Insights · Corporate Giving · 2026
A Gift From VivCourt Shows What Corporate Responsibility Can Look Like for Students Facing Disadvantage
This year, a gift from VivCourt reached A Start in Life after a staff member at the Sydney trading firm made the case for the charity to their colleagues. The donation was not a line item signed off in a boardroom. It came through VivCourt's social bonus program, a model that hands the decision about where company profit goes to the people who earn it.
A Social Bonus Program Built Into How VivCourt Works
VivCourt is a proprietary trading firm headquartered in Sydney, and it runs on an unusual premise for a finance company: it has no external shareholders. Profit returns to the people who work there and to the communities around them. The program is designed so that twice a year, every employee receives $10,000 to direct to a charitable cause of their choosing, with no conditions on how or where it goes.
“Trading can be a wonderful career, but there's no function to it other than to make money. I wanted to know if it was possible to take what is basically the most capitalist job in the world and create purpose out of it.”
Rob Keldoulis, Founder, VivCourt
Since the program began, VivCourt staff have directed more than $23 million to over 630 organisations. This year, one of those decisions went to A Start in Life.
How Employee-Led Giving Changes Corporate Social Responsibility
Most corporate giving works from the top down. A company sets a philanthropic budget, a committee decides where it goes, and the people who generated the profit have little say in either step. VivCourt's model turns that around. The person who earned the profit decides where it goes, in line with the firm's approval process.
That distinction shapes what corporate responsibility actually achieves. When the person giving has chosen the cause themselves, the commitment tends to last well beyond the announcement.
A Start in Life works on a similar principle from the other side of the transaction. Of every dollar donated, 73c reaches students directly, and with no government funding to fall back on, the charity depends on that support continuing year after year.
What VivCourt's Donation Means for Students
A Start in Life tracks exactly what a year of support costs to deliver, broken down by school stage. For a primary school student, from Kindergarten to Year 6, the average annual scholarship value comes to $3,000. That covers financial assistance along with mentoring, academic support and regular check-ins through the year.
At that rate, VivCourt's gift will support 42 students through a full year of scholarship, helping each of them stay connected to their education and pursue the future they deserve. The number comes from the charity's own costed figure for getting a student through a year, rather than a projection or a rounded estimate.
Scholarships and grants through A Start in Life cover the costs that stand between a student and a full education: school fees, uniforms, technology, excursions, and the everyday items a family under financial pressure has to weigh against rent or groceries. A gift the size of VivCourt's does not sit in a fund. It moves directly to students who would otherwise go without one or more of those things this year.
The Employee Advocacy Behind the Gift
Every gift through VivCourt's program begins with one person deciding a cause is worth backing. This one began with a staff member who put A Start in Life forward.
“It takes courage to be the person inside a large organisation who says, this matters, back me on this. We would love to see more of that kind of courage, in more workplaces.”
Kathleen Donohoe, CEO, A Start in Life
That is the part of the model most worth repeating. The gift happened because someone was willing to raise it with their colleagues. If your workplace has a giving program like this one, or you think it should, that conversation is worth starting.
A Workplace Giving Model Other Businesses Could Follow
VivCourt's approach reflects a wider shift in corporate giving, one where the decision sits closer to the people doing the giving. For a business built on trading, that is a deliberate choice to measure a good year by purpose as well as profit.
A Start in Life is now in its second century of removing financial barriers to education for students who need it. Partnerships like this one are what make that work possible without government funding to rely on.
Bring Your Workplace Giving to A Start in Life
Businesses and employees interested in supporting A Start in Life can get in touch through astartinlife.org.au. Every donation is tax-deductible, and 73c of every dollar reaches students directly.
