Telco Together is proud to announce the appointment of the Beacon Foundation as its newest Community Partner, with an approximate funding commitment of $300,000 over the next three years.
The Beacon Foundation is a national not for profit organisation dedicated to helping disadvantaged communities and those living in areas of high youth disengagement and unemployment. Beacon takes a preventative approach to youth unemployment and the range of societal hardships that stem from it and recently launched its ‘eBeacon’ program to ensure wider availability of services to disadvantaged youth throughout Australia.
Renee Bowker, CEO of Telco Together Foundation said; “In addition to the work Beacon are doing on the ground to change the cycle of youth unemployment and disadvantage across Australia, we were highly attracted to their eBeacon program, which looks to expand their potential reach to schools and students across Australia through an online platform.”
Beacon works with schools, businesses and communities to help bring relevance to the curriculum, while inspiring young people to think about careers and experience required for the workplace, long before they leave school.In 2016 alone, Beacon assisted 15,000 young Australians from just over 120 schools and communities.
Scott Harris, CEO of Beacon Foundation said; “Long term partnerships are critical in our sector. We are equally excited about the natural connect between Telco Together and their members with our aspirations around eBeacon. The problems for young people getting from school into meaningful employment are growing, so it’s really great to add another motivated partner, in support of our grass-roots action and initiatives, that provide young people with the skills and opportunity they need and deserve to prosper,” said Mr. Harris.
The Community Partner appointment process involved a nation-wide search for an organisation that is tackling social issues upstream, utilising a more preventative approach. The Foundation also looked for innovative community programs that harness the power of communications technology to scale delivery of programs across the country.
Commenting on the importance of untied funding for its appointed Community Partners, Ms Bowker said; “We have taken an untied funding approach to allow charities to invest in the things they need to, in order to “sharpen the saw”, or develop business cases for new programs.”“Our selection process is very thorough prior to appointing new partners, but once they’re selected, we believe they are in the best position to determine how the money should be spent,” said Ms Bowker.
With the addition of Beacon Foundation, Telco Together now supports four Australian charities with untied funding, access to volunteers and the provision of expertise and resources from within the ICT industry.
The four appointed Community Partners include SecondBite, ReachOut, Red Dust Role Models and Beacon Foundation.
