Meet Milly Bond, the Fundraising Manager for American Club Foundation

Meet Milly Bond, the Fundraising Manager for American Club Foundation

How did ACF come to fruition and what makes your mission unique?

In 2017, the American Club Board of Directors made a strategic decision to harness the resources of the Club community to make a difference in the lives of the vulnerable and underprivileged in Hong Kong. This led to the formation of the American Club Foundation in 2019 to make the Club’s social impact efforts more effective, targeted and sustained. Our USP is that not only do we act as a Foundation awarding grants to local charities annually, but we also offer Education though our speaker's series "Your Voice", our Youth grants initiative, "Young Changemakers Award" and volunteering opportunities for our members and wider community all year round.

What are the most pressing needs in the Hong Kong community right now and how is ACF helping to address those issues?

Poverty Alleviation and supporting the charities who operate in that area is our number one focus. We have already awarded over $4m in grants in the last 2 years. We also do a lot for Sustainability with the entire month of April dedicated to this area, with volunteering for the community, beach clean-ups and a major event "Sip, Style & Shop" on 20 April, a Pre loved women's fashion event with all proceeds going to our charity partners, our Speaker series at the end of the month also looks at Fast Fashion. We strategically align our charitable giving, educational and volunteering efforts with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs.) This framework establishes 17 priorities for organizations world-wide to collectively tackle including poverty, health, education, inequality and climate change by 2030.

How can the broader Hong Kong community get involved with ACF?

All our volunteering opportunities are always open to the public as are our speaker series.

What are your favourite ways to introduce volunteering and a culture of giving back with kids?

We are always listening to our community and asking them what they like to do when it comes to volunteering. The feedback is largely that they want to do something as a family that is hands on and allows their children to see a difference side to HK, a reality I suppose. We started with fun activities such as our beach, mountain and ocean clean ups last October which saw hundreds of volunteers of all ages join in the "Big Clean-up" We also have a month-long volunteering month in November with over 20 local charities offering hands on opportunities at varying days and times that suited everyone including families and school aged children. We also introduced our Young Changemakers Award last year, which gives 13-18 year olds a chance to put a proposal together to win a grant for the charity of their choice. Its a great initiative and one that we hope inspires the next generation to be charitably aware.

What is your ambition for ACF?

In an ideal world like all charities we would like a solution to the problem we are trying to solve. Poverty Alleviation and the Environment, but for the meantime we would love to be able to have the support of the wider community and corporations to allow us to offer more financial grants to local charities that do inspiring and incredible work for the less fortunate.