OzBargain 2018 EoFY Charity Donations - $20,000 to Your Choice of Charities!

Update: These are the charities of choice from the community:

  • Royal Flying Doctor Service
  • Black Dog Institute
  • Kids With Cancer Foundation
  • Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia
  • Pets of the Homeless Australia

We'll be sending donations to those charities this week.


It's the 7th year since we started our very first End of Financial Year charity donation post, and the amount we are donating will be doubled to $20,000 to the top 5 charities voted by our community members. Instead of taking suggestions like our Christmas donations, I will just pick top 30 charities from our last donations that didn't get enough votes. So,

  • $20,000 to 5 charities ($4,000 each) picked from a list of 30.
  • You guys vote to help me decide which 5 we should be donating to this year.

Here's the list (in alphabetical order):

Here are the rules / terms:

  • Everyone gets 1 vote. Ghost accounts get penalised as per OzBargain rules.
  • Poll closes at 11:59pm next Friday 22 June.
  • Number of votes will be hidden during the poll, and will be revealed after closes.
  • Top 5 will be picked, and donation made during the last 2 weeks of June.

That's all. Here's our past donations page if you want to check out how it worked previously. Let the voting starts!

Poll Options expired

  • 86
    Royal Flying Doctor Service
  • 82
    Black Dog Institute
  • 81
    Kids With Cancer Foundation
  • 77
    Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia
  • 73
    Pets of the Homeless Australia
  • 72
    Dementia Australia
  • 56
    The Fred Hollows Foundation
  • 55
    Starlight Children's Foundation
  • 52
    Australian Red Cross
  • 50
    The Salvation Army
  • 40
    Muslim Aid Australia
  • 39
    Autism Spectrum Australia
  • 39
    William Wilberforce Foundation
  • 37
    OzHarvest
  • 35
    UNICEF Australia
  • 31
    Against Malaria Foundation
  • 31
    WWF-Australia
  • 30
    Big Ears Animal Sanctuary
  • 30
    World Vision Australia
  • 25
    Leukaemia Foundation
  • 25
    St Vincent de Paul Society
  • 24
    Charlie Teo Foundation
  • 24
    The Children's Hospital at Westmead
  • 22
    The Smith Family
  • 21
    Indigenous Literacy Foundation
  • 19
    Cambodian Children's Fund
  • 19
    Effective Altruism Australia
  • 19
    HeartKids
  • 19
    Meals on Wheels
  • 13
    Orange Sky Australia

Comments

  • +3

    These are the charities of choice from the community:

    • Royal Flying Doctor Service
    • Black Dog Institute
    • Kids With Cancer Foundation
    • Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia
    • Pets of the Homeless Australia

    We'll be sending donations to those charities this week.

    • Amazing. Thanks so much scotty.

    • Done 4. For Black Dog Institute, waiting for their "Double It Day" live event at 6:30PM today.

  • +2

    no unique commenters this time?

    • +6

      I usually leave that for the Christmas.

      • -7

        Scotty thank you very much for this. I vote for this money to be spent on Ozbargain servers and team.

      • -2

        Hi Scotty,

        As your list includes St Vincent de Paul, and the timing of their CEO sleepout fundraiser is very close, how about Vinnies?

        If your CEO hasn't yet registered to participate (to be sponsored to sleep out), please donate via Bernard Fehon who started this event for Vinnies some years ago. It is a fund raising event for the homeless that runs around Australia, and is now going around the world thanks to him. And if you sponsor Bernard you'd blow his $30k target right out of the water!!

        Or maybe you could split the $20k to sponsor participating CEO's of businesses associated with Ozbargain! Either way it gets to the right place.

        You, your CEO, or fellow Ozbargainers could sponsor Bernard here: https://www.ceosleepout.org.au/fundraisers/bernard-fehon/syd…

        All funds go to the need, no overhead % cuts for the collectors.

        • The $20k fund dedicated to this EoFY donation will be distributed to the community's choice of charities. Vinnies is just one of the choice that the community can vote for. We'll certainly donate to them if it comes out as one of the top 5 choices.

          The CEO Sleepout is however quite interesting. I'll take a look later.

