About the Founder
KIP was founded by Dr Catriona Wallace and her children, Indigo Wallace-Knight, aged 10 and Saxon Wallace-Knight, aged 8.
Dr Catriona Wallace is a business owner, Fifth Quadrant Pty Ltd, ACA Research and Avoclean, and is also an active Philanthropist, with most of her activities being related to supporting Indigenous people. Catriona is the Founder of the Indigo Express Fund, (a sub-fund of the Sydney Women’s Fund and Sydney Community Foundation), which focuses on funding literacy programs for underprivileged children (www.indigoexpress.org.au(link is external)). Catriona is also the mother of 5 children and Chair of KiP Nationally.
Why we started a sub-fund with Sydney Community Foundation
There are three primary reasons for the establishment of KIP:
- To grow the culture of giving and philanthropy in Australia by engaging children in meaningful opportunities to learn, grow, develop leadership and harness their giving power
- To address the significant disadvantage in many Australian communities that continues to result in increasingly negative outcomes for families, and children in particular
- To deliver tangible benefits to children and adults from giving
What we do?
Kids In Philanthropy is a not-for-profit fund that focuses on building social awareness, social conscience and a practice of giving, in the kids for kids. Other tenets of KIP include to:
1. Bring children and young people together with a common focus on shared learning, cultural exchange and giving
2. Ensure KIP activities are monitored by adult Advisory Board members who are experts in child-driven philanthropy and childhood development
3. Raise funds to direct to, and actively engage with, programs designed to address disadvantage among children in Australian communities
4. Raise awareness in children and young people investing in the Fund about levels of poverty and need in disadvantaged Australian communities ‐ with a focus on empowering them to take positive action
5. Strengthen the social, moral and cultural glue within each investor family by building on parental/child shared philanthropic interests, values and capacity to give
Our achievements
Since KIP’s introduction in 2011 it has:
- Engaged and inspired over 70 families in Sydney and Melbourne
- Raised over $100,000 for causes chosen by kids; including an incredible $30,000 for Kids Under Cover!
- Set up four Technology and Learning Centres in Sydney’s lowest SES area
- Witnessed a generation of mini entrepreneurs finding ways to raise money & donate to causes they care about
- Presented at the Nexus Global Youth Summit
- Presented at Unleashed: Australia’s First Summit for Young Changemakers.
KiP has been successful in making it ‘cool to care’ by engaging, empowering and providing experiential learning for the kids we work with.
What’s Next?
We want to continue to bring philanthropy into the home, make it the heart of dinner time conversation and most of all we want to spread the benefits of giving – not only among the families involved but through the communities that benefit.