Thursday July 7, 2011
Media Release

Vodafone Group Foundation creates £100,000 award for social entrepreneurs

The Grahame Maher World of Difference Award enables World of Difference participants to win funding for further charitable work

The Vodafone Foundation today launched the Grahame Maher World of Difference Award, strengthening its commitment to the World of Difference programme at the same time as paying tribute to one of the company’s most inspiring leaders.

All of the 1,500 current and previous World of Difference participants from around the world will be eligible to apply for the award, with one winner being selected each year. The World of Difference Grahame Maher Award winner will receive £100,000 of funding for their charity so they can continue their work. The award will run for three years from 2011.

The award has been established in memory of Grahame Maher, the late CEO of Vodafone Qatar. Grahame pioneered the launch of the Vodafone World of Difference programme in New Zealand back in 2002. Today there are twenty Vodafone Foundations running World of Difference programmes across the globe, giving people from all walks of life the opportunity to be paid to work for a charity of their choice, making a real difference to communities and charitable projects at home or abroad.

“Grahame was well-known for being a passionate, humble and visionary leader in many different countries, during his 18 years at Vodafone,” commented Andrew Dunnett, Director of the Vodafone Foundation. “This award is a tribute to a truly inspirational man who was committed to making the world a better place. He changed the lives of everyone he met and this award offers previous World of Difference winners the chance to do the same. It also reinforces the Foundation’s core belief that enabling people to give their time, skills and knowledge can be far more powerful that simply giving a cheque – this is something that Grahame passionately believed and our frequent evaluation of the programme shows just how true this is.”

Applications for entries to the award will open on 25th August and close on 8th September. Entrants will initially be judged by their local Vodafone Foundation based on a common set of criteria, including how the applicant would harnesses the potential of mobile technology to achieve social change. Once finalists have been selected, members of the public will be able to vote for their preferred winner via Facebook. As a result of the vote, up to twenty global finalists will be selected and judged by an expert panel. For more information, visit http://www.grahamemaheraward.com/?region=nz

ENDS

To find out more about Vodafone Foundation’s World of Difference programme visit http://www.vodafone.com/worldofdifference or follow the programme on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/donateyourself or ‘like’ “Vodafone New Zealand Foundation” on Facebook.

About Vodafone Foundation
The Vodafone Foundation invests in the communities in which Vodafone operates and is at the centre of a network of global and local social investment programmes. In countries in which Vodafone operates, social investment is delivered by a unique footprint of 27 local Vodafone Foundations and social investment programmes. These programmes are directed and chosen by the local Foundation trustees and receive funding from the Vodafone Foundation in the UK as well as their local Vodafone company.

The Vodafone Foundation has been registered as a charity in England and Wales (registration number 1089625) since 4 December 2001. For more information about the Vodafone Foundation, visit vodafonefoundation.org

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