NGEN and UN LTD tackle youth homelessness by way of cash donation and corporate mentoring

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Mindshare winners, NGEN and Carol Morris.jpgThrough an alignment with UN LTD, NGEN members are supporting Youth Off The Streets (an UN LTD beneficiary) by way of a cash donation and corporate mentoring to help build awareness, and to activate an innovative and cost neutral fundraising event.

NGEN is affiliating its philanthropic efforts with UN LTD given their role as the industry foundation to help eliminate the consequences of youth disadvantage in Australia. This partnership enables NGEN to tap into a wide portfolio of non-for-profit organisations that offer innovative and successful programs for high risk young people – Youth Off The Streets is one of UN LTD’s supported and approved organisations.

The unique community that is NGEN will affiliate its 2,000+ memberships with UN LTD by consolidating and amplifying their philanthropic energies to provide corporate mentoring and fundraising support for UN LTD’s portfolio of audited and approved NFP beneficiary organisations.

Says Sophie Madden, CEO of the Media Federation of Australia (MFA): “We are so proud to be aligning the pool of talent and skills of our NGEN members with tackling such a large scale social problem. The partnership with UN LTD meets the needs of many of our members in having a social conscience, wanting to make a difference, and seeing the impact of their efforts.”

The groups kicked off the partnership last year at the Media Federation of Australia (MFA) Awards that saw the UN LTD beneficiary Youth Off The Streets selected as the charity brief for the NGEN category.

Youth Off The Streets is a non-denominational community organisation working to support young people who are facing challenges of homelessness, drug and alcohol dependency, and exclusion from school, neglect and abuse.

Says Father Chris Riley, founder and CEO of Youth Off The Streets: “Investing in media, marketing and advertising campaigns is usually the realm of bigger not-for-profits due to the cost of development and implementation. UN LTD and the Media Federation of Australia are giving the not-for-profit industry access, support and advice through the NGEN community – and we would like to thank all of these organisations for choosing to support Youth Off The Streets this year.”

The MFA Awards generated a significant impact with the contribution of 116 NGEN members, showcasing their passion to build awareness of youth homelessness via entering strategic recommendations for a new fundraising initiative.

Winners of the NGEN award John Dawson and Mark Golafshan, from Mindshare, recently met with the marketing team at Youth Off The Streets to present a cheque to the value of $8,700 which was raised through entry fees, and work-shopped their ideas of how to build awareness for the community. The goal is to activate an innovative and cost neutral fundraising event via the NGEN community at the end of 2014.

Says Carol Morris, general manager UN LTD: “The partnership with NGEN is a shining example to our industry of how acting as a collective can support more sustainable business models for these non-for-profit organisations – and the potential to make a real impact can be epic. There is a desperate need from our beneficiaries to tap into the skills that our industry has to offer which is why the UN LTD MENTOR program is a vital step in making a powerful impact in undoing the consequences of youth disadvantage.”

For more information about UN LTD MENTOR, please visit: www.unltd.org.au.

(Pictured L-R: Christine Campbell and Lisa Humphries from YOTS; John Dawson and Mark Golafshan from Mindshare and NGEN members (winners of the 2013 NGEN category MFA Award), and Carol Morris UN LTD. A cheque being presented to Youth Off The Streets from funds raised through MFA Awards, NGEN category.)