2018 communityfoundation annualreview · customer service can be a tough job. you need just the...

01 RACV Community Foundation

Since 1903, RACV has been a proud contributor to the wider Victorian community, and this year the RACV Community Foundation celebrated 21 years of helping Victorians.

The Foundation was established to support community-based organisations that help marginalised and at-risk Victorians feel a part of, contribute to and tap into the collective strength of their communities.

Over this time, we have granted over $5.1 million to more than 320 charitable organisations.

Welcome.

RACV Community Foundation 02

Graeme ChippChairman RACV Community Foundation

Neil TaylorRACV Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Re-focusing the Foundation’s core purpose

This year we re-assessed where the RACV Community Foundation’s support could be directed. Now more than ever, we see the need to support the communities that play such a critical role in providing a safety net and support network for all Victorians.

As our population grows, it stretches the capacity of our cities and towns, our systems, and our resources to support Victorians and ensure their wellbeing. The Foundation is uniquely positioned to provide grants to grassroots organisations that help strengthen community wellbeing and drive greater social impact.

The RACV Community Foundation exists to provide a source of philanthropic funding for not-for-profit organisations who help marginalised and at-risk Victorians.

As part of its ongoing ‘matched giving’ program, RACV gives $2 for every $1 raised from staff donations, and selected events.

For more information about RACV’s Community Foundation, you can visit:

2018 at a glance.

www.racv.com.au/foundation

This report includes some of the stories behind the organisations and programs supported by the Foundation over the past year, and how they are making a positive difference to the lives of vulnerable Victorians.

This year, under a tiered granting structure, we have provided $738,000 in 2017-18 to 20 grassroots not-for-profit programs, with grants ranging from $14,000 to $150,000. More than 41 per cent of these grants have been distributed to organisations operating in rural and regional Victoria.

We thank our members for their continued support to better the lives of all Victorians and in particular, the generous support of our donors, many of whom have been giving to the Foundation since its inception.


Dame Pattie Menzies Centre.

Dame Pattie Menzies Centre from the perspective of one of their clients, Jenna, who shares the impact the program has had on her life.

Customer service can be a tough job. You need just the right mix of passion, patience and people skills. Fortunately for Dame Pattie Menzies Centre, a not for profit providing support services to people with a disability in the Murrindindi Shire of Victoria, they have Jenna who creates a memorable experience for the twenty local businesses who enjoy regular deliveries as part of the ‘succulent exchange project’.

The Dame Pattie Menzies Centre has been providing support services to people with a disability since the early 1980’s and evolved from enormous community support. It’s clear that their new connection with the RACV Community Foundation will be a special one with their joint goal to create opportunities for Victorians to engage with their communities and build more meaningful connections with each other and to support activities that are core to wellbeing.

The succulent program, which will be expanded through the $18,000 grant received from RACV Community Foundation, provides clients of The Dame Pattie Menzies Centre with hands on experience in horticulture and design. What makes the program different is the direct engagement with the local businesses in the close rural community of Alexandra, who receive their weekly deliveries from Jenna as a subscription service.

The team at Dame Pattie Menzies Centre know that it’s diverse skills that make a team great. Jenna knew quickly that planting the succulents and preparing them for delivery wasn’t for her – it was the opportunity to connect with her much-loved community that appealed most. The thing that stands out about Jenna is her natural warmth and genuine love of people. As well as customer service, Jenna is in charge of delivering orders and keeping records – life skills that she also applies to her jobs at the local radio station and kindergarten. But what she enjoys most is the sense of purpose and confidence the program has provided, “I like making friends and introducing myself”, says Jenna.

When it comes to welcoming new customers, like any good customer service leader, Jenna knows the value of her product and knows what her customers want sometimes even before they do; “I just say – how many?”

Customer service can be a tough job.

And while it’s not possible for Jenna to choose just one favourite customer, Jo who manages the local haberdashery store, stands out. “Jo has known me since I was a baby and now she sees me working in my job. I’m proud of that”.

