Macquarie doubles Young Leaders' fundraising for UNICEF

A young banker used his financial nous to double the amount of money he helped raise for UN Children’s Fund water projects in Laos.

Aucklander Graham Rhodes – a Business Analyst with Macquarie Capital Advisors – was one of 37 young leaders from New Zealand and Asia challenged to raise money for UNICEF. Organising themselves like a mini-corporation, they divided up the key roles and in a frenetic day of fundraising raised $13,000 for UNICEF water projects helping children in Laos.

Looking for a way to take the group’s efforts further, Graham successfully applied to his employer, Macquarie Group, to match the amount raised under its staff fundraising matching scheme. This resulted in an additional $13,000 for UNICEF projects, bringing the total raised to $26,000.

The staff matching program is run by Macquarie Group’s philanthropic arm, the Macquarie Group Foundation, which in the last financial year contributed more than $23 million to over 800 community organisations around the world.

The fundraising challenge was part of the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Young Leaders’ Forum held in Wellington last November. The Forum aims to build leadership skills and a network of young New Zealanders interested in growing the links between New Zealand and Asia.

Fundraising activities included collecting public donations in downtown Wellington, selling UNICEF Christmas cards and Waiwera bottled water, table tennis matches, sponsorship of a public service video, online fundraising, and an auction of water-inspired paintings painted by local school children.

UNICEF NZ Executive Director, Dennis McKinlay, says that he was impressed with the Young Leader’s efforts.

“We would like to thank the Young Leaders for their hard work and efforts in supporting the life-changing UNICEF projects in Laos that are bringing safe drinking water to schools and villages.

“The ready availability of safe water improves children’s health and means that young children can attend school rather than spending their days collecting water from far away springs.

“With this matching contribution from the Macquarie Group Foundation, we will now be able to go twice as far to help children.”

The head of the Macquarie Group Foundation, Julie White, says that it is a pleasure to support staff in their fundraising efforts.

“The Foundation’s key objectives are to provide a community benefit in every region Macquarie has a presence and to support Macquarie staff in their philanthropic endeavours. Over the past eight years, Macquarie staff members have raised year-on-year record amounts for not-for-profit organisations, which the Foundation matches dollar for dollar.

“We are very proud of Graham Rhodes’ efforts with the Asia New Zealand Foundation Young Leaders, and delighted to support an agency like UNICEF which is doing wonderful work to help improve the lives of vulnerable children around the world.”