It is with great pleasure that I present the Chair’s Report for Impact100 WA for 2021-2022. Starting with the end, because it was such a fantastic and fitting end to the year!
Grant Awards dinner
At the end of October, another full house of 280 guests were seated and waiting in anticipation of the presentations ahead. Even after just the first three presentations, everyone knew we were going to have tough decisions to make when it came time to place our precious pebbles in the voting jars because all the proposals were so powerful, so important, so transformational.
And then, thanks to a matching grant offered by one generous donor:
Existing donors decided to increase their donation amount…
Their guests took to their mobile phones to sign up as new donors…
A quiet hum turned into a loud buzz…
Was it possible we could make it to three Primary Grants?
Once the five presentations were done, we all hurried to the voting table where jars were ringing with the sound of pebbles being dropped in. The committee pored over the numbers, trying to work out where we’d got to and the finalists waited anxiously with all fingers tightly crossed.
Finally, our MC called the room to order, and silence descended as Committee Members, took to the stage to make The Announcement. And the cheer was huge when not just two, but THREE golden envelopes were produced!
THREE FANTASTIC PROJECTS will now be fulfilled over the coming two years:
SPROUT – Grow the Trillion Trees Schools Program
This hands on project educates school children on the effects of land-clearing and the importance of trees. Volunteers will be trained in how to implement the program into schools and students will experience first hand how to propagate, cultivate and plant native seedlings. The grant will enable 20-30 more schools to join the program which will benefit approximately 2000 children and people.
Training School Plant Upgrade (3.5 tonne Mini Excavator)
This plant upgrade will assist at-risk young people to become job-ready by building qualifications and life-skills through the use of mentors and machinery. The grant funds will purchase a 3.5 Tonne mini excavator which will improve training quality, as well as enabling students to get real-world and useful experience by working on local community projects. It will impact 100 students directly each year plus the students will contribute to $150K of pro bono work towards local community projects.
Kimberley Game On! After School Program
The Game On program will run in Broome and Kununurra. Locally based project officers will build and support a group of local volunteers to run after school sessions for more than 200 disengaged and marginalised local children. The project will provide mentoring, sport and recreational activities and health education in a safe and supportive environment.
But the story doesn’t end there…
The remaining finalists put in just as much effort and their activities are just as important, so we always aim to ensure that they don’t go home empty-handed. Thanks to the amazing generosity in the room, Thriving in Motion and 12 Buckets each received a minor grant that was topped up to $20,000!
Donation amounts
This takes our total distributed since inception to $2.405m and in addition at least $1.162m above this amount has been donated by our donors to organisations they have been introduced to by Impact100 WA.
Donor numbers
In 2022 we saw Donor numbers increase to 261 compared to 235 in 2021. There were 73 new donors and $361,150 was raised ($299,350 for 2021).
Our other Annual Events
Impact100 WA is about more than just donating. Donors can be involved as much as they like and truly get to know the wonderful charity scene in WA and meet many marvellous enthusiastic people undertaking great work. You can also meet like-minded people and share your knowledge amongst friends.
Kickstart
We were pleased to be able to hold our Kickstart event outside (to help with COVID restrictions). We appreciated FORM enabling us to hold our event there and allowing us to view interesting exhibitions at the same time.
We heard from Cycling Without Age and one of our old winners Dress for Success.
Assessment events
Before we knew it, we had received our applications and were into the focus group meetings. We convened in person for the most part, but some donors were very grateful to be able to join from their own homes via Zoom.
As we moved onto the assessment nights, donors showed how keen they are to learn about organisations they can support and both were very well attended, with a record 70 people at our second assessment night! Luckily, we had a new electronic voting system, rather than our traditional show of hands. Definitely an improvement.
Our site visits too were as powerful as ever and each one inspired us with their dedication, ingenuity and ability to create positive change.
With our finalists chosen, we were ready for our Grant Awards Dinner, the highlight of the year, as outlined earlier.
