The Ottomin Foundation’s charitable activities are overseen by its Charity Committee, which meets regularly to discuss and review the Foundation’s giving program and all forms of involvement.
The Foundation key principles:
Partnership: We seek active engagement with those whom we support. We take the time to understand the services the charities provide, how they do it and the challenges they face. The Ottomin Foundation tends to avoid one-off donations. In time, these relationships generally thrive to funding partnerships for periods of two to five years.
Impact: We seek to make a tangible and measurable impact on the charities we support by participating in focused programs that immediately benefit the charity.
Leverage: Where possible, we seek leverage of our donation to increase its impact for the benefit of the charity. This may take the form of a third party matching our donation.
Collaboration: We believe in bringing together like-minded community and business groups. This has the benefit of broadening the charity’s profile, improving their ability to raise funds, and often expanding the services they provide for the people they serve.
Sustainability: We want to work with those we support to assist in growing their market profile, improve their ability to raise funds and expand the services they provide for the people they help, even beyond our period of support.
Accountability: We look for relationships with charities that demonstrate strong professional, operational and governance practices. We request at a minimum an annual acquittal report. We look for organisational cultures that are genuine, transparent, open and align with the aims and values of the Foundation.
Involvement: We look for partnerships with organisations that have strong leadership and have established volunteer opportunities which regularly lead to our Foundation Charity Committee members’ involvement and participation.
Leadership: We seek to support management teams that are highly skilled, well prepared and best placed to fulfil their visions and missions. We are comfortable assuming a leadership position in piloting charitable projects and being an early support of emerging charities.
Since its inception, the Ottomin Foundation has developed a track record of backing pilot projects in their developmental and early stages. When successful or proven, this has allowed the project to become sustainable by attracting either recurring government financial support or private donor support. An example of this was the Foundation’s support of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead – Chronic Illness Peer Support Program (CHiP) for adolescents living with a chronic illness. After supporting this program for nine years and accompanying research into the benefits of peer support, this program has since attracted recurring government funding.
