Vehicle-donation idea hits the road
Vehicle-donation idea hits the road
12 May 2020
The Salvation Army Drive for Life program trains and mentors young people experiencing barriers to obtaining their licence.
An idea that won approval through The Salvation Army IDEAS Platform has come to fruition – the launch of a ‘Donate a Vehicle’ initiative to fund the Drive for Life program.
The Salvation Army launched its IDEAS Platform last September to nurture, grow and support innovation across the Australia Territory. The crowdsourcing website www.ideas.salvationarmy.org.au enables transparency and ideas-sharing, with anyone able to submit an idea, vote on ideas, comment on an idea or subscribe to an idea.
Ideas with the greatest support are moved through to the ‘Redemptive Design Lab’ stage where they are fleshed out and “meat gets put on the bone”, according to Greig Whittaker, The Salvation Army Executive Manager for Innovation.
“We [needed to] understand the story and what we were trying to achieve,” he said. “Who the strategic players were and what the partners looked like, and also the financial implications of the project. So, it then went from Redemptive Design Lab to finding a strategic partner because the idea is critical to finding the right partner.”
The Drive for Life ‘Donate a Vehicle’ webpage.
That ‘right partner’ was Slattery Auctions and Valuations, who teamed with The Salvation Army and invested their time and expertise to develop a ‘Donate a Vehicle’ program, which was launched this week.
It allows people to donate their vehicle (anything you’ve got ‘lying around’, according to Greig, “be it a jet ski or a car or a tractor or a plane”) and have Slattery auction the vehicle, with the money raised going to support Drive for Life.
Drive for Life is a Salvation Army driver training and mentoring program in NSW and Queensland for young people overcoming adversity. Having a driver’s licence is a key milestone in a young person’s life and helps them move towards independence. Being able to drive gives young people the choice and control necessary to realise their education, employment and housing goals. “Unfortunately, many young people don’t have the ability to learn how to drive due to lack of access to a vehicle or other reasons,” said Greig.
Under the donation scheme, all people need to do is head to the Slattery Auctions and Valuations website and complete a donation form. All donations are tax-deductible.
“The vehicles themselves are not what we use for Drive for Life,” said Greig. “We use the cash from the vehicles to run the program. We think that the majority of the vehicles will probably be under the $2000 range. People often say, ‘Well, I’m not going to get a good trade-in for it, I don’t want to answer the phone and have people come around to sell it myself; I would rather let the Salvos use the money from the vehicle and do it that way.” It’s believed that other vehicle donations may come from deceased estates.
The ‘Donate your Vehicle’ idea is the first to come through the IDEAS Platform and reach the launch stage. But it won’t be the last, according to Greig: “There’s several that are starting to hit that market. Once you start, ideas keep coming.”
Watch this space!
To find out more about Donate your Vehicle, click here.
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