sustainability report 2022
With another year of global challenges, the Goodman Foundation continued to support our charity partners as the world changed around them yet again. While demand for charitable services soared, capacity to deliver or implement crucial fundraising activities remained compromised. Working in partnership with local charities who know best what their communities need, the Goodman Foundation helped them respond strategically and scale their impact as required.
We stayed generous and flexible, our doors open, whether we were responding to disasters like floods or helping those impacted by the war in the Ukraine. We also remained acutely aware of the new and pressing challenges COVID was creating for our communities.
This year, our support for the Indigenous community in Australia increased and we expect will continue to increase in coming years. We worked closely with existing partners to find ways to contribute to their Indigenous programs, such as Meals for the Mob through FareShare. Plus, we sought new partnerships to help us work towards the objectives of our Reconciliation Action Plan.
Across the year our support totalled $10.6 million in cash, plus another $1 million in staff fundraising and in-kind contributions. This takes our total investment to $37.3 million since our 2030 sustainability strategy came into effect in 2019.
The Goodman Foundation partners with charities in three key areas: children and youth, community and community health, and food/product rescue and the environment.
Our focus is on providing real support where it’s needed most, so emergency response became a significant part of our program this year. By integrating our support into an organisation’s strategy, we enable growth and help them make a bigger impact.
Our support is offered as:
Cash grants
Funding for projects with defined outcomes (usually over one to three years) that enable charities to scale or make a bigger, tangible impact.
Do good
Goodman people volunteering or fundraising for charities.
Give back
Workplace giving schemes that equally match contributions from Goodman people.
In-kind
Donations of our expertise, space, office furniture, computers and other critical items.
Responding to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and surrounding countries, the Foundation committed €1 million to support emergency response and ongoing aid.
Nearly two-thirds of Ukraine’s children are now displaced. For those crossing the border to safety, many find sanctuary within a Blue Dot Hub – safe spaces along migration routes for children and families.
Blue Dot Hubs provide critical information, emergency supplies, medical and psychological first aid, logistics and supplies for the onward journey, child-friendly spaces and activities, and more. Part of Goodman’s larger donation to UNICEF has been used to support the initial set-up and running costs of a Blue Dot Hub.
This year the Goodman team also wanted to support the people of Ukraine. Our fundraising efforts boosted Goodman’s total contribution towards the Blue Dot Hub initiative to more than $400,000.
As it became obvious that rapid medical relief was required on the ground, the Goodman team began discussions with one of our European Foundation partners, Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel). We worked together to send medicine and medical equipment to hospitals in Ukraine with the assistance of local non-government organisations (NGOs).
Goodman funded a convoy of minivans loaded with medical supplies, including anaesthesia for surgeries. The vans made the 1,800-kilometre trip from Belgium to the small town of Medyka on the Poland-Ukraine border.
Once supplies were delivered, transport was offered to Ukrainians wishing to depart for safe haven in Brussels. In April, 19 refugees, mostly families of women and children, took up this offer to travel to safety.
The program has adapted as needs have been revealed. For example, when Goodman learned many of the children had no means of communication, we stepped in to provide phones or laptops.
We have also allocated funding to UZ Brussel for future dedicated Ukrainian support, with a focus on settlement needs for the Ukrainian refugees in Belgium.
The impact of this humanitarian crisis will be felt for some time. That’s why the Foundation is currently working to identify medium-term projects that will provide tangible and sustainable benefits for the people of Ukraine, now and into the future.
As climate change takes hold around the world, major floods devastated two of our communities in the last year. In Europe and Australia, we saw tens of thousands of people struggle with the after-effects of these events.
In Europe, major floods hit the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in July 2021, killing hundreds and devastating local communities, households and the environment. The Red Cross stepped in to coordinate a response, and Goodman donated to support its efforts.
The European floods left the region’s rivers filled with debris and plastic. After the floods subsided, 32 of Goodman’s European team joined Belgian environmental organisation River Cleanup in its fight against plastic pollution. The team spent a day removing rubbish from local rivers, with Goodman covering the cost of all clean-up materials.
The Goodman Foundation also turned its attention to floods in Australia.
A state-of-the-art helicopter, donated to the NSW Rural Fire Service by Goodman in 2021, had its first deployment helping local authorities in the State’s west after flooding in Forbes.
The helicopter has done over 190 hours since coming into service in October 2021, participating in over 130 operations.
