As Oprah’s Big Give wrapped up its first season on ABC Sunday night, the big winner was Stephen Paletta, a technology entrepreneur from New York, whom the judges felt best negotiated the obstacles to effective philanthropy that they had put in his way.
He ended up walking away with a cool $500,000 for himself and another $500,000 to give away (the contestants did not know there would be a cash reward for the winner until the last moments of the show).
While Mr. Paletta did perform admirably given the parameters of the show, Big Give was a loser for the professionals who run nonprofit organizations and foundations.
Television offers a great opportunity to educate and to make people passionate about causes — especially when a philanthropist and television personality as popular as Oprah Winfrey is sponsoring the lessons.
But the show ended up featuring amateur and embarrassing efforts at giving. It passed off as entertainment people wasting thousands of dollars of donated money and did little to help the American public learn what it really takes to change the lives of other people. Oprah’s last words on the show Sunday night were to encourage the television audience to “give big,” which is a worthy goal, but the television program failed to show average Americans how they can become effective and strategic philanthropists.
The premise of Oprah’s Big Give was that 10 people were given bundles of cash they had to give away in ridiculously short time periods with all sorts of weird restrictions that changed each week. Part of each challenge was for the players to use their cash as a multiplier, and they were judged, in part, on how they got noncontestants to participate.
Their efforts were judged by several high-net-worth individuals who have developed their own philanthropic endeavors: the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver; Malaak Compton-Rock, the founder of StyleWorks and the wife of the comedian Chris Rock; and Tony Gonzalez, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team.
Notably absent from this group was a professional foundation officer or any person skilled in evaluating effective giving.
My irritability with Oprah’s Big Give developed after watching week two of the show and went up and down as the show progressed. In that episode, contestants were each given $4,800 and a car and just 48 hours to find a worthy cause and turn the original dollars and the car into something more.
A few of the contestants banded together and did a wonderful job raising money for a children’s home. At the end, they gave the cars to the home to help with transportation needs.
However, one of the contestants, Angelo, identified a veteran wounded in the Iraq war whom he had hoped to help, but instead he embarrassed the veteran and squandered Oprah’s resources.
Angelo persuaded the manager of a local TGIFriday’s restaurant to give the veteran free meals once a week for a year. Angelo then gave the veteran $4,600 of the cash. Then, inexplicably, and as the cameras rolled, Angelo gave the car — a brand new Ford Edge, worth more than $35,000 — to the restaurant manager, as the veteran looked on in disbelief. Angelo later explained that it was important to reward donors to “inspire” others. In a just result, the judges kicked Angelo off for his poor effort and judgment.
While I am sure the producers were overjoyed that they got an “aha” moment — the kind of moment that reality television thrives on when a person does something truly idiotic and self-destructive — I was in disbelief.
Unlike, for example, in Hell’s Kitchen, where the result is a trendy Los Angeles couple being told that the flank steak they ordered is burned beyond recognition, here more than $35,000 in charitable giving had gone up in smoke. At a feeding center for the needy in my neighborhood, that money would have provided a meal to 105,000 people. And what is worse, the veteran got a pittance.
If I was irritable in week two, I was fuming by the end of week four.
In that episode, the Maloof brothers, wealthy Las Vegas entrepreneurs and owners of the Sacramento Kings basketball team, gave each contestant $100,000 to give out in just 24 hours. The catch was that the seven remaining contestants could not give out more than $500 to one person or $10,000 to one place, and they could not give cash.
The losers that week were truly pathetic.
Kim was so directionally and geographically challenged that she could barely find a charity to which she could give the bulk of her money.
She ended up buying some toys for a pet shelter and giving away free gas to people, on a first-come-first-serve basis, rather than even attempting to figure out for whom a tank of gas would be truly helpful. She left more than $80,000 on the table.
The other loser in week four, Eric, promised the family of a deceased police officer that he would pay for the funeral but then got busy and missed it. Eric left $70,000 unused.
Even the winner in week four, Stephen, did not come out smelling like a rose. He ended up spending all of his $100,000, but he did so by going to a low-income neighborhood and, to beat the time limitation, giving away random appliances and home electronics regardless of the needs of the household. Getting a new refrigerator is not so great if your electricity is about to be turned off.
In other reality shows, the opportunity cost is low: If the contestant screws up, they don’t get something that never was theirs to begin with. But here, Oprah allocated the money for charitable purposes and it was wasted – mostly to give drama to the show so it had high ratings.
So if Oprah puts the show on for a second season, here’s what she should do if she wants to teach a serious lesson about charitable giving.
At the end of each episode, she should introduce a real hero — a trained foundation officer, perhaps, or an accomplished nonprofit leader — to save the day and make the money work.
Something like Supernanny, where an experienced child-care provider pulls the hapless parents and undisciplined kids back from the brink and creates order out of chaos.
If our hero had three golden rules for the contestants, here’s what they would be based on:
* Listen carefully. Too often donors have a preconceived idea of what needs to be done. Gifts of time or money are ineffective if they don’t match an actual need.
* Understand that general-support grants are like gold. They give an organization maximum flexibility and place resources where they are needed most. Some of the best philanthropy on Oprah’s Big Give was when contestants helped out with needs for the kinds of things donors usually hate to pay for — like salaries and utility bills. The decision to give the cars to the children’s home was something that deserved a lot of praise because it probably was something the organization would have trouble acquiring any other way.