Generous Australians
As part of Impact100 WA’s mission to inspire greater philanthropy, we once again hosted our Generous Australian event. Professor Fiona Wood chatted with Paul Chamberlain at The Grove Library in front of 100 attendees. We were thrilled to have her along, especially as she had been extra busy launching her book and participating in many events in recognition of the 20 year anniversary of the Bali bombings. It was incredible to hear what she has managed to fit into her busy schedule helped along by her mantra of you don’t get up in the morning to be ordinary. Since moving from the UK when she married her husband, she thinks the opportunities have been greater in Perth and the community very supportive. Her philanthropic mantra is giving people the opportunity to give.
It is extremely exciting to see the increase in the engagement of our donors in all areas of Impact100 WA from visiting charities, coordinating sub-committees, as well as just providing time and mentoring to a broad range of charities in Western Australia.
Young Impact
Under the supervision of Amanda Malseed, Young Impact100 was an important success this year with school aged children getting further involved and having many great ideas to raise the donation themselves. This year they donated $6,201 to Trillion Trees. This now takes the total raised by this enterprising and considerate group to over $30,000.
Main Committee
Although we hope everything appears seamless, it is the culmination of much work from committee members over the year. I wish to thank our committee. In alphabetical order, Emma Bedbrook, Bruce Byrnes, Sophie Chamberlain, Karen Cheng, Cécile Crochu, Matt Gent, Michelle Morgan & Wendy Scott-Hamilton. A very big thank you to all these people for their tireless efforts. It is actually a job for many, even though we are all volunteers. We are disappointed to have the resignation of Emma Bedbrook at the beginning of 2023. She has for the past 6 years been a valued member of our committee, running events, getting to the heart of any issue, keeping in contact with past winners and generally a lovely person to be around. Thanks Emma, you will be missed.
Other Support
A big shout out and thank you to our wonderful focus area co-chairs, Financials Review Committee, Grants committee, Events committee, Young Impact organisers and all those who have helped with in so many ways. If any of our donors would like to get more involved, we would love to hear from you.
Sponsorship
Our Donor Engagement Co-ordinator
We were delighted to welcome last year Lia Simmonds as our Donor Engagement Co-Ordinator. She has been invaluable and a great addition to the Imact100 WA team. We had sponsorship from Minderoo and other private foundations for this role. The funding came to an end in December 2022 and we are looking for further sponsorship to continue this part-time role. So, if you or your organisation can help, we would love to speak to you.
Sponsors
Although we run on a budget, there are administration costs. We ensure that your full $1,000 donation goes to the organisations, but we still do need to cover essential costs. We appreciate those of you who take the option to contribute extra to administration alongside your donation. Thank you.
We are grateful to one of our past committee members Michael Pyne from HPH Solutions who has stepped in as a new general sponsor for Impact100 WA. His continued involvement is very much valued.
Impact100 WA sincerely appreciates its many sponsors and supporters who help with a variety of jobs, services & goods. In particular ,we would like to say a special thank you to FORM, Grove Library, Georgina Barker Photography, Scott Print, the Frasers Group, Silverstream Wines & James Marshall.
Financials
Please see attached a copy of our Financials for the year. Please note that we have generated a set of Financial Statements, even though no donations go directly to Impact100 WA’s accounts. The reason for this is that Australian Communities Foundation provide the back-office services of accepting the donations, issuing the tax- deductible receipts and then distributing money to the charities under our guidance.
Our financial year runs from 1 December to 30 November annually to align with our grant cycle.
Summary
I look forward to a successful 2023 year, where we build on over a decade of projects and good news stories. We do make a difference! I would urge you to encourage your family, friends and colleagues to become involved in the wonderful group that is Impact100 WA. The more donors we have, the more we can support the WA community.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of Impact100 WA
Simone Eley
Chair
To download a copy of this report, please click here: 2023-02 Chairmans Report