eftpos Decides - Two Charities to Share $2m
23 October 2013 at 12:15 pm
Electronic funds management company, eftpos has named two charities who will receive around a $1million each as part of its national Giveback campaign.
The Giveback donations will be used to help combat two of Australia’s most prevalent diseases – skin cancer and diabetes with the funds going to Cancer Council Australia and Diabetes Australia.
Eftpos says the funds will go to a Diabetes Australia for a co-branded awareness campaign around diabetes, including a digital platform and mobile application.
“Diabetes is Australia’s fastest growing chronic disease and is expected to become the number one burden of disease in Australia in the next five years,” eftpos Managing Director Bruce Mansfield said.
The second project is a Cancer Council Australia co-branded campaign to install sun shades in high schools at selected high schools around the country.
“Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world with at least two in three Australians being diagnosed with skin cancer before the age of 70,” Mansfield said.
“Another donation of $40,000 will be given to Camp Quality based on the strength of its proposal and its social media campaign during the first phase on the Giveback Campaign which attracted more than 2,200 individual votes.
“Almost 70,000 people voted in the poll which closed on 12 October, with almost one in four votes going to disease prevention, management and medical research.”
Mansfield said selecting this year’s Giveback charity partners was a tough decision and involved assessing more than 140 worthy proposals from Australian charities.
Diabetes Australia CEO Professor Greg Johnson said the Giveback donation would help to get the message to the community about the seriousness of the diabetes epidemic as Australia’s fastest growing chronic disease.
“Diabetes is one of the major threats to the health and productivity of Australians in the 21st century and this eftpos Australia support will help us to build a stronger awareness campaign and a much better online technology platform to support people with diabetes, connect people to supports, programs and services, and reduce the impact of diabetes on the lives of many people,” Prof Johnson said.
Cancer Council Australia CEO, Professor Ian Olver said: “We are excited to be working with eftpos on this innovative campaign. By offering more Australian high school students shade protection during lunch breaks during their teenage years, we can reduce their risk of developing skin cancer now and later in life.”
“The next phase of the 2013 Giveback campaign will start on 3 November, when we launch the advertising campaign urging Australians to press CHQ and SAV to support two great charities in the lead up to Christmas,” Mansfield said.
