community foundations in australia
Today, the number of community foundations exceeds 30 across Australia and this number is steadily growing with a further nine under various stages of development.
Community foundations in Australia vary greatly in size and are mainly very small in terms of capital and are managed with sparse resources. Volunteer-run community foundations would be approximately 20 percent of the total, and usually the volunteers are on the board. The great majority of community foundations have one or maybe two paid part-time staff members. It would be a reasonable estimate to say that around 90 percent of new income to Australian community foundations came from individuals and families, 5 percent from corporate sources, and 5 percent from local foundations. In time, income will also come from bequests from people passionate about their local community. The estimate is that around 90 percent of new funds donated to community foundations in Australia go into endowment funds. If the few largest community foundations were removed from the calculation, the answer would be very different and a large percentage of funds donated to smaller community foundations would be for flow through grantmaking.
Community foundations in Australia have reached an important milestone in their journey to become a major form of philanthropy in Australia.
The need for specific and specialised national support is now considered essential to assist community foundations to prosper both individually and as a national body.
There remain several factors that limit the ability of many community foundations to fully realise their potential:
- The low level of knowledge about community foundations within the Australian community;
- The lack of a longer term source of seed funding to support the initial fundraising and grants administration effort; and
- A complex tax environment.