The power of showing up | raise.org.au Connection matters
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We can’t strengthen community connection alone, and it is so needed right now. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes the whole Raise Village to improve youth wellbeing in our country. We know we can make a huge impact together, and your continued support is invaluable and appreciated. Over the past 17 years Raise has grown and evolved just like the young people we support, and, like them, we’re making another significant transition this year. Since we started in 2008, with just 58 young people across 3 school programs, we’ve been developing and refining our mentoring programs to ensure that, year after year, we see the same consistently significant, positive impacts for young people. We have total confidence that mentoring works, with independent research confirming what we’ve seen in our evaluations every year. With the commencement of an exciting longitudinal study this year, we are excited to speak with Raise graduates over time to further prove the difference that mentoring makes. In 2025 alone, we’ve provided our proven program to a record 2,753 young people across 189 school programs, which we are very proud of. Alongside this, 2025 has marked a significant change for us. Delivering our programs through schools has been the core foundation on which we’ve grown, and we’ll continue to deliver our flagship program this way. However, to reach more young people across Australia who would benefit from a trained and trusted mentor, we are thinking differently and embracing the opportunities our digital world presents to provide our life changing programs in a more flexible and sustainable way. Letter from the CEO and Chair
Since piloting in 2024, we have been developing and building our online mentoring service, Raise Digital. This new program builds on what we know, to deliver our proven programs in a new way. In 2025 we have supported 117 young people through this service, and we plan to expand significantly over the coming years to support young people who aren’t currently able to access our programs. We aim to reach 5,000 young people every year by 2030 with half of them accessing our programs online. This will not only help us support more young people when they need us, anywhere and anytime, but it will also enable us to deliver more effectively and efficiently, reducing costs and increasing impact. It’s fair to say that this year has proved financially challenging for us. Whilst we’ve continued to build and deepen relationships with our village of generous funders and donors, we have faced more challenges than we anticipated in growing our income at the rate needed to scale our impact. We’ve had to look at every aspect of how we run our organisation to identify and realise efficiencies. With the unwavering support of our Board, this included a restructure which saw us rationalise our teams. Whilst this was a difficult time for everyone at Raise, we are now in a stronger position to move forward, with a clear strategic focus. Thank you for the vital role you play in supporting young people. With your help we will achieve our vision of providing a trained and trusted mentor to every young person in Australia who needs one. The sooner the better.
Vicki Condon AM Founder and CEO
Leon Condon Chair
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