Goodman took further action when floods in Queensland, New South Wales and Central Australia left thousands without housing, income or clothing. We turned to our partners and their networks, asking how we could best help them provide the emergency response needed on the ground.
One of these partners, Good360 Australia, has been working hard throughout the Australian floods. Good360 connects the right goods to the right people at the right time during all stages of a disaster, supporting affected communities with the essential items they need. Our funding in previous years helped Good360 establish disaster recovery capabilities. Since February 2022, our funding has helped provide over 618,000 items to 194 flood affected communities.
We are also a founding partner of Thread Together, which has been incredibly active after the Australian floods. Thread Together works with 1,000 brands and retailers nationally. It provides new clothing to those experiencing homelessness, escaping domestic violence, or surviving natural disasters.
Increased support from the Goodman Foundation helped Thread Together expand its operations into flood-affected communities. For many impacted community members, the clothes provided by Thread Together are the only outfits they now own.
In this second year of the COVID pandemic, Goodman increased support to charity partners in many parts of the world, including Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong and Germany.
Lockdowns impacted livelihoods, education and mental health. When strict lockdowns were in place in Sydney, Australia, Goodman’s donation to Good360, Australia helped this matching charity get personal protection equipment into heavily impacted communities in South-west Sydney.
For social enterprise, the Bread and Butter Project café closures meant it lost most of its income from wholesale bread supply, so we made a significant donation to keep its refugee staff in work. We also provided two of our warehouses to OzHarvest, which gave its teams of volunteers space to build more than 300,000 food hampers. And we funded the supply of more than 800,000 meals to families in the most impacted Sydney suburbs before Christmas.
We found extended lockdowns were affecting the mental health of young people. With our support, Raise Foundation helped 280 at-risk youth in 18 schools, receive access to youth mentors – some of them were our own people.
Violence against women is a serious problem globally. In Australia, on average one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner. Our Watch, an Australian organisation that works to prevent violence against women and their children, has undertaken evidence-based research which demonstrates gender inequality is at the heart of the problem for violence against women. Our Watch works to embed gender equality and prevent violence where Australians live, learn, work and socialise.
To expand the reach of its services and effect real change across the country, Our Watch is partnering with the Goodman Foundation to establish the Our Watch Institute. The Institute’s mission is to inspire and support Australians to end violence against women by doing their part to promote gender equality. Through training and practical tools, individuals and organisations will be equipped to lead prevention work in their own communities and spheres of influence.
Nationally there’s limited workplace training, expertise and evidence-based resources on preventing violence against women. There’s also limited understanding of the difference between workplace activities that prevent violence against women and those that respond to experiences of violence. The Institute will address these gaps by providing expert, tailored and trusted advice and support to advance gender equality in workplaces and inspire and support them to end violence against women.
The Goodman Foundation has committed $1 million towards the establishment and launch of the Institute and will commit a further $700,000 over the coming years to assist the operations. For the first phase in 2023, the Institute will focus on corporate Australia and workplaces. Over time we plan for the Institute to inspire and support organisations, workplaces, education institutions and sporting clubs to collectively put an end to domestic violence in Australia.
To learn more, watch: Let’s change the story: Violence against women in Australia – YouTube
On International Women’s Day this year, the Goodman Foundation announced a new partnership with Habitat for Humanity, Hong Kong, to support its Women Build 2022 campaign – supporting disadvantaged women and children’s groups in Hong Kong.
Goodman provided funding to renovate three facilities for disadvantaged women and children across two local NGOs on the Women Build project and utilised its team’s expertise to provide support in the planning and design.
Mother’s Choice provides a Child Care Home for children without families and pregnant teenagers who cannot be adequately cared for by their families. Goodman and Habitat renovated the outside areas at the Child Care Home, creating a safer and more welcoming environment for the people living there.
PathFinders operates a community centre and a shelter for some of Hong Kong’s 390,000 migrant domestic workers. Goodman funded an upgrade to the community centre to make space for additional facilities and provide a more functional, welcoming environment for existing counselling, education and healthcare services.
Funding also helped provide new furniture and fittings for the PathFinders shelter, which offers emergency and temporary accommodation for migrant domestic workers and their new-born babies.
Through this project, we hope to make a tangible difference in achieving gender equality and supporting women in need in Hong Kong.
In the west of Hamburg, the Sternenbrücke Children’s Hospice cares for terminally ill children and their families. Since it opened in 2003, around 700 families have already been guests.
