Philanthropic Partners

MacKillop is grateful to The William Angliss (Victoria) Charitable Fund for its ongoing support of our Way Out There (WOT) program. WOT helps young people prepare to transition from residential care to independent living in the community. WOT also provides a 10-week practical life-skills education and mentoring program.

Thanks to funding from the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat Foundation, MacKillop will deliver a Paw Pals school holiday program to support local students struggling with school and learning. The program will be created to address increasing rates of school refusal, disengagement and/or disruption during classes, and learning challenges triggered by intellectual disabilities like ADHD and ADD.

When a severe thunderstorm ravaged the small Victorian town of Mirboo North in early 2024, MacKillop welcomed support from the Bendigo Bank Community Enterprise Foundation and the Mirboo North and District Community Foundation to deliver its Stormbirds training to local educators to run the program in their schools. Stormbirds is an education program that helps children and young people respond to the change, loss and uncertainty that often follows a natural disaster.

Thanks to funding from The Anthony Costa Foundation, MacKillop will partner with Geelong-based Indigenous organisation, Strong Brother, Strong Sister to pilot a mentoring program to support the cultural, social and emotional needs of Aboriginal children/young people in the Geelong region who are at risk of entering, or already living in out of home care, and who attend the MacKillop Specialist School.

Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of its culturally diverse staff, clients and their families, MacKillop, in partnership with the Centre for Multicultural Youth, will develop a best practice model of working with migrant and refugee children/young people living in out of home care.

Thanks to funding from the Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation, Equity Trustees (RM Ansett Trust) and The Scanlon Foundation, the project will identify, train and upskill staff to become cultural mentors, to build capacity and provide guidance and assistance to other staff working with culturally diverse clients.

Thanks to funding from the Dimmick Charitable Trust, senior students attending MacKillop’s school at Geelong will receive additional support via a specialist table tennis table that, while offering a fun activity for the students to enjoy, also delivers therapeutic benefits by providing a patterned repetitive activity that helps to regulate and calm their emotions before heading into the classroom.

Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of its culturally diverse staff, clients and their families, MacKillop, in partnership with the Centre for Multicultural Youth, will develop a best practice model of working with migrant and refugee children/young people living in out of home care.

Thanks to funding from Equity Trustees (RM Ansett Trust), The Scanlon Foundation and the Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation, the project will identify, train and upskill staff to become cultural mentors, to build capacity and provide guidance and assistance to other staff working with culturally diverse clients.

Thanks to support from the Flora and Frank Leith Charitable Trust, MacKillop provides culturally-diverse supported playgroups in Melbourne’s western metropolitan region. The playgroups are a valuable early intervention service that supports vulnerable and disadvantaged families overcome language and cultural barriers and link them to important services such as maternal and child health support, Centrelink, early learning and other services when needed, including family violence assistance.

The Joe White Bequest has been a long and valued supporter of MacKillop, providing much-needed funding to implement a broad range of child and family services and programs across Victoria.

Funding from the Pethard Tarax Charitable Trust has been used to support our Out of Home Care programs in the Bendigo region. MacKillop launched services in the region in 2017 as a response to the increasing number of vulnerable and at-risk children and families needing support.

Petstock Foundation has been a major supporter of MacKillop’s innovative Paw Pals program since it started in 2019. The canine-assisted education program supports at-risk children and young people to engage or re-engage in learning. With a therapy dog by their side, students are happy to head back to the classroom. Thanks to the ongoing support of Petstock Foundation, Paw Pals is now available for at-risk students in the the Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat regions.

Funding from the Queensland Community Foundation has been used to develop and grow MacKillop’s innovative canine learning program, Paw Pals, to help disadvantaged kids re-engage with education.

Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of its culturally diverse staff, clients and their families, MacKillop, in partnership with the Centre for Multicultural Youth, will develop a best practice model of working with migrant and refugee children/young people living in out of home care.

Thanks to funding from The Scanlon Foundation, Equity Trustees (RM Ansett Trust) and the Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation, the project will identify, train and upskill staff to become cultural mentors, to build capacity and provide guidance and assistance to other staff working with culturally diverse clients.

Thanks to funding from Westpac’s ‘Future Focused’ grant, MacKillop has continued to embed Power to Kids within residential care homes across Australia. This critical investment supports the ongoing advocacy of the program’s need to key decision makers in each state and territory and drives stakeholder engagement across government departments and residential care providers.