The Envato Foundation adds $500,000 more in support to charities for children's education

The Envato Foundation has ramped up its charity work adding two new organisations to its ongoing support program.

The Foundation is the charitable arm of creative marketplace Envato, which donates 1% of the company’s annual pre-tax profits to fund its work.

Its new partners have a children’s education focus: online tutoring and education services support platform Enrise and NSW-based creative writing centre Story Factory.

That brings the total number of partners to eight, with more than $900,000 paid out so far and a further $500,000 in committed funding taking the total support to $1.4 million.

For Story Factory, a not-for-profit creative writing centre for young people in under-resourced communities across Sydney and NSW, the Envato Foundation will fund an Aboriginal liaison officer over three years to help facilitate connections with Indigenous communities and develop culturally responsive workshop content.

The Foundation’s support for Enrise will enable the charity to expand its support programs for Indigenous and remote students, providing them with enhanced access to the award-winning Need A Tutor platform as well as providing technological support to those in need.

Foundation chair Briany Kalms said helping support Indigenous students through writing and education during their formative years is pivotal to making a real difference to their lives.

“The Foundation now proudly supports eight wonderful organisations, all of which are meaningfully contributing to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth during various stages of their education,” she said.

“We’ve been able to find some nice synergy that really closes the loop between primary, secondary and tertiary education.”

Enrise co-founder and CEO Bronwyn Covill said they’d had a 300% increase in demand for our support over the last 12 months.

“The impact of the pandemic has shown us that the digital education gap has widened. The partnership with the Envato Foundation will allow us to get more computers into the hands of kids who need it, and ensuring that they don’t feel like they are falling even further behind,” she said.

“It’s more than just tutoring, it’s about giving students digital provisions – donated devices and data – that offers them more support and empowers them to continue learning within their own communities and schools.”

Dr Cath Keenan, Story Factory’s executive director and co-founder said the three-year commitment will enable them to better support the hundreds of young Indigenous writers they are currently working with, and hundreds more.

“This partnership came about because of our ongoing work telling heartfelt stories about the need to better support the writing and literacy of young Indigenous people, and we are sincerely grateful to the Foundation who were open to really listening,” she said.