Families can stay at the children’s hospice not only in the final stages of the young people’s lives, but also for 28 days a year, allowing them to gain new strength and recuperate during this difficult time. Even after the child dies, the organisation continues to support their family through their grief.
Physical distancing requirements and the increased demand for Sternenbrücke’s service have led to new space constraints. As part of our participation in the 19th Hamburg Logistics Days in mid-May, Goodman donated funds towards construction of a winter garden. The conservatory will serve as both a dining and recreation room and will visually connect families with the beautiful Klövensteen forest area surrounding the hospice.
For over 20 years, French charity Sport dans la Ville has built sports facilities in underprivileged urban areas. Sport is used to support change. It’s also a precursor to structured experiences like cultural exchanges, academic support and employment mentoring.
Goodman’s support this year will allow Sport dans la Ville to build a football pitch in Île Saint Denis and run twice-weekly free classes for at risk youth. In this disadvantaged district within the Parisian community, 26% of 16-to-25 year-olds are out of school and unemployed. Sport offers connection and a chance to build self-confidence and other soft skills.
The staff of the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in UZ Brussel in Belgium, have a saying: “We want to care, not scare.”
Built in 1984, and treating 400 children a year, the unit is outdated in both size and function. 150 children a year are turned away for lack of space. There are other problems too. The tubes, machines, blank ceilings, tiny rooms and excessive noise aren’t child-friendly or welcoming.
That will change with the build of a new paediatric intensive care unit, funded in part by Goodman. By increasing to 10 beds, they will be able to treat up to 550 children a year. The unit will feature leading technology that helps alleviate the wires and beeps that can scare children and cause them distress. It also includes sofa beds for parents to stay with their children and much welcomed space to gather in. Video chat in each room means kids can stay in contact with friends and family while undergoing lifesaving care.
Brazil faces a raft of issues stemming from serious social inequality. As the country faced a huge burden from COVID, unemployment in the world’s eighth-largest economy soared. Now, inflation is the highest it’s been for 20 years.
Goodman’s team in Brazil understand the depth of the country’s challenges. They thought long and hard about how their contribution through the Goodman Foundation could make the most impact in their community.
The team decided to focus on education, given its capacity to improve so many aspects of a person’s life. In 2019, more than 36.5% of Brazilians under 19 didn’t finish high school, while in 2018 almost a third of the country’s 15-to 17-year-olds dropped out of school to earn income for their families.
Together with experts from the education sector and other partners, our project team worked through the pandemic to bring the Goodman Mais (‘More’) Education Program to life.
The bespoke program has been carefully designed to build skills and confidence and support its graduates to find jobs in the challenging Brazilian market.
Over a number of months, our team carefully selected 30 energised, motivated young adults from disadvantaged areas of Sao Paulo. These young people have become the Goodman Mais Education Program’s first cohort.
Program organisers remained flexible, providing support as unanticipated challenges arose: some students had no access to laptops – so were provided one. For others, the cost of bus travel to and from school was a barrier – monthly bus passes are now built into the program.
Formal studies in Environment Management, delivered by training provider Senac, will provide participants with an impactful technical qualification. Additionally, regular presentations from employers across the sector will inspire the students, revealing how to apply their upcoming qualification in future employment. Towards the end of the program, the goal is for many of these employers to also provide students with valuable work placements.
The Goodman team will play a crucial role. Each student has been assigned a personal mentor to meet with monthly across the life of the program. It’s here that the team’s commitment to the success of Goodman Mais speaks volumes with almost 50% of our people in Brazil having already signed up as mentors.
About 45,000 young people in Australia are homeless. It’s a statistic New South Wales organisation Stepping Stone House has spent 33 years working hard to change.
By providing safe places for children and young people at risk or experiencing homelessness, the charity helps them begin to heal, build resilience and become the best they can be.
Many of the young people at Stepping Stone House have a childhood background of trauma. Government funded services in NSW will only support children until they are 18, but they often need help for much longer. That’s why the community at Stepping Stone House, which is independently funded, provides long-term accommodation and support until they are 24 years old.
This people-centred approach has already helped over 450 young people become independent adults. The educational outcomes alone are significant. Stepping Stone House graduates have school attendance figures of 87%. They also have 100% employment rates on graduation from the program.