  • +1

    Which charity supports cancer research in general? I realise it's a broad range of conditions but limiting funding to one area (breast, prostate, etc) seems a little strange to me.

    • +1

      We have been donating to Cancer Council every year as they have always been popular amongst OzBargainers. They also happen to be the one sending the past donors most mails. Actually received 2 from them in my PO Box today with glossy colour print to ask for more money.

      • +29

        Glossy colour print really seems to turn me off from donating to them. Makes you wonder how many they've sent out and how much of their budget was allocated to it.

        Hopefully the donations they receive make up for the loss.

        • +4

          I actually asked about costs involved with mail etc when I switched to electronic. They reliably receive more donations when mailouts, more than enough to offset costs of mail. Even non-profits need to operate as a business, so other than wasted printing and turning some people off, I can't see why they would stop.

        • @ronorboris: Correct. The donations make up for the loss of the sending out paper. Not much of an issue for someone big like Cancer Council but could the same be said for smaller charities?

        • +3

          It saddens me that lots of charities spend most of their money on marketing to raise more money and only a small amount actually goes to help the cause. Years ago I was looking at child sponsorship and found that several of the big names spend about 80% on overheads (marketing, administration). Check out any organisation carefully before signing up.

        • @rygle:

          I'm pretty sure World Vision was around 80% overheads. Couldn't think of the name before…

        • +1

          @rygle:

          Other way around, it's 81% on field programs & advocacy, 19% on overheads: https://www.worldvision.com.au

          Anyway, the real measure that charities should be judged by is their effectiveness.

        • @sgtpepper1963:

          Glad to be wrong on that! Can't remember details, but I remember it was a major charity player that had such high overheads!

          I guess the upshot is to do your research…

      • +2

        Call them up and ask them to only get electronic mail, or no mail at all. If you donate a large sum every year, and receive brochures, for all they know $10 in mailing costs a year gets them a huge donation at Christmas.

        If you ask to be taken off the mailing list and then later make a large donation every Christmas, they get the message wealthy donors think junk mail is a waste….

  • +2

    Great initiative Scotty, as usual.

  • +1

    Hi Scotty,

    Not sure if you'd be willing to add 'Yellow Ladybugs' to the list?

    It's an Australia-wide charity, which assists in helping autistic girls and their families. Sadly services for girls on the spectrum are really light, as the community at large still considers autism to be a male condition.

    https://www.yellowladybugs.com.au/

    Regards

    • +3

      Hi. Due to the extra complexity with the suggestion system, we'll leave that to our Christmas donations. Feel free to suggest that during December. For this poll we'll stick with these 30.

    • I can't say I've ever thought of it that way, do the normal support groups also take females or is this more of a specialised on girls sorta deal?

      • +2

        There are no male-only support groups, you won't find one that won't take women, there's no real problem being solved there.

        They do face unique problems though considering it presents differently, and most people think of it as a Male only problem, when it isn't.

      • +1

        Here is a link from Tony Attwood, probably the foremost expert on ASD in females

        To sum up his article, girls are almost always better at masking their core deficiencies compared to boys, meaning that they are sometimes dismissed as being too girly/emotional, and as a result they never receive early intervention. They tend to 'bottle up' their emotions and feelings at school, and explode at home once the 'mask' is off.

        Also because ASD girls interests are typically female-oriented, for example, horses, nature, fiction they are once again missed.

        http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/index.php?Itemid=181&id=80%3At…

  • -1

    Are you affiliated with OzHarvest ?

    • +13

      Err. No.

      • Does anyone remember OzNetwork? It was a search directory like Yahoo (at the time) with curated categories to browse through. Long gone now.

        • +1

          Remember Ozemail

  • +3

    Thank you for all the hard work Scotty.

    Is there a breakdown of each charity in terms of how much money (percentage) goes to the cause and how much is spent on admin fees and so on? Any help would be appreciated.

    • +14

      I came here to ask exactly this.

      The presence of highly paid charity executives turns me off. Why should we donate if they can't donate their time or at least (most) provide it for nominal remuneration?

      I don't want to support a scam.

