COLLABORATING TO GROW COMMUNITY PHILANTHROPY

^{Sophie Doyle, Foundation SA’s Philanthropy and Engagement Manager presents to guests at the launch of the new community foundation in May 2021.}

The launch of a new community foundation is always cause for celebration, and last month’s launch of Foundation SA, was especially joyful, given that it is Australia’s first new community foundation in five years.

Established with seed funding provided by The Wyatt Trust and infrastructure support from Australian Communities Foundation, Foundation SA is the state’s first statewide community foundation.

Foundation SA will focus on growing giving in Adelaide and across the state while working in partnership with the four existing rural and regional community foundations: Foundation Barossa, the Eyre Peninsula Community Foundation, the Fleurieu Community Foundation and Stand Like Stone Community Foundation.

As implementation partner and trustee, Australian Communities Foundation provided critical support that enabled Foundation SA to move quickly and confidently from establishment to public launch within six months.

“Australian Communities Foundation has been integral to Foundation SA getting off the ground so quickly,” says Foundation SA and The Wyatt Trust CEO, Stacey Thomas.

“Being able to learn from their experience and share the years of knowledge has meant that we have been able to hit the ground running with all our policy and procedure frameworks established, a clear plan for donor engagement and external promotion in place.”

The groundwork paid off, with five sub-funds established at the time of the launch and a commitment of $270,000 in matched funding announced by the South Australian Premier.

The long-term goal for the Foundation, Stacey says, is for it to become an ongoing source of funding for organisations and causes across SA.

“To see this driven by a community of donors who have wide and varied passions I hope will mean that we will be able to target areas that would otherwise not necessarily be getting mainstream support or attention,” she says.

“I have long admired the community foundation model and am personally a proud donor of 10+ years, so to be able to be a part of developing a larger shared vision of community driven philanthropy for the state is very exciting.

“The feedback and engagement has been fantastic so far, and I hope it can inspire others to consider how a community foundation may work for their area.”

Australian Communities Foundation will provide backbone services to Foundation SA until it grows to a size where it has built a sustainable corpus to allow it to transition to become a public ancillary fund in its own right.

“We have been delighted to partner with The Wyatt Trust to establish Foundation SA,” says Australian Communities Foundation CEO, Maree Sidey who attended the launch in Adelaide.

“By sharing our policies, processes, products and our approach to working with donors that we’ve developed over the last 20-plus years, we’ve helped bring a sense of security and confidence to the Foundation SA team and their donors who know that the funds are going to be well managed, well administered and invested responsibly.”

Gerlinde Scholz, Executive Officer of Australian Community Philanthropy, the peak organisation for community foundations, says the collaborative approach that helped launch Foundation SA sets a powerful example for others.

“It’s a wonderful demonstration of how larger philanthropic foundations or government can contribute a little bit of money to help get things started,” she says. “These are not prohibitive sums of money but it can go a long way in getting the legwork done, building the relationships and the collateral – all of which help build momentum and excitement.”

For Foundation SA Philanthropy and Engagement Manager, Sophie Doyle, the support and encouragement from sector peers has been invaluable.

“The excitement and support has been amazing,” she says. “We can feel the generosity of spirit from the sector urging us to grow and spread the word about place-based giving.”

BRINGING OUR VALUES TO WORK: VOLUNTEERING WITH FARESHARE

^{The ACF team volunteers at the FareShare kitchen in Melbourne. FareShare rescues surplus food and cooks free, nutritious meals for people doing it tough.}

One of the things the team at Australian Communities Foundation prizes most about working where we do is the opportunity to be part of a values-led organisation that is helping to build a fairer Australia.

Last month our team had the opportunity to live our values by spending a morning volunteering in the kitchen at FareShare in Melbourne.

As a team we made 1,040 quiches during our shift and prepared batter for another 1,440 quiches.

The morning was part of a team building day and our time at FareShare was organised by our Grants Coordinator, Gabby Lam.

“FareShare is a long-time favourite of several of our sub-funds, collectively giving close to $30,000 over six years,” Gabby explains.

“When our CEO, Maree, asked members of the Staff Fund to organise a team day, we thought what better than to get our hands into some volunteering. With a shared love for food and cooking, FareShare seemed like a great fit for our team.”

FareShare’s mission is to rescue food that would otherwise be wasted; cook and distribute nutritious meals to people in need; and inspire and empower action on food rescue and hunger.

FareShare began in 2000 when pastry chef, Guido Pozzebon, started cooking 300 pies every Saturday morning for the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul.