Goodman, a long-term partner of Stepping Stone House, significantly increased its support to the organisation this year. Multi-year funding supported its Bawaga Indigenous program through the employment of Indigenous support workers for the home. It also provided cultural awareness training for staff.
As the charity’s programs have grown, activities like career workshops, workplace dressing, cooking and sewing classes have outgrown the spaces available in Stepping Stone’s residential houses. The answer is a new Community Hub housed within a Goodman site in Sydney’s Alexandria. The Hub will become a home for these important ancillary programs, and a place for the Stepping Stone community to meet.
Goodman provided the fit-out and building works for the new space, and members of our team also designed and sourced items for the Community Hub’s welcoming interior.
There’s been a lot happening in this partnership – Goodman’s cars are used to help Stepping Stone House residents learn to drive, and we’re a major partner of its key Sleeping Under the Stars fundraiser.
The charity is currently working on a strategy to integrate and scale its support model, to replicate its success across Australia. Doing so, it says, would halve youth homelessness figures, increase education outcomes, and provide a myriad of short and long-term community benefits.
Every year in Southern California, 30,000 kids enter the foster care system. Especially in emergency situations, they often enter the system with nothing but the clothes on their backs or with just a few personal belongings that they carry from home to home in a rubbish bag. Throughout the year, Hope in a Suitcase helps change the situation for many of these children by providing suitcases and duffel bags filled with new clothing and other essentials.
At its (free of charge) ‘Shopping Events’ Hope in a Suitcase provides an opportunity for foster children to stock up on clothes, shoes and other essentials. Volunteers walk with the participants to help them shop as they fill their bag with brand new items. For foster youth who are frequently at the mercy of other people’s decisions, the ability to select the items that THEY want and need is particularly empowering.
Over the past two years, the Goodman Foundation has donated funds to help Hope in a Suitcase purchase the new items. The events have also seen growing numbers of Goodman volunteers. Many eagerly await these events, where the excitement of the young attendees is contagious.
Disadvantaged students were especially affected by COVID lockdowns in Shanghai.
This year Goodman began an annual commitment to support 20 disadvantaged students in secondary and tertiary education through local charity, Shanghai Sunrise. In its 25 years of operation, Shanghai Sunrise has helped educate more than 3,200 students.
Goodman’s team was also keen to provide short-term support for each of the 100 students through the Shanghai Sunrise program. Activities included webinars and mental health support, reading camps and annual online book subscriptions. Additionally, 30 technology scholarships helped students buy laptops or printers so they could engage with home education.
The Clontarf Foundation, founded in 2000, aims to help close the gap for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males. Today the organisation partners with 152 schools across Australia, to help improve school attendance and graduation rates for over 10,400 at-risk teenage boys.
Participants in Clontarf’s programs experience a wide variety of activities, environments and social settings to help broaden their thinking about life’s possibilities and their future.
In partnership with teachers, parents and each community, local staff work as mentors. They also assist graduates to find employment or help them transition into further study or training.
Having supported Clontarf academies in Western Sydney in the past, this year Goodman began working with the Clontarf Foundation to fund a new Academy in the NSW community of Lake Cargelligo. Our annual contribution will directly cover costs for 40+ Indigenous students to participate in the holistic program which focuses on education, leadership, employment, health and wellbeing.
UKHarvest is on a mission to eliminate hunger and reduce food waste. It’s work that has become increasingly challenging this year as inflation has jumped to a 40-year high, impacting communities right across the UK.
A combination of factors has led to soaring prices for food, fuel and energy. For many families this new environment can result in impossible choices. Should they turn on the heat or feed their family?
It’s against this backdrop that the impact of this charity, which rescues and redistributes 75,000 meals every week, has become increasingly important – supplying fresh food, dry goods hampers and pre-made meals that make a real difference.
About 50% of the food eaten in the UK comes from Europe. A fact that has caused havoc with the UK’s food supply this year – the first since it exited the European Union. For many farmers, the new (and largely untested) import procedures that came as a result of Brexit saw some farmers’ seeds stuck in limbo for so long that they missed their entire planting season.
As founding partner of UKHarvest, the Goodman Foundation increased its support by committing to funding for the next three years. The extra funds will help UKHarvest continue to scale up operations and feed more people finding it tough.
Despite the challenges thrown at them, UKHarvest has remained determined and stayed innovative, providing new solutions for communities, such as pop-up pantries.