      • Agreed.

      • +3

        Well, the idea that is the more you pay a CEO, the better the charity will be run. This has diminishing returns, however, and multi-million dollar salaries are rarely worth it.

        • +4

          I hope you mean, a higher salary can attract a better CEO. What you said is non sequitur.

          An aggressive CEO might affect more to be given to the cause, but less in proportion to revenue. That might look better for the charity and their cause, but is worse for donators.

          I'd prefer a CEO driven by genuine will for the cause.

    • +1

      Something that I would be very interested in as well. I'll link in the OP if there's some document / research on this.

    • +1

      I also came here to ask this. I think this is really important to consider when selecting charities.

    • +14

      We should all avoid the Shane Warne Foundations of the world. Having highly paid useless executives is clearly counterproductive

      Looking for a bargain on admin costs though is also very dangerous.

      You can hire a dumb IT guy for 50k, or attract a lot of talented candidates and choose the best for 100k. Should a charity hire a dumb one because then it looks like they spend less on admin? They'll waste heaps of time due to mistakes. But that won't be as visible to donors. The dumb guy might even leave all the donors credit card information vulnerable. The smart guy might ensure the safety and privacy of their details. But if donors don't ask about that and they do constantly ask about admin costs, the charity is facing some conflicting pressures.

      It costs 200k to do a independently audited annual report that tells donors how their money was spent. Or 50k to do a hatchet job. It costs money to do a survey to see if what you spent your money on actually worked. It costs no money to do never do a survey but then if it is never tested once, how do you know what is working and what isn't?

      There are websites like http://www.changepath.com.au/ to try and help figure out how responsible a charity is. That is not always correlated with the lowest % spent on admin

    • +2

      Smaller charities are better at allocating funds solely to their cause, rather than its admin. If I may, I would recommend Pets of the Homeless Australia who have a dedicated team of volunteers and achieve great work despite being a relatively new charity.

      • +1

        If you're trying to make the best of your charitable donation - i'd suggest Effective Altruism Australia. Basically use research from Givewell etc to determine the most effective charities to donate to.

        @scotty: is it worth stickying this thread somewhere so that it pops up when you load OzB? I only found it because i was curious if i missed this year's vote :)

        • It's highlighted on the home page.

        • @scotty: that's odd - see it now but didn't see it before :)

    • This site lists 900 Australian charities and breaks down costs, etc + gives an overall rating - http://www.changepath.com.au/index.php

    • +2

      Is there a breakdown of each charity in terms of how much money (percentage) goes to the cause and how much is spent on admin fees and so on?

      This doesn't quite answer your question, but one of the charities on the shortlist is Effective Altruism Australia.

      We partner with the charities ranked by independent evaluators as being the most effective at saving and improving lives.

      So if I have correctly interpreted your question as meaning that you value effectiveness, I'd suggest considering them for your vote.

  • +9

    Givewell.org

    Is a great resource for those who want to see where their donation is best allocated

  • +5

    If I may, I would like to throw a (potentially) absurd suggestion out there.

    What if we (as a collective) arranged an Ozb Meetup, where we volunteered and helped restore some charity facility or hand-out free food to people in need etc.

    I know it will be a huge task to organise but if there is enough support from the community, I'm willing to volunteer my time to help organise something on a mass scale.

    Benefit: cut out middle man so no wasted money on glossy papers and highly paid execs plus ozbargain Meetup (we could get sponsors) - 2 birds 1 stone

    Cost: difficult to organise and may take a bit of time. (I'm willing to volunteer time to help bring this idea to life).

    I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts. Particularly yours @Scotty.

    Thanks!

    • +3

      What's lacking is time and other resources (for me at least). "Cut out middle man" is easy said then done, and at the moment it's just easier for us to pay those more qualified "middle man" to do the good that we don't have time nor resource to do.

      However I won't stop you from registering a charity organisation, getting DGR registration and organise some community projects to actually do something good. If someone runs a charity organisation and can convince the OzBargainers that it has a worthwhile cause, I too can support it by donation.

      • +3

        Let's promote financial literacy!

