Mounties Group: Leading with Profit for Purpose Initiatives

The KARI Foundation has long been committed to supporting educational initiatives that improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth. The KARI Foundation brings Aboriginal culture and excellence into wider community life through its people, advice and support. This project has specific objectives to support the transition to high school for young people making the sometimes-daunting step into Year Seven, intending to ensure that financial hardship is not a barrier to receiving an education.

The program aims to:

Eliminate financial barriers for families in purchasing school supplies for high school.
Encourage pride in Aboriginal culture through the use of culturally appropriate backpack

Mounties Group reaffirmed its commitment to supporting education and empowering Indigenous youth by donating $75,000 to the KARI Foundation via ClubGRANTS funding. The generous contribution supported Indigenous children in Western Sydney and the Central Coast as they embark on their high school journey. The financial contribution saw 500 Indigenous children receive a backpack and propel them to education success.

An additional $75,000 in community support allowed for the stock for a further 500 bags to be created. Mounties Group staff were proud to volunteer their time to pack all 500 bags and personally deliver them to the local charities, Zen Tea Lounge Foundation, Bonnie Support Services, Women & Children First, We Care Connect, and Liverpool Women's Health Centre.

This year our Board of Directors took on 4 key strategic projects to deliver to our core purpose of improving the lives of our members and one of those projects was a commitment to create a new and
innovative approach to help vulnerable people in our local community.

We purchased 25 acres of land in Luddenham in Southwest Sydney to create The Meadows by Mounties, a new approach to improving the lives of more vulnerable people in our community.

Our plan is to now build a unique community precinct that will provide therapy and training opportunities for local disabled persons to result in a better life.

From animal therapy through to learning how to grow vegetables and indoor plants and how to work in landscaping and horticulture. Add skills in mechanical repairs and cafe service and we can change lives for the better by helping with long term-employment opportunities.

Place this adjacent to a men’s shed to reduce loneliness in our community, a women’s shed to develop mentoring opportunities and a village green to encourage mingling and coexisting to
build a better community for all.

Finally add the opportunity for up to 100 local youth to undertake an
apprenticeship and its clear that the members of Mounties supporting their club, builds the financial ability that results in a better life for hundreds of local people.

Our purpose as an organisation is to “improve the lives of our members” and as over 90% of our members live within 10km of our venues, we believe that by contributing to our local community, we can directly improve the lives of our members.

Every dollar spent in our venues contributes to this core purpose – in all that we do, we endeavour to provide places for communities to gather, improve living standards and work to make our communities a better place for our members and their families to live in.

This is seen in a variety of ways, from investing in our operations, our facilities and diversifying into new products and services to meet the needs of our members. By hosting, facilitating, sponsoring, or donating to community events, entertainment, function rooms and providing sport or sub-club facilities. Mounties Group make a substantial direct contribution through cash and in-kind donations to a broad range of community activities and initiatives and provide community access to a range of subsidised community and sporting facilities.

We are proud of being one of only 4% of all Registered Clubs created for the community and we are more proud of the positive impacts that we have on local people in our community..

This year, under ClubGRANTS requirements we were expected to give $3.6 million to our local community but due to our Boards commitment to our core purpose, we delivered a total community support of more than $26.8 million.

This is the second year in a row that we have set a new record for the Australian club industry and this year recognised
as the 18th most giving company in all of Australia.

We thank our members, suppliers, supporters and all who make it possible for us to make this impact to so many lives.

Mounties Group is pleased to continue its long-standing partnership with Dreams2Live4 through ClubGRANT in FY23/24. This organisation is the only charity in Australia that grants life-changing dreams for adults aged 17 and over who are living with advanced (metastatic) cancer, relapsed lymphoma, relapsed leukemia, or high-grade brain tumours.

The work of Dreams2Live4 addresses a critical gap in public health support for individuals facing advanced-stage or relapsed cancer. 1 in 2 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime and with each diagnosis comes a journey often riddled with physical illness, pain, financial pressure, and anxiety. Dreams2Live4 empowers a patient to dream again when many hopes have been dashed, creating a vital distraction from the harsh realities of cancer, offering patients a chance to regain control, to have something to live for, improving their mental health. This positive impact radiates outwards benefiting their families, friends, and medical teams, touching the lives of an estimated 30 people with each Dream.

