News & Events
ACF (through a generous donation from one of our supporters) was a sponsor of 'Celebrate Australia', the first ever Australia Day Concert to take place in the Sydney Domain. As part of the sponsorship package, ACF had an advertisement published in The Sydney Morning Herald.
View the full 'Workplace Giving Donations Make a World of Difference' advertisement.
Australians are making their hard earned charitable donations work harder. Nationwide, employees and employers are discovering workplace giving programs may just be one of the best things about going to work.
Early in 2009, amidst the global financial crisis, headlines shouted consumer confidence was at an all time low. People were staying home and making do. Less was the new more. This was no time to be asking Australians to put their hand in their pocket for charity.Fate had other plans. Victoria’s Black Saturday was a vivid portrait of what it means to be ‘Australian’. Loss. Courage. Mateship. Fighting side by side against a foe who would not be held at bay. The response? Australians collectively opened their hearts and their wallets.The Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal raised $382 Million. Staggering given the state of the economy, and the largest charitable fundraising of its kind in Australia. Less well known is, while the donations represent the heartfelt generosity of hundreds of thousands of individuals, many of these donations were made by employees from their pay through their organisation’s workplace giving program.
Employers matched employee donations dollar for dollar in many instances says The Australian Charities Fund CEO Ted Kerr. “This collective impact lies at the heart of workplace giving. People giving what they can. Whether it’s one dollar or ten, it adds up. Employer matching helps make employee donations work even harder.”
Matching is the number one reason most employees join their organisation’s workplace giving program. This was just one of the findings in the year long groundbreaking research study Cutting to the Heart of Workplace Giving recently released by the ACF.
In research donors talked openly about their need to make a difference. Giving with others made them feel their donations could have more impact. As employees, workplace giving donors also said they were more engaged in the workplace, and had greater pride in their organisation.
Greater employee and community engagement is just one of the benefits of an effective workplace giving program Kerr says. Beyond the impact of the donations, charities benefit from workplace giving in other ways. The savings in fundraising dollars, time and resources are very tangible ways workplace giving makes donations work harder for charities.
Donating directly from their payroll system, workplace giving donations were among the easiest Bushfire Appeal donations to administer says Australian Red Cross Senior Executive Workplace Giving Belinda Barnier.
“Workplace giving reduced the administrative impost for Red Cross and achieved the benefits associated with a pre-tax donation for the donor.”
For many employees, the Bushfire Appeal was their first experience of donating through the workplace. Kerr says it helped ACF lift awareness and extend the reach of workplace giving to another 53,000 Australian workers last year.
Informally, Australians have been chipping in for years when the hat’s been passed round at work. After ACF lobbying, Government changes opened the door allowing employees to get an immediate tax deduction when their donations are deducted by their employer on pay day, without the need to keep and claim receipts.
Workplace giving programs can bring people together, helping improve employee and community engagement. Since 2003 ACF facilitated workplace giving programs have raised over $54 Million, helping almost 200 charities make a difference - and helping Australians’ donations to charity work even harder.
Contact us to find out more about Workplace Giving or how ACF can help.