        • *Raise awareness

      • Thanks for the insight Scotty!

        Agreed!

    • +2

      Actually charities always say the most effective way to help them is by donating money. There's a lot of overhead cost in organising and managing volunteers or in handling goods.

  • +2

    If you are looking for a charity to vote for, I would recommend Pets of the Homeless Australia. They provide pet food and supplies, veterinary care, and emergency boarding for the pets of people who are either experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. They act as a sort of preventative measure as they keep beloved pets with their owners rather than force them give them up to an already full shelter.

    They are a relatively small and new charity compared to some of the others on the list, but all the money donated goes towards their cause. Additionally, they have many different fundraising events throughout the year, such as a movie night that was run last night, an online auction coming up in July, a trivia night coming up later in the year, and several more. Even though they may be backed by a small group of volunteers, they achieve a lot and appear as if they're a much bigger charity.

    I'm pushing for Pets of the Homeless as I am currently one of its casual volunteers. I see the amount of work that gets put in behind the scenes which motivates me to recommend the charity to everyone I know. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask :)

    • +4

      I would rather help homeless people than their pets lol

      • +8

        You are helping them… actually both. Their pets are usually their closest friend.

      • +1

        Like m0nkeycheese says, pets are generally their closest friend if not their only companion. People in tough circumstances often put their pet's needs before their own, and by giving them one less thing to worry about, you're helping people get back onto their feet.

        • -2

          Why indirectly help them get back on their feet instead of directly helping them? Most panhandling homeless people use their pets as props anyway, i think the practice should be discouraged

        • +4

          @taylorn8r:

          Pets can often prevent people from accessing emergency services available to them, such as, crisis accommodation. In the past, caseworkers struggled to find a solution for people at-risk of homelessness with pets because there were no services available to help the pets themself. POTH works alongside several other charities for the homeless to provide essential services which are all there to help minimise a person's concerns so they are better able to escape their desperate situation.

          Most of the people we help are not the rough sleepers you see on the streets, but those who have escaped domestic violence and are sleeping in their cars or couch surfing. To many of them, giving up their pets is unthinkable as they see them as family. The people we help don't treat their pets like props but genuine family members.

      • +5

        Lots of people in this country care more about non-human animals than fellow human beings.

        • +2

          More often than not we receive calls from people who have escaped domestic violence situations. They can't access crisis accommodation because there are no pets allowed, so they'd rather risk it and sleep rough on the streets. The services that POTH provides can prevent this from happening. It's a charity all about helping both people and their animals.

        • +1

          It's quite sad isn't it…

  • Shame we can only pick one :(
    Great initiative though!

  • +3

    I would prefer money to go to charities directly rather than 80% being siphoned off as "expenses" by third party companies that collect money for real causes with no transparency.

    Good work Scotty and OzBargain.

  • +2

    Dementia Australia (!)

    • +1

      Yep, this is an underrated issue around the world, and has the potential to affect any one of us.

  • This is so great.
    Thanks for doing this!
    I have voted 😊

  • Really happy that this is happening every year and glad to be part of this community. Well done guys =)

  • Great work as usual Ozbargain! Thank you :)

  • Would recommend Orange Sky Australia, they're doing great work for the homeless of the country which really makes a difference. Also no high paid executives.

  • Can I suggest that the donation be auctioned to a member with a high tax bracket to "supercharge" the amount donated.

    As an example, if a taxpayer with annual income of $200K has pays $63.2K of tax, a $20,000 donation would reduce their tax to $54.2K (ie 9K less). The 9K saving could be directed to the charity, further reducing the tax payable.

    Accordingly, we could supercharge the OZB donation, by "selling" the $20K to the bidder who obtains the highest tax shelter from the funds. Note that none of the original donors could claim a deduction - but this may be palatable in the knowledge that their money will go further than they initially intended, and its going to a good cause!

    • +3

      We'll need a good deal on lube to prepare ourselves for the ATO if we start doing things like that.

      • +1

        I suspect Ozbargain itself will be using this deduction as it is a business

  • If you have child :
    Also consider how much extra you got from FTB Part/A ; Part/B and Childcare benefits by reducing your income by donating.

