2019
APCO Foundation Chairperson’s Report.
In 2019 the APCO Foundation had 60 applications for funding and gave to 34 local projects organizations and local families in our communities. We raised $204,000 and gave away $130,000. We have given away over half a million dollars in the past 6 years. We could not have achieved this without the support and dedication of our board members. I would like to personally thank them for their continued commitment and generosity of spirit that makes my role as Chairman so easy. We welcomed a new member this year and Sue Berg a current franchisee at Barwon Heads brings us fresh eyes and ideas that are very welcome.
We worked hard over the last 12 months to achieve our goals.
We want our franchisees and our local APCO communities to join us in building the foundation over the next 12 months.
I believe that this goal is built on every year as we establish the foundation within our communities and follow up with generous donations to families, projects and individuals that need a little kindness in their lives. The Geelong Wine Walk event, and our monthly door posters at each site, contribute to the growing awareness of our foundation. We also changed our logo to make it more visible, so it is easily recognizable within the community.
To build our website and social media presence.
I wish I could say we got better at social media, but this is an area that we need to improve. We should be updating our website weekly and posting every time we donate. The wine walk is being run this year by a marketing company that promises to deliver a great social media campaign that will help raise our profile in this area. We are working with Support Office to help us with our social media presence.
To add another fundraising venture either a function or an income stream.
This is something we have been working on over the last 12 months and we have several things in the pipeline. We have ‘Foundation February’, a month to promote the foundation at site level with a raffle prize, highlighting the APCO Oil and Chill Water that donates 10c for every item sold and lots of other ideas to make it an exciting atmosphere over the month of February.
We are working with Support Office on customers being able to donate at the console by rounding up and also looking at getting the foundation logo on the reusable bags that are being supplied to stores by Support Office.
We cannot continue to grow if we do not continue to grow our income and I hope to achieve some of these in the next 12 months. I would love to add another event such as a Car Rally, which I believe has a lot of synergy for us and we could get some great corporate sponsors for this event, but we would need to look at the amount of work involved and the possible financial outcomes a lot more closely before we committed to another event.
Race for a Reason ran this year and we had 230 people from our corporate community attend, and we raised $49,435. We had Jimmy Cassidy, Bianca Chatfield, Warren Davies the Unbreakable farmer and of course Ian Cover as our MC. Next year Race for a Reason will be held on Friday May the 15th.
The Geelong Wine Walk had a tough year competing with A day on The Green and a concert at Leura Park estate (30,000 people) but we still managed to sell 430 tickets and raise $50,000. We have changed our date for 2020 to February 15th, a week later and will start selling tickets in September this year. We received a grant from Geelong connected communities for $2,000 and $3,000 plus $7000 in kind sponsorship from Geelong Events which helped us cover the costs of an event company. We have applied for these grants again for the 2020 wine walk.
We have employed a great marketing company Circus Media to help us run and promote the wine walk this year. We have 6 great locations in the Geelong CBD and this year we will have a secret location! We will keep numbers to around 700. We could not have raised this money without the support of our major sponsors PURE WAX and APCO.
The Foundation Board donated this year to Cottage by the Sea $12,000, Bendigo Health $5000, Norlane Community Initiatives $5,000 Head Space $25,000, Cops n Kids$10,000, and the Country Women’s Association Emergency Relief Fund$10,000. Our retail Partners donated to many causes within their communities and I have attached a copy of every donation over the past 12 months. I think we should look at increasing the amount of $2000 each site can donate into their community so we can make a real difference.
It seems clear that our goals for the next 12 months need to;
Our social media presence and our website
To continue to build on our income streams
Build the awareness of the APCO Foundation throughout the community.
Giving away over half a million dollars is no mean feat and the APCO community should be very proud of its achievements. We could not do this without the Support Office valuing the work we do and giving us the financial support, we need. I believe we can accomplish a lot with small acts of kindness that will create a ripple throughout our local communities.
The next 12 months hold a lot of promise and with the support of our wonderful and generous board, Support office, our retail partners and our amazing corporate community I believe we are on are way to taking the foundation to a new level.
Sharon Gleeson
APCO Foundation Chair