Eight pop-up pantries were implemented this year, which allow 50 to 100 families to visit each pantry, fill up a bag of fresh produce for £2.50, and access wraparound care from services like a Citizen’s Advice Bureau and housing support. At the same time, visitors to the pantries also left with new skills. Education is a big part of UKHarvest’s mission and families are offered classes in reducing food waste or cooking well for less, while they are on site.
At the charity’s Nourish Hub in London’s Shepherd’s Bush, an eclectic mix of diners visit for the daily ‘pay what you can’ lunch. Volunteers also prepare catering for those vulnerable people who are housebound. On-site food education classes run for everyone including refugees, including recent refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, while school holidays are used to teach disadvantaged youth how to become food waste warriors and to combat school holiday hunger. In addition, 40 days of sessions ran throughout UKHarvest over the summer holidays in a variety of venues. These reached thousands of young people.
FareShare operates charity kitchens in Melbourne and Brisbane, transforming quality rescued and donated food, together with vegetables in its own kitchen gardens, into millions of delicious of healthy meals for people who are struggling to put food on the table. Together with Moorabbin Airport Corporation, Goodman Foundation has supported FareShare since 2016, providing a 3,000 sqm kitchen garden on airport land. Our team has also actively volunteered with harvesting produce and maintaining the garden.
With the continuing pandemic, rising cost of living pressures and natural disasters, the demand for FareShare’s free meals has never been greater. To assist, Goodman provides multi-year funding for a farmhand on FareShare’s Baguley farm site. The support will help the charity harvest nearly 100,000kg of vegetables a year from this location.
Goodman has also committed to help scale up a new program by FareShare called Meals for the Mob. The program provides healthy meals – cooked by First Nations peoples for First Nations peoples – and transports them to remote communities. Our multi-year funding will employ a chef to oversee the program, empowering Meals for the Mob to expand.
A founding partner of OzHarvest since it began in 2004, the Goodman Foundation continued its support of Australia’s leading food rescue organisation this year.
In addition to the Food Hamper support outlined earlier, another project Goodman contributed to this year was a unique community space, Refettorio OzHarvest Sydney.
This social impact collaboration between OzHarvest and one of the world’s leading culinary figures, chef Massimo Bottura, was an Australian first. Since 2015, using his charity Food for Soul, Bottura has dedicated himself to reducing food waste and forming community projects across the globe.
The result includes Refettorios – physical, zero-waste spaces designed as community hubs to inspire and empower human potential. By day, Refettorio OzHarvest Sydney (on Crown Street in Surry Hills) opens its doors to the most vulnerable people in the local community, providing a nourishing meal and a place to connect.
By night OzHarvest uses the space to host Neighbourhood Dinner, open to anyone keen to support the Refettorio and experience its delicious food and warm service. It’s a great way to raise awareness and funds, and within three years the restaurant aims to be self-sustaining.
Goodman was one of a handful of partners helping to fund the operational costs of this unique social enterprise initiative.
In additional to our support of special projects that help OzHarvest scale its impact, the Goodman Foundation continues to provide cash grants for the charity’s annual operational costs.
Finding enough affordable food is an ongoing struggle for many in Orange County, California, with one in seven children experiencing food insecurity.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County is driven by its purpose to end hunger in the local community. The organisation collaborates with over 250 food pantries and partners that all work towards this goal.
Harvest Solutions Farm was developed in partnership with the UC South Coast Research and Extension Center and A.G Kawamura, Chairman of Solutions for Urban Agriculture. This local sustainability farming pioneer manages 45 acres of property and has provided space for the non-profit to grow its own food.
This year, Goodman Foundation donated money for an electric/hybrid farm vehicle to help transport produce from the farm with greater ease and make a huge difference to the farm’s efficiency. Volunteers work hard, having helped harvest over 53 truckloads of fresh produce in the last 12 months.
The charitable trust, LIFE Community, is behind the Christmas Box initiative, providing families in need with Christmas hampers made up of donated food and other goods. Last Christmas, volunteers helped pack hampers in Auckland, Kaikohe, Whangārei, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
The Goodman Foundation was pleased to play a part, providing warehousing space at M20 Business Park in Wiri for this annual event. Operating as a distribution hub for the other centres, over 260 tonnes of food was processed with around half of this packed into 12,000 hampers for the wider Auckland region. In total, 25,000 boxes were distributed to families in need, from Kaitaia to Bluff.