philanthropyOz Blog

Child Abuse & Neglect in the spotlight - ABC TV Thur 9 Sept, 9.30pm

The increasing incidence of child abuse and neglect in Australia will take centre stage on 9 September at 9.30 pm with the tv premiere of an intense short film, Polly and Me, on ABC 1 during National Child Protection Week. The broadcast will be followed by a live audience discussion looking at solutions hosted by Geraldine Doogue.

Polly and Me is the story of a mother and child isolated from any support systems of community and family. The film is made by filmmaker and Philanthropy Australia member Ian Darling from The Caledonia Foundation, who previously created national attention with The Oasis – a feature documentary about a group of homeless youth on the streets of Sydney. The 25-minute film is part of a larger campaign to put the urgent need for prevention and early intervention on the national agenda.

Polly and Me is endorsed by leading family and child abuse prevention organisations including: Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), Benevolent Society, CREATE Foundation, Good Beginnings, Families Australia, Lighthouse Foundation, Lou’s Place, Mirabel Foundation, National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN), The Salvation Army and The Smith Family.

The producers and participants of Polly and Me are calling for every Australian to make child abuse and prevention their business. They want urgent effort and funding for prevention policies and programs, with a nationally-coordinated prevention and early intervention plan.

We encourage our readers to watch the documentary and join in the discussion.

Medicines for Malaria Venture makes IP freely available for neglected diseases research

New international Member MMV (Medicines for Malaria Venture) has become the first product development partnership (PDP) to contribute intellectual property to the Pool for Open Innovation Against Neglected Tropical Diseases.

The Pool was established in February 2009 by GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and has since been joined by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). It seeks to stimulate innovative and efficient drug discovery and development by providing public access to intellectual property (IP) and scientific know-how for neglected tropical disease research. The Pool is administered by BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH). The geographic focus of the pool will be the world’s Least Developed Countries as identified by the United Nations and includes much of western and central Africa as well as several countries in Southeast Asia.

Medicines for Malaria Venture, a not-for-profit public-private partnership, was established as a foundation in Switzerland in 1999. Its mission is to bring public, private and philanthropic sector partners together to fund and manage the discovery, development and delivery of new medicines for the treatment and prevention of malaria in disease-endemic countries.

As contributor to the Pool, MMV will make available its IP, technology and expertise in the research and development (R&D) of antimalarial drugs to researchers developing medicines for neglected diseases.

For more information see the press release on MMV’s website.

$2 million salary to science

Mike Quigley, chief executive of the National Broadband Network, will donate his entire first-year pay cheque of $2 million to Neuroscience Research Australia. The funds will be used for an initiative to deliver remote rehabilitation therapy to stroke patients using the Nintendo Wii games console, as well as for various other projects which will aid research into brain diseases and stroke rehabilitation.

More information on The Australian.

$25 million gift to UTS

Chinese business leader, Dr Chau Chak Wing, has made a donation of $25 million to the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). $20 million will go to construction of a new building for the Faculty of Business, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013 at a total cost of $150 million. The remaining $5 million will go to creating an endowment fund for scholarships.

For more information see the UTS news item.

The Giving Pledge: Buffett and Gates encourage wealthiest Americans to give

Warren Buffett has joined Bill and Melinda Gates in a new campaign urging billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth to philanthropy, either during their lifetime or after death. The campaign follows meetings they have been holding across America to encourage other billionaire donors to commit at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropy.

Warren Buffett, who has committed to pledging 99% of his wealth to philanthropy either during his lifetime or at death, explains his reasons in his own Philanthropic Pledge:

Millions of people who regularly contribute to churches, schools, and other organizations thereby relinquish the use of funds that would otherwise benefit their own families. The dollars these people drop into a collection plate or give to United Way mean forgone movies, dinners out, or other personal pleasures. In contrast, my family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge.

The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others.

More information is available at The Giving Pledge website: http://givingpledge.org/

International Award for The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund

The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund have been named as this year’s recipient of the prestigious International Funders for Indigenous People’s Award. The award is given annually, to an individual or institutional donor that exemplifies leadership in Indigenous Philanthropy.

This is the first time the award will be presented to an organisation outside of North America.

Christine Edwards, CEO of The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund will accept the Award at the Annual IFIP Awards Celebration during the Ninth Annual Conference themed, “Building and Sustaining Coalitions: Finding Common Ground for Education, Environment and Human Rights Advocacy,” to be held in May 2010 in Canada.

According to IFIP, The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund have been honoured with the 2010 IFIP Award in recognition of their “outstanding progress towards improving Indigenous education and well-being and support for better natural resource management in Australia.”

