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The purpose of this paper was to examine inspiring others as a psychological construct in leadership contexts by investigating lived and personal experiences of inspiring leaders.

A phenomenological design was used to investigate leaders' personal and lived experiences of leading to inspire others. In‐depth interviews were conducted with seven participants nominated by others as inspiring leaders based on the demonstration of five characteristics (vision, openness, transparency, passion, and being somewhat unconventional).

Participant responses coalesced into five key dimensions of leading to inspire others: connecting, leading, inspiree, action, and context; enabling a functional description of the phenomenon. Furthermore, results indicated that leaders could intentionally cultivate opportunities to inspire others through interaction and effort.

Given that the paper investigates leaders' experiences of the phenomenon, further investigation into the relational and reciprocal aspects of inspiring others is required. Research has primarily focused on participants in the inspiring relationship independently of each other (i.e. either the inspiree or the leader).

Contrary to assertions in some transformational leadership studies that personal charisma is the primary component to inspiring others, these findings indicate that inspiring others requires an active process where leaders establish interpersonal connections and enable action.

Research on inspiration is at a formative stage. This paper represents an initial foray into the space where scholarly knowledge on leadership theory and inspiration intersect to provide greater insight into leading to inspire others.

Entrepreneurial businesses often face financial and experiential gaps, which can constrain their growth. Business angels (BAs) can provide sources of financial, human and social capital to overcome these gaps. Building on the work by Munck and Saublens, this paper aims to introduce a framework that seeks to provide a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs can bring to the firms in which they invest.

In order to obtain a detailed understanding of the benefits that BAs bring to their investee companies, semi‐structured, in‐depth telephone interviews were conducted from an investee perspective. The key managers of nine angel‐funded companies were purposefully selected and the transcribed interviews analysed with the help of common qualitative analysis techniques.

According to investee managers, BAs provide benefits in all four areas of the proposed framework. Specifically, BAs: help overcome funding gaps; fill knowledge/experience gaps through provision of their own expertise and involvement; provide a wide range of contacts and leverage further funding, including their own follow‐on finance.

The anonymous nature of the BA market requires convenience sampling, which, in addition to the small sample size used, does not allow for generalisability. The use of telephone interviews instead of face‐to‐face interviews did not allow for observation of non‐verbal cues. Nevertheless, the study identified various areas in need of further research.

In‐depth interview data enabled a detailed exploration of the financial and non‐financial benefits of BA funding from an under‐utilised investee perspective. The paper's main value, however, lies in establishing the usefulness of a framework showing BAs' benefits in a structured manner.

In Australia, the Foodbank of Western Australia (Foodbank WA) has a reputation for being at the forefront of health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to describe Foodbank WA's innovative food bank plus approach of incorporating healthy lifestyle initiatives (i.e. nutrition and physical activity education) into its core food bank business, so as to target priority issues such as food insecurity, poor food literacy, overweight, obesity, poor nutrition and physical inactivity.

A case study approach was utilised to explore Foodbank WA's Healthy Food for All® (HFFA) strategy. HFFA is a comprehensive state wide, school and community based strategy, including the School Breakfast Programme, Food Sensations® and Choose to Move initiatives, designed to promote healthy lifestyles to low socioeconomic and vulnerable groups – a major target group of food banks.

Since its inception in 2007, the delivery of food, education and resources has increased across all of Foodbank WA's HFFA initiatives. Evaluation results from feedback surveys demonstrate the success of these interventions to positively impact upon food security, health and wellbeing of participants.

HFFA is a unique, effective and novel strategy that addresses a number of health and nutrition issues. Food banks are well placed to deliver food literacy and healthy lifestyle initiatives. Foodbank WA's holistic approach and demonstrated success provides other food banks with a best practice model and knowledge base for the development of similar health promotion strategies and interventions.