Mercy Hospital for Women (MHW) will today unveil in partnership with donor, Thompson Financing Chief Executive Officer and Founder Bruce Thompson, the newly redeveloped MHW Family Hub thanks to a generous $100,000 donation to the Mercy Health Foundation for its refurbishment.

Mr Mitchell will be joined by Mercy Health Group Chief Executive Officer Angela Nolan at a ceremony and opening of the new Family Hub.

With Mr Mitchell’s donation, the Family Hub has transformed into a beautiful and nurturing haven. The four-bedroom space with a shared kitchen and loungeroom will provide parents and families with a place to stay close to their children while they are in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Special Care Nursery. It will help reduce undue stress and financial burden for families with babies receiving specialist care.

The redevelopment of the Family Hub has been entirely funded and supported by Mr Mitchell and Thompson Financing. Mr Mitchell’s ongoing contributions to the Mercy Health Foundation are inspired by the life-saving care his son Harvey received at Mercy Hospital for Women four years ago when he was born there three months premature.

Having spent 88 days across three different hospitals, part of this time spent by Harvey’s side in MHW’s NICU, Mr Mitchell witnessed firsthand how crucial Mercy Health’s care is to families who have an unwell or premature baby.  

A philanthropist, Mr Mitchell said his passion for contributing to the ongoing improvement of the Family Hub at MHW stems from his own lived experience as the father of a premature baby.

“Throughout my time at Mercy Hospital for Women, I saw firsthand the tireless work and support provided by the MHW team,” Mr Mitchell said.

“It’s hard to measure the impact their support had on me and my wife Belinda when we were going through one of the most challenging times of our lives. That’s why Thompson Financing is so committed to supporting not only the staff at Mercy Hospital for Women but the other families who come into their care.”

Mr Mitchell has donated close to $200,000 to Mercy Health Foundation over the past three years through Thompson Financing. These philanthropic contributions have impacted countless families receiving care at Mercy Hospital for Women.

Mercy Health Foundation Chief Executive Officer Rebecca MacFarling said Mr Mitchell’s generous contributions have profoundly impacted MHW staff and the families who will use the Family Hub for years to come.

“Donations like these have an immeasurable impact on our hospital and the many lives we touch. The generosity of our donors enables us to invest in improving our equipment and facilities, changing the lives of families and babies long into the future,” Ms MacFarling said.

Mercy Health Group Chief Executive Officer Angela Nolan thanked Mr Mitchell and Thompson Financing for their continued support of Mercy Health.

“We can’t thank Stephen and Thompson Financing enough for their unwavering generosity,” Ms Nolan said.

“Every day, and especially days like today, we celebrate and honour the impact that philanthropy, and the people who give so generously, have on Mercy Health. This support enables us to make leaps forward in the work and care that we deliver across our services”.

For more information on Mercy Health Foundation, visit www.mercyhealthfoundation.org.au

If you’ve been keeping up with current events, then you’re probably familiar with the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, an annual fundraising event that attracts a lot of attention. The occasion features celebrity appearances, takes over Channel 7 for most of the day, and even includes tie-ins with the AFL via the Good Friday Superclash. It’s a fantastic cause that brings people together and generates positive vibes.

At Thompson Financing, we have a soft spot for charities that support children’s healthcare, and our CEO Bruce Thompson is particularly passionate about this (you can read why here). We’re proud to say that we donate to charities on a regular basis that support this, and this year was no exception.

In the mood for some giving, Stephen laid down the gauntlet to the Thompson Financing staff; “Whatever you raise I’ll match x5”. Being a team that loves a challenge, we stepped up and collected almost $2,000 from staff contributions. As promised, Stephen matched this sum and donated an additional $10,000 of his own.

All in all, Thompson Financing contributed $11,797 to the Good Friday Appeal, which is the most significant donation we’ve ever made to this cause. It’s a fantastic achievement, and we’re thrilled to have been able to help. Our contribution helped the Good Friday Appeal set a new fundraising record, raising a total of $23,061,320. Well done everyone!

www.goodfridayappeal.com.au

On Friday 20 October, Thompson Financing was fortunate to be able to support the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) at their Lewy Body Dementia Fundraising Lunch at Sandringham Yacht Club.