    May be you end up having same $$$$ in the bank.

    As an example, if a couple with one child with annual income of $100K (combined) has pays $17.5K of tax(combined).
    Now, $10,000x2 = $20,000 donation would reduce their tax to $10.60K (ie 7K less).

    Reduced income of 80K; their FTB Part A may increase by $4000 (reduced FTB Part A by 20 cents for each dollar of income over $52,706)

    Will received higher Child care benefit of approximately $2000.

    Net effect on bank balance will be cash income ($13000)+$4000+$2000=$7000.

    So every $200 doanated = you are out of pocket by $70 ONLY.

    Find good charity and share the smile.

  • +1

    Any chance on getting Guide Dog Australia, Scotty?

    • +2

      I am sticking to the 30 charities listed above. For our Christmas donations we'll be asking for suggestions.

  • Thanks for this! Very generous!

  • Thank you

  • +2

    Black dog institute

    • Second this.

    • Black Dog Institute made it to the Top 5!

  • Thanks Scotty for doing this.

  • +1

    Well done. Also just for those who do not know too much about the Charlie Teo Foundation. I am a big supporter given I am very much against the high "admin" costs of many charities. It would be great if charities published the % that actually went directly to causes.

    • Same here, that is why I voted for Charlie Teo Foundation. Plus any breakthrough in brain cancer research would be wonderful.

    • Exactly what I commented below.. should have a list with percentages spent on actual aid…

  • +1

  • +1

    Great to see the Against Malaria Foundation on the list - I'm a regular AMF donor and I think they're one of the most effective organisations in terms of dollars per lives saved.

  • +1

    Thanks Scotty,

    Is there a way that sort the list by smallest percentage of donations that get used for overheads?

    I want to support charities that are efficient.

    • +1

      I started looking into it myself but I think it would take way too long to make a list based on that. I also find it very important how much a charity actually spends on charity as opposed to overheads.

      I ended up picking the charity which I think provides the most incredible service. Fred Hollows. I can't imagine what it would be like to receive a gift of sight, but it gives me goosebumps thinking about it.

  • -2

    Wow, looks like RSPCA has been one of the choices almost every single year. Surely there are more important charities to vote for. Like you know, ones that help actual humans…

    • +1

      lol, prepare to be down voted to oblivion.

      For some reason they want access to our browsing history as well https://www.itnews.com.au/news/rspca-claims-metadata-critica…

    • +3

      Animals can't help themselves.

      • -5

        Neither can a kid with cancer, elderly with dementia, or anyone with heavy depression. I can keep going with examples if you'd like.

        • +2

          Animals can't help themselves and can't be helped by other animals. People can help other people.

    • Then it means enough people cared for the RSPCA's cause to vote them up. Consider the fact that much of the difficult work that animal shelters have to do is brought on by humans abandoning or abusing (for whatever reason) pets that they voluntarily brought into their lives. Animals can't help themselves and they can't choose how humans treat them, nor can they ask for help. I think of donating to such charities as redeeming a tiny portion of the horrible treatment that so many animals receive from people. And it's good to see a smaller organisation (Big Ears Animal Sanctuary) on this list, they've got my vote.

  • A lot of really good charities there who don't spend the majority of the funds on HR. growth and advertising, which I think is the most important thing when it comes to giving charity.

  • +1

    Hi @scotty, any chance of adding Royal Children's Hospital Foundation to the list?

    • +1

      Please see my previous comments — for this poll it's fixed to those 30 charities. We will however take suggestions from the community in our Christmas donation later in December.

  • Such a lovely idea. I love this.

  • I'd donate it to Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief here.

    Donations help disadvantaged orphan children living in the outskirts of Armenia.
    They provide regular updates and photos of orphan children getting education, food, water and clothes.

  • Finally, a vote that I am happy to do. Unlike the couple that I have to do next year… this time I was a choice of who is most worthy.

  • +2

    Good to see Dementia Australia up there - thanks Ozbargain.

  • Consider prostate or black dog.

    Men's health issues are horrendously underfunded and underpromoted.

    Thanks for this excellent endeavour!

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