Since its inception, Dreams2Live4 has received over 4,000 applications for a dream, with referrals coming from more than 300 hospitals, cancer care clinics or palliative units – nationwide. Whether through granting the opportunity for patients (Dreamers) to reunite with family members, experience long-held ambitions, or create lasting memories, the organisation brings much-needed hope and positivity to Dreamers and their families during a time of uncertainty.

Mounties Group is proud to support Dreams2Live4 and its mission to provide these unique opportunities. Our partnership reflects our commitment to supporting individuals in our community who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses and highlights the importance of addressing not only physical health but also emotional and mental wellbeing.

Through our ongoing support, we aim to help Dreams2Live4 reach even more Dreamers, allowing the charity to continue offering invaluable moments of hope and fulfillment to those in need.

For families, the experience of having a baby come into the world, not as expected or planned, is life changing.

Parents of extreme pre-term babies are two and a half times more likely to suffer post-natal depression and one in four babies born prematurely will have Cerebral Palsy as well as the possibility of facing ongoing health challenges including development delay or disability.

Every year, in hospitals across Australia, thousands of premature or sick newborn babies are cared for by the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) or Special Care Nurseries (SCN). More than 48,000 babies born in Australia require some form of specialised care. Of those, around 56% are born prematurely and up to 1,000 families are left devastated when their babies sadly lose their fight for life.

That’s where the Miracle Babies Foundation steps in, supporting premature and sick newborns, their families and the hospitals that care for them.

As part of our ClubGRANTS program – the Foundation was the recipient of $12,388 to fund further resources at Fairfield Hospital Special Care Nursery. This year marks a nine-year association with Miracle Babies. Formed in 2005 by a group of mothers of premature and sick newborns with a clear vision of better, healthier long-term outcomes and improved care for all Australian families.

The work that Miracle Babies does is literally changing and saving lives and we could not be prouder to support them. Mounties also has a Miracle Babies installation which allows members to donate to the Foundation, providing even more support of this worthy cause.

The grant from Mounties Group helped fund NICU survival packs, emergency care packs, milk express packs and grad bags to support families admitted to Fairfield Hospital SCN.

Each of the different packs have been developed in partnership with neonatal hospital staff, health professionals and parents who have found themselves in need of this specialised care, providing important education, support and empowerment tools and information, and connecting families to vital supports upon discharge.

“Escape Bags’ are free, tote bags kindly made with love by volunteers and then filled with the necessities that a victim of abuse and his/her children may nee when initially escaping a dangerous or abusive situation.

Each ‘Escape Bag’ contains high-quality products as we understand the importance of feeling comforted and worthy in a crisis. Our ‘Escape Bags’ are not gender-specific and, by providing two variations, ‘Parent and Child’ and ‘Single Adult’, we proudly cater for all victims of abuse.

Since its inception in 2008, The Street University in Liverpool has delivered vital services to the young people of Sydney’s South Western suburbs. And from day one, Mounties Group has been by their side helping to provide their facility and grants to help this initiative.

The Street University is a youth development project created by the Ted Noffs Foundation which provides various community based services and interactive spaces for people aged 12 – 25. With the aim of helping our youth realise their dreams, harness their potential and to create positive outcomes for their lives and their community.

Inspired by The Wayside Chapel, founded by his grandfather Ted in 1964, Street Universities focusses on issues related to drugs, mental health, employment, education and crime.

Street Universities now help over 15,000 young people across Australia each year.

“Street Universities wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Mounties. They were there at the very beginning and were the first organisation to get behind us,” Noffs says.

The Street University’s trained directors, mentors and facilitators use a multifaceted range of youth work, counselling and community development techniques in order to combine progressive approaches to social work with grassroots community participation.

Experimenting with the artistic and social potential made possible by a uniquely Australian multi-ethnic, inter-faith, socially diverse culture.

Operating in this multicultural environment, the Street University opens up dynamic and democratic spaces for marginalised and displaced cultures. Programs specialise in channeling young people away from personally destructive and anti-social behaviours to improved self-esteem, inter-communal co- operation and social engagement.

The Street University uses the commonality of cultural settings that are familiar and attractive to young people to guide, support and transform their interests into vocational and educational success.

