcast to a Machine
From that first broadcast, something grew. A coffee cart at the end of the driveway. A live telethon called Funkin’ 4 Foodbank that raised over $6,000 in an hour with guests from The Block and a cover band billed as West Footscray’s 5th best. A coffee brand. A networking club. A podcast that won Best Interview Podcast at the 2024 Radio Today Awards.
In Other Good News became The Good Machine — a name that better reflects what it actually does. It’s not just good news. It’s a machine for making good happen.
Mission Statement & Core Values
What We Stand For
Mission Statement
Our mission: to create initiatives, products, and experiences that do something genuinely good — for individuals, for small businesses, and for the community around us.
Value 1
Community First
Everything here is built for and by the community. We don’t do things in isolation — we do them with the people around us.
Value 2
Good for Goodness’ Sake
We’re not virtue-signalling. The giving is baked in, not bolted on. When you buy coffee, you feed someone. When you join Ground Level, you support small businesses and not-for-profits. It just works that way.
Value 3
No Gatekeeping
Good is for everyone. Our initiatives are deliberately inclusive — no pitch pressure, no hidden costs, no in-crowd.
Value 4
Keep Making Things
The Good Machine exists because Andy kept making things when it would have been easier to stop. That instinct hasn’t gone anywhere.
The Person Behind It
Founder
Andy Fithall is a connector. He’s the person in the room who introduces you to someone useful, asks the right question, and remembers your name next time.
By trade, he’s an audio engineer and broadcaster. By nature, he’s a community builder. He’s neurodivergent himself, which is part of why Ground Level was built the way it was — a space without pressure, where people can just be human and still get things done.
He’s organised charity telethons, fundraising gigs, community blitzes, and small business events. He’s had his sons on ABC Melbourne radio. He’s had his podcast recognised nationally. And he still answers his own messages.
The Good Machine is a reflection of who Andy is: a person who genuinely cares, keeps creating, and makes it easy for others to be part of something good.
Meet Our Founder
Andy’s journey started in audio engineering and broadcasting, but community kept pulling him in a different direction. When COVID hit and he lost his job, he didn’t disappear — he started a TV show with his kids, ran a telethon, launched a coffee brand, and built a networking club. He is, as someone once put it, West Footscray’s finest social entrepreneur.
Why The Good Machine?
Because it’s real. The coffee is premium and the giving is genuine. The networking club was built because Andy experienced bad networking and decided to fix it. The podcasts exist because he believes good stories deserve to be heard.
There’s no VC funding, no corporate backing, no head office. Just a bloke from the Inner West who keeps building things worth being part of.
If that sounds like your kind of machine — you’re in the right place.