philanthropyOz Blog

A Big Year for Philanthropy in Australia

Recently in the Resource Centre here at Philanthropy Australia we’ve been doing in-depth researching of the history of philanthropy in Australia. The gathering of these ‘stories’ of Australian philanthropy is a fascinating process, and our plans to archive them in order to better share the history is coming along well.

Of course, we’ve started sharing these stories through our Celebrating 30 Years project, as part of Philanthropy Australia’s 30 year anniversary.

Through this research process – and of course, communication with our Members – we’ve discovered more than once some serendipitous convergences of dates and numbers in the Australian philanthropy sector.

The following philanthropic organisations in Australia are celebrating significant anniversaries this year:

• Philanthropy Australia – 30th (and 10 years since we changed our name from “The Australian Association of Philanthropy”)
• Commonwealth Bank Staff Community Fund - 90th
• Queensland Community Foundation – 10th
• Melbourne Community Foundation – 10th
• RACV Foundation – 10th

It’s also been 100 years since the Administration and Probate Duties Act (in Victoria) established that “no duty whatsoever shall be payable thereunder in respect of any public charitable bequest or public charitable settlement”. It was this ruling that fostered the establishment of philanthropic trusts and foundations, and its beginning in Victoria explains why so many private philanthropic foundations are still based in the state today.

Last but definitely not least, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Life Member of Philanthropy Australia and inspiring philanthropist, many happy returns on her 98th birthday today.

3 New Papers, 1 News Item

New Papers:

• Understanding the CSR Landscape: A View from Corporate Australia
  5 February 2007: Katie Lahey’s address to the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility ‘Turning Point’ conference.
• Generosity and Taxation: An Overview
  Prepared for Philanthropy New Zealand, this paper describes New Zealand’s tax provisions with respect to donations, and compares the New Zealand context to tax incentives in the rest of the world. The paper also details reasons for generosity and discusses the ways in which generosity is affected by tax legislation.
• UK Philanthropy’s greatest achievements
  A new report on British philanthropy’s greatest achievements finds that a wide range of social advances are due, in part, to such charitable gifts. The survey from the Institute for Philanthropy, and in which CFN members participated, aims to inspire further acts of generosity.

Sector News Item:

• Queensland Community Foundation Announces First Grant Round
  Queensland Community Foundation (QCF) was established, in 1997, to provide a secure and accountable philanthropic vehicle to benefit the Queensland Community. This is the first time QCF is accepting applications for distribution of its funds.
  Application Forms and Criteria are available from the QCF website.

Climate Change

We run a collection of Topical Issues pages on our site, created on demand and keeping Members (and other interested visitors) up-to-date with new info on the issues that we think will be relevant to folk in the Australian philanthropy sector. Hopefully, this blog will help that process by allowing visitors to subscribe in order to receive immediate notification of updates of these pages.

With that in mind, we’d like to alert you to an upcoming media item on climate change. Climate change is undoubtedly a topical issue in Australian politics and society right now, and the philanthropy sector is no exception. You can find our Topical Issue page on climate change here.

This Thursday night (February 8th), ABC TV’s 7:30 Report is going to host a debate between Malcolm Turnbull (Federal Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) and Peter Garrett (Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Heritage, Arts) on climate change. Following the edition, we’ll locate the transcript online and link to it from our Climate Change page, in case you missed it.

The 7.30 Report also ran a segment on February 6th on climate change, featuring debate between the Government and the Opposition. You can read the transcript here.

There’s so much in the media on climate change right now, at times it can be a difficult task to sift through and find those items specifically relevant to the philanthropy sector. If you’ve found something we haven’t, please drop us a line via comment or email so we can share it around.

Celebrating 30 Years: Issue 3

This edition includes the features - Foundation Focus & Recognising Philanthropists: The Sir Albert Sakzewski Foundation and History of Australian Philanthropy: State Based Philanthropy.

Continue reading Celebrating 30 Years: Issue 3…

6 New Papers & Reports, New Climate Change Resource

New Papers & Reports:

• What Business Execs Don’t Know - but Should - About Nonprofits
  “Business leaders play vital roles in the nonprofit sector — as board members, donors, partners, and even executives. Yet all too often they underestimate the unique challenges of managing nonprofit organizations. In this article, 11 executives who have played leadership roles in both for-profits and nonprofits reveal the critical differences between the two, and suggest ways that business and nonprofit leaders can use this information to create a more effective social sector.”
  
  
• Funding for Impact: How to Design Strategic Grantmaking Programs
  Historically, philanthropic foundations have rarely had to justify the use of their funds as long as they were being directed to the public good. However, funders in Australia and overseas are increasingly attempting to demonstrate the impact of their grantmaking. The TCC Group, a US-based consulting firm that works with philanthropic foundations and corporate citizenship programs, has produced “Funding for Impact: How to Design Strategic Grantmaking Programs” to assist funders designing new grants programs, as well as those rethinking existing programs.
• Is Doing Good Good for You? Yes, Charitable Contributions Enhance Revenue Growth
  “A key question concerning socially responsible corporate activities is whether such actions achieve traditional goals, such as profit maximization and shareholder value creation, or whether such activities represent a drain on resources by opportunistic managers. Much of the debate about the legitimacy of and justification for socially responsible activities would be settled if it is convincingly shown that they further traditional business goals. In this study we provide such evidence.”
• The social responsibility of corporations
  “CAMAC’s report on The social responsibility of corporations aims to provide a pathway through the mass of material and opinions on this subject, as well as respond to questions raised in the terms of reference from the Government. While largely focused on the conduct of business corporations, the report notes that issues of social responsibility also arise for other entities, including public sector, non-profit and unincorporated bodies.”
• Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy (USA)
  The study focuses on those American households with incomes of over US$200,000 or assets over US$1million, which represent only 3% of US households but are collectively responsible for over two thirds of all US household giving. The study discovered that high net worth households have very different giving patterns to the overall US population, with less giving to religious organisations and more to combined-purpose organisations, education, the arts and culture.
• PPFs - Aggregate Statistics September 2006
  The latest statistics on donations to and distributions by Prescribed Private Funds in Australia. Figures collated by Myles McGregor-Lowns of the Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, QUT.

New Link on the Climate Change page:

• RealClimate.org - “Climate science from climate scientists”