Some of the significant work supported by The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund in these areas in recent years includes the People on Country project of the Centre for Aboriginal and Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University, the Clontarf Foundation’s Football Academies in Alice Springs, and the innovative and influential Stronger Smarter program, developed and implemented by Dr Chris Sarra at the Indigenous Education Leadership Institute.

The award provides an opportunity to recognise a history of giving to indigenous affairs by The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund over many years, often in areas that were contentious. One of the most significant examples is research commissioned by the Foundation in the early 1970s called the “Aborigines in Australian Society” Project. Completed primarily by Charles Rowley, this work produced three volumes of writing under the overall title of “Aboriginal Practice and Policy”.

This work has been described as “… the foundation stone for contemporary reflection on Aboriginal history and policy” ,

Christine Edwards, CEO of The Myer Foundation and Sidney Myer Fund said “We are fortunate that Myer has a long history of strategic philanthropy, and that the Boards of both entities are progressive in their approaches to contemporary philanthropic practice.”

Past winners of the IFIP AWARD include the Garfield Foundation, The Christensen Fund, and the Kalliopeia Foundation.

The first recipient of the award was Susan Berresford, President of the Ford Foundation, for her leadership in increasing a greater commitment from a philanthropic institution for international Indigenous sustainable projects and communities.

Victorian Bushfire - tax amendments and interim reports

The Assistant Treasurer, Senator Nick Sherry, and the Hon Bill Shorten MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction, today announced that the Rudd Government will amend Federal tax law to allow the Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund to conduct a broader range of charitable and community activities. The amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 will apply retrospectively from 29 January 2009 and will apply only to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund, giving it extra flexibility to support bushfire‑affected communities as they recover and rebuild. The new provisions will enable the Fund to:

• Provide for long-term assistance to orphaned minors, under the age of 18, without the need for annual assessments;
• provide reimbursements to individuals or organisations for performed eligible charitable activities;
• provide a discretionary payment of up to $15,000 to assist households for the period in which they are in transitional housing;
• provide a grant of up to $10,000 to affected primary producers to use for repair and restoration of farm activities, including re-fencing of properties;
• and establish what is called a ‘look-through provision’ so, if a family has a farm in a trust or company, they will also be eligible for assistance.

For more information see the Assistant Treasurer’s press release.

The Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority has released its six-monthly report into the reconstruction and recovery efforts. The report is available for download from VBRRA’s website.

The 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission has released its interim report into the February 2009 bushfires. The interim report makes recommendations of measures that could be implemented to make Victoria safer for the next fire season. It is available to read or download from the Royal Commission website.

Vale Victor Smorgon

Philanthropy Australia is saddened by the loss of noted philanthropist Victor Smorgon AC, who died on July 3, aged 96. After emigrating to Australia from Ukraine as a child, Victor Smorgon moved his family business from the butcher’s shop started by his father into other areas such as meat exporting, fruit canning, and production of plastic and steel, making it Australia’s largest private company. Together with his wife Loti, Mr Smorgon was a generous donor to a variety of organisations and causes; they made news last year with a $15 million donation to the National Gallery of Victoria.

Philanthropy Australia extends our sympathies to Mr Smorgon’s family, friends and colleagues.

Small Grants for Small Regional Communities announced

Twenty-six community groups have shared Small Grants funding totalling more than $100,000 from the Gardiner Foundation in its Working in Dairying Communities small grants program administered by the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.

The Gardiner Foundation and FRRR have collaborated to deliver the Small Grants Program over the past seven years. The program offers grants of up to $5,000 for individual local projects to improve existing infrastructure and strengthen small rural communities.

The projects funded in this round are diverse and include:

• a calf-rearing program at a primary school to educate children about farm animals and increase awareness of dairying as a potential career. Calves donated by local dairy farmers would be cared for at the school, and generate an income stream to sustain the program
• improvements to infrastructure and equipment for community facilities such as halls and kindergartens
• training for young people with a disability
• improving women’s finance and budgeting skills
• promoting health and fitness through walking tracks and exercise facilities
• establishment of a kitchen garden to raise children’s awareness of the source of food, and promoting health eating
• computers for improved functioning in community organisations and development of capability through targeted computer training

More information from the Geoffrey Gardiner Dairy Foundation.

Podcast: The Bad Samaritan

A recent BBC World Service podcast, The Bad Samaritan, looks at the Bernard Madoff fraud from the perspective of the charities and foundations involved, some of which are now facing the prospect of lengthy court action to “claw back” the money they received.

To listen, visit the BBC World Service Documentary Archive and scroll down to 21 May 2009, The Bad Samaritan. You can listen online or download as an MP3 file.