A Legacy Project:
Uniting, Educating and Inspiring Our Community to Love and Protect Our Oceans 

OUR PURPOSE

Dedicated to raising much-needed funds and awareness for organisations doing incredible work and who are making a difference in protecting and preserving our Pacific Waters.

OUR VISION

• Our vision is aligned with our core values.

• The Sapphire Project aims to unite, educate and inspire our communities, to love and protect our oceans and financially support those organisations making an impact in protection and conservation. This underpins everything we do and provides the guiding principles to our behaviour and the relationships we have with our partners and donors.

OUR VALUES

• We celebrate those making a real difference in ocean conservation.

• We align our relationships with those charity partners who have a shared commitment to protecting the environment and demonstrating impact and accountability

• Our people and our ambassadors are obsessed with telling the ocean conservation story.

• We think big and focus on work that makes a difference. 

• We take our relationships with our sponsors, donors and supporters seriously. 

• We are transparent, accountable and act with integrity. 

OUR OBJECTIVES

• Inspire a swell of philanthropic support for ocean conservation in Asia Pacific.

• Our goal is that the Sapphire Project becomes the trusted destination to discover all the work being done in this important environmental space.

THE HOW

Bring together key stakeholders and key donors to celebrate United Nations World Ocean Day with a gala fundraising event in Sydney and another one in Singapore connecting donors to those organisations making a difference.

OUR PEOPLE

We are a diverse group of volunteers from all walks of life sharing a passion for ocean sustainability and conservation in Australia and Singapore. Building on the legacy of the international conservationist and philanthropist, Susan Rockefeller, we work together to further create awareness for the much-needed funding of our oceans. Sapphire is led by Co-Chairs Hayley Baillie and Ryan Gollan.

OUR AMBASSADORS

• Our ambassadors reflect our values and embrace our vision. Where possible we will leverage their profiles to communicate the Sapphire messaging.

• Our current ambassadors in Australia include Ian Thorpe AM, Jarrod Scott, Madison Stewart, Ky Hurst, Laura Wells, Paul de Gelder, Julia Wheeler, Matt Draper, Ace Buchan, Sam Bloom, Neil Perry and Billy Bain. We are recruiting ambassadors in Singapore.

HOW DONATION FUNDS ARE MANAGED

The Sapphire Project does not receive any funds from ticket sales or donations. We have proudly partnered with The Great Barrier Reef Foundation as our payment processor to administer and distribute raised funds with no administration costs.

OUR CHARITY PARTNERS 

Objective - Attract and showcase quality charities to inspire the Sapphire Community and donors to be engaged and to give. 

We are focused on supporting ocean conservation charities and each year we will select up to four partners.  The area of focus will be either geographically or themed-based. The Charity Sub-Committee will provide a recommendation on the year’s focus taking into consideration the United Nations World Oceans Day messaging.  Our chosen charities need to align and support the messaging as well as demonstrate accountability and impact. The Sapphire Project looks favourably upon the following factors for funding:

• Conservation/restoration

• Scalability

• Addressing climate change

• Projects that may not otherwise attract funding

• Impact

• Equity

• Urgency

• First Nations

FRAMEWORK & CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF CHARITIES

A charity sub-committee made up of at least two committee members is to recommend a group of ocean partners that Sapphire will raise funds each year in our chosen area of focus.  Their objective is to provide scientific, environmental or conservation programs that create a positive impact on our ocean resources.

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.