Mounties Group has provided over $460,000 in grants and assistance in order for The Street University to maintain and develop the building, program and staffing to deliver this vital service.

This is certainly true in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, an area which encompasses more than half of Sydney’s beaches and features a local community with an incredibly strong affinity to surf and sand. While beaches can mean refreshing dips and lovely sunsets, they also pose several dangers for beachgoers of all ages, especially children.

As a community-focused organisation born out of mateship, Mounties Group is passionate about providing their members with the best opportunities to enjoy life. On the Northern Beaches, that includes supporting the heroes who volunteer their time and put their bodies on the line to keep us all safe, in and out of the water – our surf life savers. Mounties Group’s Harbord Diggers donated funds to Freshwater and Queenscliff Surf Life Saving Clubs for the purchase of vital surf safety equipment.

Together, these clubs are responsible for almost 20,000 patrol hours to keep as many as 400,000 people safe as they visit these beaches each year. Both clubs put the much-needed funds towards the purchase of inflatable rescue boats (IRBs) and related equipment, which is fitting considering it was Harbord Diggers who funded the very first motorised surf life saving boat for the Northern Beaches over 50 years ago.

Freshwater Life Saving Club is one of the largest in NSW and boasts an impressive record of no drownings within the flags during patrol hours in their 113 years of operation.

Their relationship with Mounties Group goes back all the way to the 1960s and over the years they have purchased invaluable IRBs or rubber duckies which enabled them to keep the beach as safe as they could, maintaining that perfect safety record.

The IRBs are essential when conducting rescues over longer distances, rescues that are close to rocks and rescues where multiple people need assistance at the same time.

And because of the tough environment they operate in, being constantly battered by the elements, it’s important that the boats are replaced regularly, with the motors replaced every two years.

Queenscliff SLSC used their grant to purchase a hull of a new IRB which was custom-built. The new IRB is used in training during the winter months to hone the skills of surf life savers in preparation for the busy summer months.

Having the new IRB over the winter months is vital to their training program, which consists of both training and development as well as IRB racing, providing crews with the opportunity to fine tune their skills such as speed to water and various search and rescue techniques.

Today’s boats are bigger, wider and more stable which all helps in making it easier to perform rescues and help people when they are in trouble. And that is what it is all about.

Of course, our strong affinity with swimming and the water comes with associated dangers, which makes Royal Life Saving Australia’s drowning prevention and water safety education efforts incredibly important.

As Royal Life Saving Australia works towards their vision of a water-loving nation, free from drowning, annual statistics are encouraging, with the rate of fatal drownings in Australia decreasing by 12% over the past 10 years.

To assist them in their mission to reduce drowning and increase swimming and water skills across Australia through education programs, Mounties Group provided a grant of $9,950 to support the Primary Water Smart Project.

This project sees program facilitators visiting primary schools to deliver vital life- saving education, covering topics such as how to put on a life jacket correctly, help and huddle positions and the ‘Reach to Rescue’ method of helping someone who is in trouble.

Our support allowed Royal Life Saving Australia to visit at least 10 schools, reaching up to 1,200 students with the education program.

Grants such as this enable the organisation to plan, produce and deliver these important training courses, updating them regularly based on the most recent research, producing the resources needed to support the program.

Mounties Group also contributed $15,150 towards the 2021 Youth Life Saver Project, which among other things, delivered important drug and alcohol awareness messages to high school students.

69% of all drownings in the 15 to 24 year- old age group are males and in addition, alcohol contributes to approximately 30% of those drownings. The Youth Life Saver Project is particularly critical as it allowed Royal Life Saving Australia to reach this age group with relevant education and timely messages to help curb these troubling statistics.

We are pleased to be able to do our bit by supporting an organisation that helps make that our blessed water filled lifestyle safer.

Grace took her idea to Mounties, seeking both financial and moral backing. With their support, Autism Advisory and
Support Services (AASS) was born. Since that pivotal moment, Mounties has continued to stand by AASS every year, helping it grow and reach even more people in need.

What’s even more heartwarming is that the very inspiration for Grace’s mission – her own son – is now an employee of Mounties. He’s found purpose and fulfillment in his work, a full-circle moment that highlights the power of community, support and determination.

KARI Foundation

The Meadows by Mounties Group

Heart of the Nation