Heartbeat March 2023

Welcome to the March 2023 edition of the HBCF Heartbeat.  While compiling this edition two things really stood out:

1. The first three months of 2023 have absolutely flown by, and we can’t believe it is almost Easter.
2. When everyone is so busy just “getting stuff done”, it’s easy to quickly move on to the next task without taking time to think about what has actually been achieved. 

This Heartbeat reminded us of the impact we’ve made thanks to a lot of help from our supporters and heaps of hard work from our charity partners!

In this edition: 

• Merger Update
• Women & Change
• Business of Beef Fundraising Lunch
• Heritage has gone purple!
• Meet and Eats

Heritage Bank and People’s Choice Merger Update

Everyone at the Foundation is thrilled about the official merger of Heritage Bank and People’s Choice on 1 March 2023. 

Supporting the community is in both organisations’ collective DNA so it’s amazing to see two customer-owned, people-focussed organisations come together. The newly merged organisation will continue to put people first with a commitment of $50 million over five years towards community and environmental initiatives.

The merger has created genuine opportunity for the Foundation to expand the impact we create. It is a very exciting time in our short history as we continue building an organisation focused on growing stronger communities.  

Women & Change – Welcome to the team

We celebrated International Women’s Day by announcing the Heritage Bank Charitable Foundation is now supporting the unique philanthropic organisation Women & Change – Queensland’s original giving circle.

Women & Change was established by six Queensland women in 2014, with the goal of creating an empowering community for women to experience giving with impact.

Membership has now grown to over 100 women, with over $600,000 donated to rigorously selected charitable projects helping Queenslanders in need.

Moving forward, Women & Change will operate via a sub-fund established under the Heritage Bank Charitable Foundation banner, to collect donations and distribute high impact grants.

“This collaboration with Women & Change is in 100% alignment with the Foundation’s vision of growing stronger communities, together,” said HBCF Executive Officer Mr Paul Olds.

“We are extremely like-minded organisations that are passionate about helping those in the community who need a hand up. 

“It just makes so much sense for Women & Change to leverage our infrastructure, allowing them to minimise administration and costs, so they can focus on what they were created to do - empowering women to give with impact. This is a long-term commitment to support each other to achieve our philanthropic goals.”

“Women and Change was looking for an organisation with similar values of supporting Queenslanders in need and have found that in HBCF,” said W&C Chair Genevieve Fraser.

“We are a 100% volunteer run organisation and all donated funds are given away so having the support of HBCF reduces our running costs and helps us grow.”

“Operating as a sub-fund we can now accumulate funds to underpin high impact giving for years to come, in addition to our annual member giving where we give away 100% of donated funds each year.”

PHOTO: Women & Change Committee

Business of Beef Lunch

The lunch in Toowoomba was a great success raising close to $12,000 to assist the Foundation to further support our charity partners.

It was great to see everyone enjoying themselves and the amazing Mort & Co beef while supporting a worthy cause. 

A big thank you to our fantastic guest speakers Charlie Mort – Mort & Co, Brent Sweeney – Outback Futures Ltd and Petrina Fraccaro – Cystic Fibrosis Queensland, for sharing their stories and insights.

We were extremely fortunate to have all our wonderful prizes 100% donated. A massive thank you to the special businesses who made this possible:

• Mort & Co
• Heritage Bank
• Snooze - Toowoomba
• Troocoo
• Brisbane Broncos
• Fitzy's Toowoomba

PHOTO: Business of Beef fundraising lunch speakers & attendees 

Heritage has gone purple!

We also used the launch to raise awareness for Youth Insearch’s “End Youth Suicide Week”.

Youth Insearch run one of the most successful youth intervention programs in Australia, working with at-risk youth aged 14 to 20, enabling them to reach their full potential. The program has a peer-to-peer focus empowering young people to support young people. They have been one of our charity partners for the last three years.  

Meet and Eats

HBCF Meet and Eats are a fantastic opportunity for the Heritage and People’s Choice team to hear firsthand how the Foundation is helping make a difference. A Meet and Eat is a casual chat with a representative from one of our charity partners.  These Zoom sessions are an open invitation across Heritage and People’s Choice, and are also recorded so everyone in the organisation has the chance to participate.

The feedback from these sessions has been so positive we have decided to share them with all our supporters.

The first Meet and Eats for 2023 were with Cystic Fibrosis Queensland and Outback Futures.

We encourage you to pour a cup of tea or coffee and spend some time to learn more about these amazing organisations and the role they are playing in growing stronger communities.

• Watch our Meet and Eat with Cystic Fibrosis QLD 
• Watch our Meet and Eat with Outback Futures