Eighteen years after the inception of Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation, we announced our 500th community grant in 2021. This milestone marks 500 opportunities to make tangible improvement to the lives of people facing disadvantage, marginalisation or isolation in regional NSW.
Our 500th grant also represents 500 opportunities to share our vision with a hard working charity or community organisation to reach a common goal. With the cumulative result of each partnership, our shared impact has grown, along with the experience and knowledge required to help rewrite the future, together. Our sustained grant-making has formed partnerships that have enabled us to solve problems, innovate, connect and collaborate on ways to make regional communities healthy, safe, resilient and vibrant.
These partnerships share learnings and networks built up over nearly two decades of experience. Applying a place-based approach harnesses local knowledge and facilitates participation by the people who will benefit from our work and the support of our partners. Our capacity to engage with stakeholders including the health and social sectors, people of all abilities and the First Nations people in the communities we support has empowered solutions that not only address current disadvantage but contribute to systemic and sustainable change across our three focus areas of health, young people and social wellbeing.
Together with our charity partners and our communities we have given disadvantaged people opportunity; given young people the chance to reach their potential; built safe spaces that give security to people in crisis; broken down barriers for our most marginalised people and provided lasting connections that bring hope and give people the chance of fresh starts, bright futures and safe, healthy lives.
We celebrate this milestone with the charities, their staff and volunteers who have brought our projects to life and show genuine passion and care for helping people in need. We also acknowledge that many people remain in need of support to escape the cycle of disadvantage, to discover their potential or to make connections that open up new opportunities. That’s why, as a sustainable philanthropic foundation, we’ll continue pursuing our vision with passion and focus for another 500 grants, to help rewrite the future, now and for generations to come.