Changing the Game: How Sharin Milner is Outfitting Teams to Fund Grassroots Sport
Sharin Milner, the founder of Split the Profit, is redefining how local sports are funded across Australia.
By leveraging custom apparel sales, she is creating a sustainable financial model that returns profits directly to grassroots clubs, ensuring that community sport remains accessible to all.
Discover how Sharin Milner is transforming the sports and corporate apparel industry by donating 50 percent of profits to local clubs, proving that everyday purchases can dismantle financial barriers and foster inclusive communities.
Why Community Sport Needs a New Playbook
Sharin Milner’s journey into social enterprise is deeply rooted in her extensive background as a professional athlete and a long-time champion for inclusion.
With over a decade of experience spanning health promotion and social impact, Sharin observed a distressing trend in Australian communities: too many families and individuals were being priced out of participating in local sport.
Financial barriers, from rising registration fees to the high cost of uniforms and equipment, were increasingly excluding vulnerable people from the physical and social benefits of community sports. This reality troubled Sharin, who understood firsthand the transformative power of being part of a team.
Her profound connection to grassroots sports provided her with a unique vantage point to identify the systemic issues plaguing local clubs.
She recognised that traditional fundraising methods, like weekend sausage sizzles, were placing immense pressure on volunteers and were often insufficient to keep participation costs low.
Sharin saw an opportunity to disrupt this cycle by tapping into an existing necessity: sports and corporate apparel. Combining her athletic background with eight years of experience in the apparel industry, she identified a gap in the market where purchasing power could be redirected to serve a greater social purpose.
This concern for equity and accessibility ignited the spark that would eventually become her impact-led business, driven by the simple but urgent need to keep community sport within reach for everyone.
Turning Everyday Purchases into Community Impact
Split the Profit operates on a brilliantly simple and highly effective business model that turns a standard procurement process into a powerful engine for social good.
The social enterprise designs and supplies custom sports and corporate apparel, as well as merchandise, at competitive prices. However, instead of retaining all the revenue, Split the Profit commits to returning 50 percent of its profits directly to local sporting clubs.
This significant financial contribution helps clubs reduce participation fees, purchase essential equipment, and support inclusive access programs that benefit the wider community.
When a team, workplace, or event organiser places an order for custom garments, they are empowered to nominate a local sports club to receive the funding.
This means that every single purchase actively contributes to the financial health of grassroots sports without costing the buyer a single extra cent.
By offering high-quality, custom-designed training gear, polos, hoodies, and workwear, Split the Profit ensures that their clients receive premium products while simultaneously fulfilling a corporate social responsibility objective.
As a driver of economic empowerment and financial inclusion, the enterprise effectively redirects money, time, and care back into communities. It is a tangible, highly scalable solution that seamlessly blends the worlds of commerce and philanthropy, proving that business can indeed be a force for good.
Making a Different Kind of Business Model Work
Launching a social enterprise that challenges established industry norms is never without its hurdles, and Sharin’s path has required significant resilience and strategic foresight.
One of the primary challenges was establishing a reliable supply chain that could deliver high-performance, sublimated team wear and custom garments at prices that remained competitive while still allowing for a massive 50 percent profit donation.
Balancing the scales between maintaining premium product quality, ensuring ethical manufacturing processes, and generating enough margin to create a meaningful impact demanded rigorous negotiation and deep industry knowledge.
Furthermore, convincing corporate clients and local teams to shift their purchasing habits away from entrenched suppliers required persistent education and advocacy.
Sharin had to clearly articulate the dual value proposition of Split the Profit: clients receive top-tier apparel whilst simultaneously injecting vital funds into local sports ecosystems.
Her selection as a 2025 AMP Foundation Tomorrow Maker provided crucial validation and support during this growth phase, offering capacity-building resources and strategic mentorship.
Through sheer determination and a steadfast commitment to her purpose, Sharin successfully navigated these operational and market challenges, laying a robust foundation for her enterprise to scale and create lasting, systemic change in the way community sports are funded.
Keeping More People in the Game
The ripple effect of Split the Profit extends far beyond the immediate financial relief provided to local sporting clubs. By injecting sustainable funding into grassroots organisations, the enterprise is fundamentally building community resilience.
When clubs receive these unrestricted funds, they are empowered to lower registration barriers, upgrade outdated facilities, and provide better resources for their players and volunteers.
This financial stability translates into stronger, more vibrant community hubs where people from all backgrounds can gather, connect, and thrive through shared physical activity.
For the volunteers who are the lifeblood of these clubs, the model offers a profound reprieve from relentless fundraising efforts, allowing them to focus on coaching, mentoring, and fostering a positive environment.
Furthermore, Split the Profit’s approach champions the broader concept of financial inclusion, ensuring that economic disadvantage does not dictate a person's ability to participate in community life. Sharin’s vision is actively dismantling the exclusivity that has crept into modern sports, creating an environment where every individual, regardless of their financial background, has the opportunity to experience the joy, discipline, and camaraderie of being part of a team.
This holistic approach to community building demonstrates the profound societal impact that a well-executed social enterprise can achieve.
A $500,000 Vision for Grassroots Sport
Sharin Milner’s leadership is characterised by authenticity, a deep-seated passion for equity, and a pragmatic approach to solving complex social issues.
Drawing from her impressive background as a professional athlete, she brings the same discipline, focus, and teamwork to her entrepreneurial endeavours. Her recognition as a 2025 AMP Foundation Tomorrow Maker underscores her status as a forward-thinking leader who is actively designing solutions for economic empowerment.
She leads by example, demonstrating that it is entirely possible to build a commercially viable business that holds social impact as its core driving metric.
Looking to the future, Sharin’s vision for Split the Profit is both ambitious and deeply inspiring. Following a highly successful pilot phase, she has set a bold target to return $500,000 annually to grassroots sports by the year 2029.
This goal reflects her unwavering commitment to scaling her impact and reaching more communities across the nation. Sharin encourages other aspiring changemakers to identify practical interventions within their own spheres of influence, proving that targeted, well-designed business models can drive meaningful societal shifts.
Her journey stands as a powerful testament to the fact that with genuine intent and innovative thinking, we can indeed change the game for the better.
To learn more about Split the Profit and their work, visit splittheprofit.com.au or connect with Sharin on LinkedIn.
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