Jenna lives with her good friend Anne Marie and says being part of the program has also increased her independence “I feel proud when we go into town for lunch and see succulents in the shops” and with a new circle of friends made on the program things like birthday dinners are a regular treat and Jenna reflects that “the program makes my week go fast and I feel confident.”

Expanding life skills for the years ahead has made a huge impact on Jenna but it’s progress towards achieving personal goals too that’s been such a valuable bonus. For Jenna, that means travel, with an overseas holiday to Fiji with her sisters on the horizon: “I want to go to more places”. There’s no doubt that with her star qualities and the new found confidence she’s built through the programs on offer at Dame Pattie Menzies Centre there will be many more memorable moments in Jenna’s future.


“I feel proud when we go into town for lunch and

see succulents in the shops.”Jenna

Succulents Exchange Program


Let’s meet for lunch.

“Let’s meet for lunch”. It’s a common invitation, to catch up with friends or to meet a new business contact. But few of us would have stopped to consider when and how we were taught about social norms like this one; experiences that are so important to help us stay connected, feel part of a group or explore new opportunities.

But the team at Ardoch Youth Foundation have thought about it. And they’ve made it their mission to create learning experiences that focus on building life skills to increase engagement in education, build aspirations and enhance learning outcomes for children in areas where there is a higher than average incidence of disadvantage.

Thanks to the $125,000 grant they received from RACV Community Foundation, Ardoch Youth Foundation will partner with schools in Geelong, Frankston North, Dandenong and Melbourne’s West to engage students and parents in their program ‘Communities Learning through Lunch Together’.

Kylee Bates, CEO of Ardoch Youth Foundation says, “A grant like this means we can plan and evaluate a really structured program with enough numbers to work out what works and why. What stood out about RACV was their willingness to have an open conversation and invest significantly in our work to help us scale up. Without funding like this, we don’t deliver the program.”


“A grant like this means we can plan and evaluate a really structured program with enough numbers to work out what works and why.”Kylee Bates CEO of Ardoch

The ability to plan is also critical to make the experience a positive one for schools, who receive all the resources they need already prepared from Ardoch. Kylee shares, “funding covers the cost of the lunches, transport and support resources to make it easy for the schools. It has to be seamless for them or it won’t happen, they’re busy!”

‘Communities Learning through Lunch Together’ is a two course ‘fine-dining’ experience hosted at a TAFE or social enterprise hospitality training venue - like Melbourne’s Charcoal Lane. For many students, it’s the first experience of eating in a restaurant. For families experiencing the challenges that come with financial stress or low employment, dining out is an unaffordable luxury. Having the opportunity to enjoy it with class-mates helps break down the confidence barrier that can come with trying something new.

Adele Stowe-Lindner, National Programs Manager at Ardoch Youth Foundation reflects, “It goes back to the invitation. If you’ve never done something before you may not feel that it’s your right. Once you feel that it is, confidence starts to build. Now they’ve done it once, they don’t have to worry next time and they can try the next new thing.”


Learning through lunch together.

A tour of the restaurant training facilities helps encourage conversation about post-school career options and volunteers and parents are on hand to answer questions - which are encouraged, to help students and parents consider new pathways that may not have felt like a possibility before the experience.

Adele says, “A lot of the parents may not have had a positive experience of education themselves. And for families from culturally and linguistically diverse communities or those newly arrived in Australia they may be dealing with their own trauma or trying to learn English while their children are learning literacy. To have a positive experience with their children and to see the teachers as approachable, can encourage them to get involved in other things at school. It’s a break from their own experience. When children see that their parents value education, they see that it’s important.”9 RACV Community Foundation

“It made me more excited about... what I could be when I grow up”A student

For volunteers, who often didn’t attend the schools participating in the program, it broadens their horizons too and provides an opportunity both to share their knowledge and learn with the children. One volunteer surveyed remembers, “The chef’s speech at the end was so great, I could see that a few of the children on my table were quite taken by his story - and possibly added it to their list of fall-back career choices if they didn’t quite make the cut for playing for Real Madrid!”