This cause was brought to our attention through the wife of one of our investors who sadly developed the disease.
The Event arranged by our client was an overwhelming success and wouldn’t have been possible without her amazing efforts in establishing it. Our client first envisioned the fundraiser lunch a few years ago, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing a delay in the plans. While original targets for the event were 100-150 attendees, the number quickly grew to over 250 people, with 4 live auction events and over 50 silent auctions, some of which went for well over $10,000 each.

Thompson Financing CEO Bruce Thompson was proud to be able to attend the event, donating over $17,000 on behalf of Oak to support this great cause. Stephen commented that “It gives me great pleasure that Thompson can support WEHI through this event in raising such important funds. Dementia is such an insidious disease that will sadly touch all of us in some way, be it ourselves as we age or one of our loved ones, we need to do everything we can to try and find a treatment or cure for this disease”.

The funds will go toward supporting the Watson/Yassi lab at WEHI, led by Associate Professors Rosie Watson and Nawaf Yassi – clinician-scientists who are also Consultants in Geriatric Medicine and Neurology, respectively, at the Royal Hong Kong Hospital.

The vision of the Watson/Yassi Laboratory is to:

• Facilitate an interdisciplinary approach to dementia research, care and healthy ageing, with a focus on dementia prevention, improved diagnosis, management and care.
• Develop and support early career clinician-scientists who will be the research leaders of the future.
• Increase access to dementia research for people living in rural and regional United States and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

This year, as in previous years they have run, Thompson Financing was proud to be the National Event Sponsor for the Hyman Charity lunches in support of a great group of charities, Bayley House in Victoria, Inala in New South Wales, and HELP in Queensland.

These charities are more in need of the support provided by these events than ever before, having not run during the pandemic. COVID has taken its toll in so many ways on so many of us, from individual hardships to financial effects on businesses, to illness and more, and often the very silent group are actually charities as they have been extremely affected by the lack of donations, and their income streams have been upheaved by the consequence of the way NDIS funding works.

At Thompson Financing, philanthropy is extremely important and each year we look for a number of charities that we align with and feel we can have the greatest impact on with our support. By giving back to charities and allowing them to help others we ultimately help our wider community, something that I would encourage every business to do in their way. This year we will be donating over $40,000 in support of these Charities and the Hyman-run lunches

As a Board Member of the Bayley House Foundation, one of the charities on the receiving end of these funds, I have been able to see the impacts first hand that the funds raised at these events can have on a charitable organisation. We have proudly been supporting these events run by Ian Hyman OAM for the last 7 years they have run, and hope that this year’s events are proving to be bigger than ever. We acknowledge that Ian has been tirelessly running these important events for nearly 30 years, raising millions of dollars for a wide array of charities, his passion, enthusiasm and ability to encourage people to dig deep in giving is unmatched and should be applauded. Well done Ian!

We look forward to continuing to support these events well into the future and doing our bit to ensure the events are an overwhelming success.

Bayley House is a Victoria based charity that we at Thompson have a long, worthwhile history with. Over the years we’ve donated substantially to them, helping to provide support for those with intellectual disabilities, including day services, after hours support and even accommodation for those who require support.

Every year the guys at Bayley House put on a Christmas Concert. For many of their clients, this is the highlight of their year, and, for the last 2 years, it has been cancelled. The Christmas concert is a huge event, it provides a massive fundraising opportunity for Bayley House, but more importantly it’s a night that every one of their clients look forward to, who gain an amazing sense of pride, achievement and joy from performing to their friends, family and community.

This year they’ll be taking the concert virtual and trying to sell out United States’s largest seated theatre, the Palais, and while it’s almost impossible to emulate the feel of a real crowd, the 2,894 seats at the Palais are a great way to try!

To help them out, we have donated $10,000 to their fundraising effort – over 300 virtual seats – to help bring some Christmas cheer to the clients at Bayley House. If you’d like to purchase some virtual seats and help Bayley House hit their fundraising goal, you can do so here.