Separately, Melburnian Steven Kolt began collecting prepared meals from function halls and catering venues. Steven was a member of Jewish Aid (now Stand Up) and together members from that group named their project Melbourne City Harvest.

A year later these two efforts merged and FareShare was born. By 2002 FareShare was steadily increasing its food production but faced a massive roadblock. Due to outdated laws, some businesses that were keen to donate were unable to provide FareShare with their surplus food.

FareShare and the Law Institute of Victoria successfully lobbied the Victorian Government to introduce Australia’s first Good Samaritan law to protect food donors. This important change allowed FareShare to dramatically increase production and productivity.

By 2012 FareShare had an established kitchen in Abbotsford, producing 500,000 meals a year. However, they were unable to keep up with demand from charities and people in need.

In 2013 with philanthropic support, FareShare was able to open Australia’s largest charity kitchen, on South Audley Street which produces more than one million meals a year.

However, in 2020 like most non-profits, FareShare faced enormous challenges as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. The lockdown restrictions limited the number of volunteers in the FareShare kitchen, while there was a rapid increase in demands for meals.

Corporate Partnerships and Media Director, Toni Hetherington explains, “FareShare has continued cooking for people in need through Covid, but not without its challenges. Our volunteer workforce was suspended at the height of the pandemic to protect our volunteers’ health and prevent further spread of the virus. However, generous support from Woolworths providing extra food, ALH providing out-of-work chefs and staff from the Victorian Government’s Working for Victoria scheme kept our kitchens, gardens and warehouses running for more than a year.

“It’s been heart-warming to see so many supporters backing FareShare at this time of great need. Thankfully, our volunteers are now back and FareShare is powering on to provide the best meals it can to nourish our most vulnerable people.”

During the Australian Communities Foundation’s team visit, FareShare CEO, Marcus Godinho, told us that despite the first hurdles, FareShare was able to double the number of meals and in some weeks, they distributed more than 120,000 ready-to-eat meals to communities and partners across Australia.

Each year, nearly 6 million people volunteer through an organisation in Australia. In 2019 volunteers contributed 596 million hours to the community. Estimates indicate that 78 per cent of companies have a volunteering program, with 15 per cent of employees participating in corporate volunteering.

It’s easy to see how important volunteering is for a non-profit like FareShare.

Toni Hetherington describes FareShare’s volunteers as “the heart and soul of the organisation.”

“Each day volunteers from the community, corporate organisations and schools work hand-in-hand with our chefs to cook and pack about 5,000 nutritious meals,” Toni explains.

“Making this many free meals for people in need would not be possible without our volunteer army, which also powers the planting and harvests at our kitchen gardens, our warehouses and our drivers on the road rescuing surplus food.”

For the team at ACF, our morning spent volunteering was not only a small contribution towards helping others, it was also an opportunity to learn more about a grant partner and each other.

“Workplace volunteering is not only fun, but it also gave us a chance to work beside colleagues that we might not usually spend time with,” Gabby says. “It was also great to see our egg cracking and pastry folding efforts being put to good use!”

LAUNCHING A NEW AND IMPROVED SYSTEM FOR MANAGING YOUR FUND

^{Our new online portal enables fundholders to donate to their funds, request grants, and view fund balances and statements all in the one place.}

In 2021, we transitioned to a new integrated system from world-leading database provider for community foundations, Foundant Technologies.

As part of the transition, we launched a new online portal for our giving community, enabling fundholders to donate to their funds, request grants, and view fund balances and statements all in the one place.

Beyond this key benefit, the new portal also offers other great features such as: 

• easy-to-use functionality, allowing quick and easy access to your granting and donation history 
• real-time email notification of donations and grants
• visual overview of donating/granting history
• responsive design, allowing easy navigation on mobile and tablet devices
• greater security with all data now hosted in Australia and protected under local privacy laws 
• better integration with backend grantmaking and administrative processes 
• dedicated support for the Australian Communities Foundation team from world-leading database provider for community foundations, Foundant Technologies.

We also developed a new online portal for grant partners that streamlines our grantmaking processes and reduces administrative burden on partners.

“We’re thrilled to have been on this journey with Australian Communities Foundation,” says Foundant co-founder Daren Nordhagen. “It’s been a journey involving close collaboration between the two teams. Together, we’ve been able to prepare our software for the Australian community foundation sector and configure a solution that meets the needs of ACF and its giving community.

“We’re glad we can play a small part in helping the ACF community carry out its important work.”