Macquarie : Cerebral Palsy Alliance announced as Macquarie’s $100,000 Social Innovation Award recipient

Sydney, 11 Aug 2017

The Macquarie Group Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Macquarie Group, has announced Cerebral Palsy Alliance as the recipient of the 2017 Macquarie Social Innovation Award.

The biennial Award recognises, promotes and rewards new ideas that work to meet pressing community social needs, alleviate disadvantage and promote social inclusion within Australia.

Cerebral Palsy Alliance will use the $100,000 Award to fund its 'Remarkable Accelerator Program', which provides seed funding and support to disruptive early stage start-ups, creating technologies to facilitate the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities.

'Our vision is to maximise independence for people with disabilities through access to the latest technologies, specialised equipment and products that can enrich their lives,' said Rob White, Chief Executive Officer, Cerebral Palsy Alliance. 'This Award will enable us to provide four $20,000 grants over two years to disability tech focused start-ups. Additional funds will be used to engage user testers (people with disabilities) to help with product validation of start-up products and services, and for mentor facilitation and recognition.'

'The Social Innovation Award inspires the community sector to think boldly and look for new approaches to address unmet need,' said Lisa George, Global Head, Macquarie Group Foundation. 'The Cerebral Palsy Alliance is doing just that with its Remarkable Accelerator Program, harnessing technology to build social and economic inclusion. We're really excited to be able to support this work and look forward to seeing the impact it will have on the 1 in 5 people in Australia living with a disability.'

Along with the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, the 2017 finalists were Giant Steps Sydney, Fighting Chance Australia, Aurora Education Foundation and Berry Street Victoria Inc.

Contact
Angharad Withers,
Macquarie Group Corporate Communications
(02) 8232 2814

About the Macquarie Social Innovative Awards

The Macquarie Social Innovation Award was established in 2010 to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the Macquarie Group Foundation. The award is presented biennially to an Australian not-for-profit organisation to recognise, promote and reward new ideas that work to meet pressing community needs, alleviate disadvantage and promote social inclusion.

Previous Macquarie Social Innovation recipients are Hello Sunday Morning (2015), The Fogarty Foundation (2014), Milk Crate Theatre (2012) and The School for Social Entrepreneurs (2010).

The judging panel for the 2017 Social Innovation Award comprised Macquarie Group executives and an independent external representative.

About the Macquarie Group Foundation

The Macquarie Group Foundation's community investment strategy is threefold: to encourage and support Macquarie staff to give back to the communities where they live and work, to strengthen the impact of non-profit organisations by funding capacity building and collaboration and to support social innovation.
In the 12 months ending 31 March 2017, the Macquarie Group Foundation and Macquarie staff globally contributed $A29.4 million to 1,350 non-profit organisations, with staff also giving approximately 50,000 hours of their time.

About Cerebral Palsy Alliance

Cerebral Palsy Alliance is a non-profit that provides services to thousands of people with a physical or neurological disability and their families. It provides up-to-date, evidence-based and reliable information, written by fully qualified health professionals, to assist people with cerebral palsy, their families and clinicians to understand cerebral palsy and to make informed decisions about interventions and therapies.