The impact on the restaurant teams has been a positive and unexpected bonus. Adele remembers a particular experience at Melbourne’s Charcoal Lane where students took the time to write personalised thank you letters to the chef. “The chef was standing near the kitchen afterwards, where they couldn’t see him, reading them all and was almost moved to tears when he shared that he’d never received a thank you card before.

This isn’t the purpose of the program but it moves children to say thank you - which is also part of being hosted.”

But it’s receiving feedback from the students that most reinforces for the team at Ardoch Youth Foundation that this experience is growing aspirations as well as gratitude: “Learning through lunch made me more interested about school because I got to do something new. It made me more excited about things I could do at school and what I could be when I grow up.”


2018Grant Recipients.


Ardoch Communities Learning Through Lunch Together $124,457Ardoch will adapt their innovative ‘Learning Through Lunch’ program to engage parents and students in disadvantaged communities in Victoria. The program, ‘Communities Learning Through Lunch Together’ will involve students, parents and corporate and community volunteer mentors getting together to experience a ‘fine-dining’ lunch at a TAFE or hospitality training venue. The program will increase parent connections with schools and other community volunteers while building aspirations and engagement of both students and parents. Working with 40 schools and TAFE and hospitality training locations across Geelong, Frankston, Dandenong and Melbourne’s West, Ardoch will involve a minimum of 1,000 students, 160 parent volunteers and 160 community and corporate volunteers in 40 Communities Learning Through Lunch Together activities.

Blind Sports and Recreation Victoria RACV Walking with Willpower

$24,070In order to address the barriers to regular recreational activities for blind and vision impaired Victorians, this organisation has established a program called ‘Walking with Willpower’ which connects people who are blind or vision impaired with community volunteers in long-term walking partnerships. The program promotes healthy activity, increased independence, social connections and confidence in a group which often experiences isolation as a result of their disability. Volunteers act as sighted guides and provide a verbal description of the environment to help their buddies navigate their local streets. Funding is to support the expansion of this program in to Gippsland, Bendigo and greater Geelong areas of typical lower socio-economic status and greater need.

Healesville Interchurch Community Community bus project

$20,000This funding enabled HICCI to purchase a 12-seater bus, that will assist vulnerable and isolated elderly members in Healesville and surrounding communities the ability to access local services. These people either do not have access to or cannot afford public transport. The bus trips will provide a door to door service, to and from the shops to purchase essential items. They also enable otherwise isolated clients to socialise with other community members.

Dame Pattie Menzies Redesign and expansion of the Succulents Program

$18,000The Dame Pattie Menzies Centre (Menzies Support Services) provides support services to people with a disability through day programs and one-on-one support. This funding was used to redevelop and expand their current succulents program - specifically to construct a larger hothouse to increase participation in the program and expand the succulent service areas to local businesses that participate in the 'succulent exchange project’. This will have a strong impact on participants with disability by creating social connection opportunities and enabling them to learn a new lifeskill through horticulture.


Ganbina Capacity building project

$50,000This funding is to enable Ganbina to extend the reach of their ‘Jobs4U2’ program to more Indigenous young people in the Goulburn Valley area. This is a 'school to work transition program’ that has had proven success in enabling these young people to reach their full personal and career potential. Specifically, Ganbina equips young people with the education, jobs training and life skills they need to become meaningfully employed and act as positive role models for others. In this way, they become effective agents of change within their own communities.

Gateway Services VIC Pop-up social cafe

$14,000Gateway aims to address the issue of loneliness and isolation of the ageing population in the western suburbs of Melbourne by using this funding to purchase a portable coffee van 'cafe’ that can be set up at different identified high-risk isolation areas including high rise apartments. The cafe would promote social connections and inclusion with the focus on the older population who still live in their own homes. The cafe would be run by volunteers twice weekly in the local community and local services would have the opportunity to come and distribute information about their services in the community.

