Since I last wrote, we have made significant progress as follows.
1. Largely through the efforts of Judith Fiander from Australian Philanthropic Services, the Twice the Doctor Foundation is now a reality and licensed to receive fully tax deductible contributions. From all I have gleaned, this is quite an achievement.
2. On the advice of one of our enthusiastic supporters and promoters ophthalmologist Brian Harrisberg from Newtown, I have met with the Fred Hollows Foundation who are very excited about ophthalmologists supporting the Twice the Doctor concept linking in with a project in Africa to train eye surgeons. They have offered all sorts of support to enhance our efforts.
3. Ravi Agarwal, head of Mediq Financial, has reiterated his commitment and excitement about our Foundation. He has also reaffirmed his very generous offer to do the Foundation’s accounting pro-bono. This would normally cost about $10,000 per year. His generous offer not only illustrates the type of support our project can garner but also allows our administration costs to be kept to a minimum, thereby further leveraging the value of your eventual contribution.
4. With great assistance from Jodie Ralph, our website is being professionally built. It is envisaged that this will be a vehicle for attracting new volunteers and non-medical supporters, collecting funds, issuing receipts and providing feedback to contributors about what your donation achieved. So it is essential we get this right. The cost for building the website, the first years support and for establishing the Foundation has been borne by the Directors, so your eventual contribution is in no way diluted.