Raise Foundation

The team at Raise are so open and delightful! They really believe in the work that they do, and supporting the mentors and young people they work with. We're luck to have an organisation doing this kind of work in our community!

We have had the pleasure and privilege of creating some video content for Raise Foundation this year, and this has allowed us a really unique insight into Raise mentoring and just how valuable and life-changing it can be. In working with the team, you really get a strong sense that everyone in the organisation has so much genuine care for Raise as a whole, and for the mentors and mentees that they support.

The best experience I've ever had. Tyler is amazing! I'm only half way through my 1st mentoring year and I'm so incredibly grateful. Be able to share and listen and support young people. Love raise. Jody Marie

This is my second year mentoring with Raise and I continue to be amazed at how amazing this program is. Over the course of the program you can see a clear difference in the young people and the impact their mentors are having on them. The weekly mentor support sessions are so beneficial and help to build on your skills.

I have been with the Raise mentor program for all the training and now 7 weeks at my allocated student/school, 2 hours per week.
I have been impressed with the training provided, handbook supplied and weekly support from our program counsellor at the school. We are required to supply only one morning tea for the 16 students in our program year, some bake their own cookies if they find this costly, and it is always a hit with the students.
I am looking forward to the remainder of the year, and recommend this program to those who want to help a student through one of their years at school.

Really disappointed with this program, I signed up to be a volunteer but was kicked out of the program for bringing up concerns.

To start, after applying I had to provide a criminal records check. The link provided from their website leads to a company that requests a photo copy of your credit card (front and back) to verify your identity. I found a way around this but others might not - do not put pictures of your credit card online! It was really upsetting that this organisation puts profits and funding over the safety and security of its volunteers.

The big problem I had with the program that made me speak with management is how the orientation day happened. We were provided no new information about the program we were just told that now after agreeing to volunteer our time for the program the volunteers would now be required to pay for all morning/afternoon tea supplies.

I explained that at no point of time was I told I would be required to pay for anything on top of the volunteering that I would be doing. Regardless of being upset with this information, I agreed to pay for the days I was scheduled for and since I was the first on the list I had most days.

Raise makes promises to students/schools at the expense of the volunteers that are there to help the kids. The only time that costs involved with volunteering with this group were explained is when a person in an authority position tells you this is required in a peer pressure group setting. I informed the national manager that I had worked with timeshares and the way they brought up the expenses to the volunteers was very reminiscent of being in group sales setting.

I got in touch with the regional manager to inform them that this isn't the best way for the organisation to notify volunteers of expenses. The regional manager said this information was in the training documents, I requested the documents but have not received them yet. From the documents and links provided I have not been able to find this information and believe that statement is not true.

I have requested to speak to the national manager or a complaints department, still waiting to hear back from that level. If you can't reflect on what you are doing and improve your organisation won't last. I was trying to inform and help, there response was to remove and ignore.

Very disappointed and I am concerned about both the volunteers and the students involved with this organisation.

If anyone responds, could you provide a location that the public or mentors can find information about costs incurred due to volunteering with Raise?

FYI - At the end the 'training' they go through the test and provide all the correct answers to make sure everyone passes. This is done so that if someone does something wrong and hurts someone they can say they covered their legal liabilities, there is no actual training.