Kinfolk Sibling by Kinfolk

$50,000Sibling is a custom-built site that operates as a cafe for the public by day and an events space by night. Sibling will provide practical learning opportunities for people experiencing social challenges such as disability, mental health, lack of language skills and barriers to employment. Sibling aims to double the number of training opportunities, diversify their training modules and provide accreditation for volunteers to assist them with gaining employment.

Cultivating Community Strong Shoots – Growing Healthy and Cohesive Communities through Food Gardening at School

$50,000Cultivating Community provide relief from poverty for public and community housing tenants and others living in poverty in Victoria through improving access to healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food. The funding received is to support the development of their 'Strong Shoots’ pilot project which is aimed at supporting students that currently reside in public housing estates in Melbourne and attend nearby schools to grow food locally through a 'food garden blitz’. This pilot project aims to address the issue of child hunger by providing all children and students with access to healthy, locally grown, organic food and empowering children and students with the knowledge and skills to grow their own food and , prepare healthy meals.

Life’s Little Treasures Supporting a challenging road

$20,000This organisation provides vital support to families of premature babies who often come from a low socio-economic background and come from areas with high unemployment and below average incomes. These families often have limited access to health services and baby products considered by most to be necessities. This funding enabled the purchase and fitting of 20 car seats for families of premature babies.

Wallara Wallara Pop Up Shop Building the Futures of Young Adults with Different Abilities

$15,700Wallara’s mission is to drive social change in the community to empower people with different abilities to live the life they choose. The funding for this project aims to develop a non-accredited retail training course for people with different abilities to improve their numeracy and money handling skills and learn all aspects of retail. The funding also support the introduction of an all abilities friendly point-of-sale system in the Wallara pop-up shop in Dandenong Plaza.


St Kilda Mums Prambulance: Deliver hope and share joy

$30,000St Kilda Mums is a volunteer-powered organisation that believes every baby deserves the same safe start to life. Through three branches, in Geelong, St Kilda and Ballarat, they collect, sort, safety check, clean and redistribute essential nursery equipment such as cots, prams, car seats, clothing, books and toys to families in need throughout Victoria through their partnerships with Maternal and Child Health Nurses and social service agencies. This funding allowed St Kilda Mums with no public transport options, a van for their 'Prambulance’ service to extend their reach, and support their vision to provide nursery essentials to every baby in every town no matter their geographical location or area of disadvantage.

Mawarra Centre Inc Spikemaster

$15,000Mawarra operates three disability enterprises one of which is Jigsaw, located in a factory owned by Mawarra. Jigsaw employs 12 people with a disability and the plan is to expand the Jigsaw workplace to 18. They have used their funding to purchase the equipment to make wooden pegs from donated offcuts. The Victorian Government has expressed interest in using Mawarra as their supplier of these pegs for government projects. Mawarra supports over 100 adults in a mix of permanent and temp workforce in the Warragul and surrounding regions (including those who require the highest level of workplace support).

Deaf Children Australia Driver education and training for deaf and hard of hearing youth

$47,472This project will create a prototype specialised driving instruction package for deaf and hard of hearing youth and their parents/guardians. The goal is to increase the number of deaf and hard of hearing youth who can get their drivers licence and so increase their independence and improve their employability. For some deaf youth, it can take more than 7 years to go from L to P plates. Once developed, eight students will directly benefit from this pilot program and all successful outcomes will be rolled out more widely as a best practice driving instruction program.

Mercy Health Foundation Getting Out & About: A community bus for the elderly at Mercy Place Shepparton

$20,000Mercy Health cares for people at every age and stage in life; from mothers and babies at Mercy Hospital for Women to older people who live at one of the organisation’s 35 aged care homes. This funding will replace the community bus involved in a collision at Ardmona in June 2017. A new community bus will allow Mercy Place Shepparton residents to enjoy group excursions and social outings again. Many residents rely on these excursions to stay connected with the community.

