Sponsorship: A walk in the Park

An early Autumn morning, walking your dog in Albert Park is the unlikely setting for organising sponsorship for your website. But stranger things have happened in St Kilda!

When Lauren Oliver (Fifteen Foundation) and Julia Topliss (Web Prophets) met through their four legged friends Jasper, Harvey and Emmy; a natural affinity was discovered that extended beyond the bounds of a morning stroll and friendly chat.

Lauren had just begun setting up the Fifteen Foundation in Australia. The Fifteen Foundation is Jamie Oliver’s Foundation for ‘inspiring young people’. The Foundation provides the opportunity for 20 unemployed young people between the ages of 16 and 24, who are not currently in full-time education, to train in the restaurant industry. The program includes an element of TAFE education, on the job training in the kitchen at the Fifteen restaurant and field trips to meet local producers.

That morning, an issue on Lauren’s mind was a website that would help prospective applicants apply for one of the twenty positions on offer. When Julia Topliss heard of the opportunity to sponsor the Australian website and be a part of the Fifteen Foundation she offered Web Prophets services immediately.

Julia says, “What an opportunity! As a small business, you often struggle to consider how it is that you can make a contribution to your community. Most small businesses struggle to find finances or time to offer to not-for-profit organisations, but when your services and products can be donated and make a significant contribution to an organisation it really makes you feel good about what you do and how you do it.”

Web Prophets has a long history of sponsoring Melbourne organisations including Heide Museum of Modern Art, Gasworks Arts & Park, and Kangaroo Karnival (a fundraising initiative for the Melbourne Children’s Hospital). Each year Web Prophets allocates time and resources to assist organisations with their online requirements. In 2006, Web Prophets has contributed to Brightspace (a local Gallery space in St Kilda), the Acland Street Precinct Trader’s Association (a website for the Acland Street community to be launched in August) and the Fifteen Foundation Australia website.

The sponsorship deal with the Fifteen Foundation includes design, maintenance and hosting of the Foundation website. In its first month online the Fifteen Foundation received over 9,000 visits and almost 3,000 people downloaded the Application Form for the 2006 intake.

“The main sponsorship focus for Web Prophets is organisations that contribute to the local community by focussing on the arts, culture, youth or local issues. Providing sponsorship in this way allows us to keep in touch with our community and ensures that we get a chance to do ‘some good stuff’, no matter how busy it gets.”

Through Channel 10, this September viewers will get a birds eye view of the Fifteen Foundation and the restaurant at work when it launches Melbourne’s Fifteen Restaurant. The Fifteen Foundation website can be found at www.fifteenfoundation.org.au.

Web Prophets is a local website design and hosting business operating in St Kilda, their website can be found at www.webprophets.net.au.