YOUNG PROFESSIONALS PARTNER WITH OURCOMMUNITY TO CHANGE THE WORLD

An organising team of over fifty diverse young professionals have joined forces to change the way young Melburnians think about charity and community life. Last year Young Professionals for Charity started off by staging the hugely successful charity ball, Globall, which raised $85,000. This year Globall's scheduled for October 14 is back (www.globall.com.au) and they've pioneered a whole new way promote ongoing giving among young professionals.

Young Professionals for Charity (YP4C) have teamed with ourcommunity.com.au (www.ourcomunity.com.au), to provide a dedicated internet-based giving centre which connects young professionals to a range of community opportunities. These include everything from direct financial contributions, to blood donations to volunteerism to going on a community board.

'Our intention is to build on the momentum we have generated with Globall [our annual charity ball] in order to promote year round community action, giving and thinking. We want people to have a fabulous night at the ball and raise money for our four charities. Equally, we want to help our peers to contribute to the community in a regular and ongoing way. The plan is to provide young professionals with a range of convenient ways to do this in partnership with ourcommunity.com.au, says Tena Panizza, a member of the volunteer organising committee.

Globall will take place on Saturday, 14 October, at the Melbourne Museum. It will feature performers from Tinpan Orange to Pablo Discobar, fire dancers, belly dancers and of course some very well catered food and drink. All profits go to support: The Australian Conservation Fund, Woroowa Aboriginal College, Australian Aids Fund, and the Mathew Talbot Soup Van. And again they're doing all this with an operating budget of zero and a little love from an impressive sponsorship lineup including Peter Rowlands Catering and Solution Red, DeBortoli, Coopers Brewery, Cadbury Schweppes, Resolution X, Platform 5 Design and Intrepid Travel among others.

The partnership between ourcommunity.com.au and YP4C will be launched at Globall. The announcement will be followed up by a periodic 'do-good' e-newsletter which offers ways for young professionals to give back to their communities.

Young Professionals for Charity (YP4C, www.yp4c.org.au), is a non-profit organisation founded in 2005 by a group of young professionals who decided to turn the goodwill and admirable intentions of their peers into direct financial, volunteer and action to support Victorian -based charities. They do this by providing links between the non-profit sector and a network of socially-conscious people rapidly rising through the ranks of the business, science and arts communities.

Three good friends, Tim Stitz, Anthony Nantes and Ally Akbarzadeh, hatched the plan to start the group early in 2005. "We saw the overwhelming response to the Boxing Day tsunami among our friends and realised that our peer group really wants to give back more to the community and see their world become a better place – not necessarily just a charity model – but one that has thinking, action and prevention as its core model of engagement," says founding member Aly.

Ally adds, "But between saving for house deposits and working late for that next promotion, charitable giving and volunteer work just kept slipping our minds. We want to do more than just hold a one-off event to raise money; we want to encourage our peers to give more of their time and resources back to those who need it most. And of course we want to have fun doing it."

Dr Rhonda Galbally AO CEO of Our Community, said "I am enormously excited by the partnership with Young Professionals for Charity as they are the future in changing the way corporates rethink how they engage their staff with community. Tim, Anthony and Ally and the gang from YPFC are change agents and I have not seen the combination of passion, intellect and action in many years. The new Giving Centre we are developing with YFFC is supported by Westpac Bank and will also be housed on the ourcommunity website.

### ENDS ###

Background information: Young Professionals for Charity Inc

Young Professionals for Charity (YP4C, www.yp4c.org.au) is a new non-profit organisation founded in 2005 by a group of 50 young professionals who decided to turn the goodwill and admirable intentions of their peers into direct financial and volunteer support for Melbourne-based charities. Their annual Globall will be held on October 14, 2006 at Melbourne Museum and will this year support the AIDS Trust of Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation, The Matthew Talbot Soup Van (a St Vincent de Paul Society project) and Worawa Aboriginal College.