Eat Up Australia Eat Up regional expansion

$34,174Eat Up engages communities, schools and corporate groups to prepare lunches which Eat Up deliver to schools in need. Eat Up currently delivers a school food program in 270 of the 500 schools the Victorian Government has identified with a high risk of children going to school without a packed lunch or lunch money. This project will support the expansion of the program to schools located in the regional areas of Mildura, and Pakenham and roll-out into 30 schools to produce 29,000 lunches for the first year of operation in these regions.

SCM Rescue Arts Station Fire the Imagination. Fire the Kiln

$16,700The Rescue Station is a unique heritage listed building in the Eastern precinct of the historic State Coal Mine Reserve. It is an important part of the Wonthaggi culture but was vacant for many years until a group of committed community members negotiated a lease from Parks Victoria and turned it into a community arts hub. The funding received is to develop a pottery centre as part of the Hub. The pottery workshops will be kept at a low cost to ensure accessibility for those financially disadvantaged in the community. The classes will consist of 2-15 participants, particularly children and youth groups, at each workshop.

West Welcome Wagon Spread the Welcome

$105,000West Welcome Wagon (WWW) is a volunteer run not-for-profit dedicated to providing material aid and support to asylum seekers in Melbourne’s west. WWW assists over 500 households of asylum seekers from over 30 different countries, providing them with good quality donated items such as furniture, bedding, clothing, children’s toys, appliances and kitchenware. This project, 'Spread the Welcome’ seeks to build the organisations capability and capacity enhancements to reach more people and enhance their evaluation approach to build a stronger evidence base for future scaling-out.

Travellers Aid Mobility equipment upgrade

$20,000Travellers Aid assists people with mobility challenges as they travel around Melbourne. This project was to upgrade their mobility equipment which is made available for hire to the travelling public. The hire service enables people with permanent, age-related or temporary disabilities to join their families and friends and attend essential appointments, cultural and social events, entertainment or sporting activities. Mobility equipment is hired for a minimal fee which enables people to connect, engage and participate more fully in society. This funding allowed Travellers Aid to acquire a range of new electric scooters that are reliable, modern, lightweight and easier to operate.

Victorian Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders Second Chance Cycles

$45,000The Second Chance Cycles enterprise is two fold in 1) upskilling high risk people to learn new skills in maintaining and servicing bikes and then 2) distributing the restored bikes to vulnerable members of the community. Through this funding the organisation seeks to work with 300 people through training and upskilling and providing 800 vulnerable people with free bikes or repairs. The funding will have sustained impact beyond the project through knock on effects of building social connectivity, increasing participant confidence and lessening re-offending.

St Kilda Police & Citizens Youth Club Tuesday Vibez

$17,870The aim of the program is to engage at risk young people and those who have already offended in positive, relevant and meaningful activities that build social connections. The structure of the funding is two fold. Participants will be able to pursue their music passions through access to a professional level recording studio and mentorship from a well regarded music professional. However in order to access this studio, the young people will need to commit to a behavioural management contract and a fitness regime with regular fitness testing. The expected outcomes are around positive behaviour and mood, decreased interaction with the youth justice system, improved school attendance and increased fitness. They anticipate 40 young people will complete the program.


FoundationResultsin Brief 2018.

2018 2017Operating Surplus $551,902.44 $2,214,435.22

Net Assets $18,901,433.62 $18,349,531.18


Investments70%

Donations20%

Functions & Events10%

Net assets As of 30 June 2018, the net book value of assets totalled $18.9 million, compared with $18.3 million in the previous year. Net assets mainly comprise cash and investments in various unit trusts managed by a number of fund managers.

Sources of revenue Revenue is principally generated from investments, corporate and individual donations, and fundraising activities.

Helping Victorians tap into the collective strength

of their communities


The RACV Community Foundation exists to provide a source of philanthropic funding for not-for-profit organisations who help marginalised and at-risk Victorians.

As part of its ongoing ‘matched giving’ program, RACV gives $2 for every $1 raised from staff donations, and selected events.

For more information about RACV’s Community Foundation, you can visit:

www.racv.com.au/foundation

2018Annual Review

2018 communityfoundation annualreview · customer service can be a tough job. you need just the...

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