OPINION PIECE - Kiri Coughlan works at Vodafone as an External Communications Manager.

Corporate philanthropy can reveal a lot about the company you work for.

Charities know how to make a little go a long way – so donations of money, time off work to spend with a charity, matching employee donations – that makes a difference.

But you can feel it when your company digs deep and makes a contribution with the power to change many lives, as well as empowering the people on the frontline to spread their help to the furthest reaches.

It makes a difference to the DNA of your office - it makes you proud to be part of something pretty cool.

And that’s where my introduction to The Vodafone Foundation’s World of Difference programme comes in.

Late last year five amazing people walked into the Vodafone Auckland viaduct building – and were met by an impressive support structure to help them face the challenge of a year for doing good.

This year the five award recipients are funded to the tune of $100,000, towards their salary, development, and project costs, as well as mentoring and advice from people drawn from right across the business.

For Victoria Hearn at Lifewise, that’s a vital chance to draw breath, and work out a way to meet the growing need for young people experiencing homelessness.

She's seen children as young as 12 on the streets of Auckland.

There are also increasing numbers of young teens forced into survival sex, exchanging their bodies for food, clothing and shelter, or dealing and using drugs to survive.

Many get stuck in the cycle of homelessness because they can’t sign a tenancy agreement as they’re not 18. There are few other accommodation options.

For Tabby Besley, who founded InsideOUT to provide much needed support networks in schools for young people of sexual and gender minorities, the award is a vital acknowledgement that young rainbow people matter.

It means the chance of a safe haven – a feeling they belong, instead of getting urine thrown over them at school, or nearly run down, deliberately, in small town New Zealand.

She still faces school officials with rolls of 1,400 kids telling her they don’t have gay students so they don’t need help organising a support network – in 2017.

Then there’s Karla Sanders, co-founder of Sticks ‘n Stones, a youth led organisation delivering anti-bullying programmes.

Her group give advice on stopping and blocking cyber bullying, with things like Vodafone’s Blacklist service, but they know if a young person’s being bullied online, it’s probably also happening in person.

Earlier this year a young woman reached out when an ex was using intimate images in a concerted cyber campaign, drawing in friends, family – even her boss, anything to humiliate her.

The support she received helped her to not be swallowed whole by the hell he was creating, practical steps to limit the damage, and empowered her to take legal action against him.

Karla’s award means growing from a regional project to a national programme – and supports her dream of making bullying as socially unacceptable one day as drink driving has become.

Des Warahi will spend his year supporting the Matipo Community Development Charitable trust in Whanganui.

Des talks with quiet pride of the volunteers with extraordinary vision – the community garden feeding healthy kai, the training programmes that offer a way up.

The programme will support 20 whanau – that means the kids don’t have to do it all themselves, there’ll be intergenerational engagement – Nanny is just as big a part as the teens themselves.

I can do becomes I will, for the whole family.

Kendal Collins is the fifth recipient, recently co-founding Sisters United with her two sisters, which aims to build the self-esteem of young women.

At 30, she feels her confidence has taken 28 years to build – it’s only recently she’s felt strong in her culture – able to say Talofa.

She wants young Maori and Pacific Island women to have that strong foundation in their teens, and knows engaging them in creative arts peer-mentoring at sister Parris Goebel’s dance studio could prove the difference in turning dreams to reality.

For Kendal Vodafone’s support is a blessing rather than just funding.

It’s the first company to believe in the vision, to tell her she can do amazing things in the community. It matters.

At the event launch on a warm November night last year, after the amazing dancers from the Royal Family Dance troupe strutted their stuff, the room erupted.

The people at the frontline helping vulnerable young people don’t often get the recognition they deserve. That night they finally did.

And for the child, sitting at a bus stop, with nowhere else to go… it’s a chance at a new life we should all be working to support.