The Trust Company Announces $5 million in Strategic Partnerships - PILCH a Big Winner

The Public Interest Law Clearing House VIC (PILCH) is one of the big winners in a commitment to three year funding announced by fund managers, The Trust Company today.

PilchConnect is one of 17 Strategic Partners who will receive funding over the next three years as a Trustee for the Fred P. Archer Charitable Trust. The funding will help build the PilchConnect service, including the national roll out its free telephone advice service.

Simon Lewis, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Communications and Community at The Trust Company says each Strategic Partner was chosen for demonstrating alignment between their program and their Engaged Philanthropy strategy.

“They also demonstrated their ability to work with The Trust Company and collaboratively with the other chosen partners to deliver their programs in the best interests of the greater community,” Lewis said.

The funding announcement comes on the back of a report by Deloitte Access Economics which valued the PilchConnect’s contribution to the Victorian economy at $4.3 million in the 2010/11 financial year.

“We are privileged to be one of the inaugural recipients of funds as a partner under The Trust Company’s new engaged philanthropy model,” said Sue Woodward, Director of the PilchConnect service.

“Our service allows Not for Profit organisations to spend less time worrying about legal issues and more time on their core work. This new engaged philanthropy model is bold and innovative and, with its multi-year commitment, provides us with a welcome boost to help us expand our service to organisations outside Victoria for the first time. ”

The Trust Company says the selection of 17 multi-year Strategic Partnerships worth over $5 million, is an outcome of its recent 2011 philanthropy funding round. The Trust Company currently administers more than 300 charitable trusts.

“Following a detailed review of our Philanthropic business, we have changed our approach from traditional one-off project based funding to multi-year partnerships with organisations in a selected group of program areas,” said Simon Lewis.

“Being focused and strategic with our discretionary distributions allows us to put greater emphasis on building relationships with our non-profit partners and enhances our knowledge of the program areas we have elected to support. Over time, we will achieve greater perspective in our role as trustee to effect meaningful social change.”

The selected organisations fall into three program areas: Socially Inclusive Education, Positive Ageing and Living with Disability. From a broader social sector perspective, they are also looking at organisations that support social enterprise, innovation and capacity building.

The 17 Strategic Partners and their funded programs are worth $5 million over the next 3-5 years.

Socially Inclusive Education:

• Social Ventures Australia Education Collaborative – Director of Education
• Australian Indigenous Education Foundation – Scholarship Program
• The Kokoda Track Foundation – Archer Scholars Program
• Foundation for Young Australians – National Indigenous Youth Leadership Academy
• The Smith Family & Outward Bound – National Aspiring Leaders’ Summit
• WA Community Development Foundation – Passport Program
• National Gallery of Victoria – NGV Kids Space
• Interplast – PNG Burns Unit Program

Positive Ageing:

• Mercy Health & Australian Catholic University – Chair in Aged Care
• National Stroke Foundation – National Stroke Survivor Needs Survey
• Florey Neuroscience Institute – Women in Science Fellowship & Brain Challenge Event

Living with Disability:

• Youngcare & Griffith University – Chair of Research
• Lifestart – Early Learning Program & Kayak4Kids
• Paraquad NSW – Primary Health Team

Social Enterprise and Innovation:

• Melbourne Business School – Centre for Social Impact Research Fellowship
• School for Social Entrepreneurs – Regional VIC Expansion
• Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH) – National Call Centre

The discretionary funding for the 17 partners is distributed through the Fred P. Archer Charitable Trust, for which The Trust Company is Trustee. The Trust was established by Fred P. Archer prior to his death in 1977 after spending 54 years in Papua New Guinea. The trust deed directs distributions “For the relief of poverty within the Commonwealth of Australia including Papua New Guinea, for the advancement of education and for other like purposes”.

The Trust Company says an example of the Engaged Philanthropy strategy in action is their partnership with the Melbourne Business School – Asia Pacific Social Impact Leadership Centre. They will be providing technical support to The Trust Company in discerning the social impact of its discretionary distributions over time.

Another example is the success of the first year of the Archer Leadership Scholars Program, through the Kokoda Track Foundation. In 2011, five scholars successfully completed the program and are now working as Ambassadors for the future Scholarship Programs in Papua New Guinea.

The Trust Company also made its final round of 48 one-off distributions worth over $1.6m to a broader range of Not for Profit organisations.