OLYMPIC hero Cathy Freeman is set to make her way to Ballarat later this year to offer a different kind of inspiration: philanthropy.
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The Ballarat Foundation has secured the Sydney Olympic 400-metre gold medallist for a Celebration of Giving Lunch that will also feature John McLeod from leading philanthropy service JBWere.
While the city's residents have a strong reputation for helping each other that came to the fore in united COVID-19 pandemic campaigns on kindness, the median Ballarat gift giver offers 75 per cent of the average Victorian data in the Foundation's Vital Signs report shows.
Ms Freeman is best known for her athletics as one of the world's fastest women of all-time in the 400 metres but the past 20 years has used her sporting platform to work with Indigenous communities to close the gap in education.
The Ballarat Foundation chief executive officer Andrew Eales said further details for the event and its purpose were yet to be announced but Ms Freeman's philanthropic work aligned well in what the Foundation was trying to achieve.
"The event will be about our vision of giving in Ballarat for the next five years and how people can get involved and about ways we can all start driving bigger and better solutions to issues we have in Ballarat," Mr Eales said.
"This is an important event for us in securing Cathy to talk about her athletic career and her work since her athletic career, supporting Indigenous children's literacy skills."
Ms Freeman became the first Australian Aboriginal to win an individual Olympic gold in the Sydney Games.
Her race, and the hyped-up high-profile build-up across the nation, has also proven to be inspiration for the Matildas ahead of their FIFA World Cup opener this week. Ms Freeman paid the team a surprise visit.
Closer to Ballarat, Ms Freeman's runs at the Stawell Gift are the stuff of legends. Ms Freeman won back-to-back 400-metre sashes here in 1995-96 by hunting down all rivals off scratch.
Freeman's second blitz gave up starts of more than 54m in what was months out from her silver medal winning effort at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Stawell has long helped to promote the next chapter of Ms Freeman's life, the Cathy Freeman Foundation which was renamed the Community Spirit Foundation after she stepped down as director in late 2021.
Community Spirit Foundation programs take a holistic approach to education with schools and community leaders building on the strengths within the community and First Nations peoples to develop young people.
A lunch with Ms Freeman headlines a big year for The Ballarat Foundation, which raised almost $200,000 from its annual gala event Dancing With Our Stars last weekend.
The Foundation also launched its Ballarat Women's Fund in March as a targeted approach to promote equality and female focused crisis support. This is a participatory philanthropy model: a membership to the trust and an annual say on where to direct funding, based on a shortlist of presentations from not-for-profits working across the region.
The fund has already collected about $35,000 and will soon open for applications for the first round of pitches with a shortlist scheduled for early 2024.
Meanwhile, planning remains underway for the city's major fun run, Run for a Cause.
The Ballarat Foundation supports the city in community grants and programs and is the community's lead volunteer advocacy body.
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