* Move beyond the quick fix. Most contestants on Oprah’s Big Give looked to find a person in need, help them with an immediate problem, and move on. Effective philanthropy often does require a quick fix, but it can’t end there. Smart donors must spend part of their resources on understanding the problems that cause the immediate need and then develop a long-term action plan to solve the underlying issue. This requires them to focus on a few causes and, ideally in collaboration with other donors, devote resources to a mix of research, advocacy, and direct services.
If anybody has earned the right to experiment with philanthropy, it is Oprah Winfrey. She has given tens of millions of her own money away and another $51-million through her Angel Network foundation.
She has clearly inspired others to give as well.
So while her show sometimes gave me heartburn, I admire her for starting a serious discussion about the meaning and effectiveness of philanthropy among average Americans.
For those of us who depend on philanthropy and especially for those who dole it out, the conclusion of Big Give seems like an opportunity to take a hard look at our own work. After all, we don’t want our judges — the boards of directors who oversee charities and foundations —to send us packing.
Joshua Horwitz is executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, in Washington.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Oprah
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Sunday, April 27, 2008
'Oprah's Big Give' finale pays off, By James Hibberd - The Hollywood Reporter - 21st April 2008
The season finale of ABC's "Oprah's Big Give" (10 million viewers, 3.2 rating among adults 18-49 and a 9 share) won its time period and concluded on a solid note.
ABC is trying to avoid making any more series pickup announcements until its upfront presentation to advertisers next month, but feel free to consider "Big Give" a likely contender for the return list.
ABC won the night with the top three shows, yet had some disappointing numbers by comparison to earlier this year. "Desperate Housewives" dropped 7% to post another series low (15.6 million, 5.5/13). With the weaker lead-in, return of "Brothers & Sisters" to originals was down 18% from its prior average (10.5 million, 3.6/10).
Fox was second with six animated comedy repeats (averaging 4.3 million, 2.0/6). CBS was third with "60 Minutes" (10.6 million, 1.5/5), "Big Brother" (6.8 million, 2.3/6) and the original movie "Sweet Nothing in My Ear" (8.2 million, 1.5/4). NBC had "Dateline" (1.2/4) and repeats, including USA Network repurposed shows (averaging 1.2/4). The CW was on par (averaging 0.5/1).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Oprah
Media Companies
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
ABC is trying to avoid making any more series pickup announcements until its upfront presentation to advertisers next month, but feel free to consider "Big Give" a likely contender for the return list.
ABC won the night with the top three shows, yet had some disappointing numbers by comparison to earlier this year. "Desperate Housewives" dropped 7% to post another series low (15.6 million, 5.5/13). With the weaker lead-in, return of "Brothers & Sisters" to originals was down 18% from its prior average (10.5 million, 3.6/10).
Fox was second with six animated comedy repeats (averaging 4.3 million, 2.0/6). CBS was third with "60 Minutes" (10.6 million, 1.5/5), "Big Brother" (6.8 million, 2.3/6) and the original movie "Sweet Nothing in My Ear" (8.2 million, 1.5/4). NBC had "Dateline" (1.2/4) and repeats, including USA Network repurposed shows (averaging 1.2/4). The CW was on par (averaging 0.5/1).
Media Man Australia Profiles
Oprah
Media Companies
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Where did all the money go?, by Kelly Burke, Debra Jopson and Erik Jensen - The Sydney Morning Herald - 26th April 2008
A charity king was a pin-up for celebrities until his inability to manage his finances and refusal to open his accounts drove many away, write Kelly Burke, Debra Jopson and Erik Jensen.
For years, he has been Sydney's nice guy, almost too good to be true.
"Only selfless service can encourage a person to reach the higher state of humanity," his charitable foundation's website declares.
He goes by the names Jeff Gambin, Geoff Gambin, Javert Gambin and Javert Herbert Gambin and, according to Australian Securities and Investments Commission records, was born in 1948 in Calcutta and Tibet.
His reported claims to fame are many: an entomology degree from Cambridge University, one-time ownership of a chain of 18 restaurants, a qualified gourmet chef with Parisian awards, holder of a commercial pilot's licence, a black belt in karate and possessor of a $7.5 million fortune that has been lavished on the homeless.
However, it was Gambin's invention of a charity to feed Sydney's homeless 15 years ago, inspired after reportedly being given a blanket on a cold, windy night by a homeless man on a park bench, that conferred on him a public image nearing sainthood, attracting stars of the screen, the corporate world and the media as money-pullers and volunteers.
Until this week.
At 9am on Thursday, investigators from the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing tried in vain to seize financial documents from the building at Rozelle that was donated so his foundation could have a kitchen from which to feed the poor. Lawyers for the foundation, appointed the night before, were given a further two weeks to produce records from Gambin's Just Enough Faith Foundation and a sister company of the same name set up by Packer family interests to assist him.
A week ago, Gambin was photographed by a newspaper playing pokies in the Balmain Leagues Club, where, as bank statements seen by the Herald show, between June 2005 and July 2007, he withdrew almost $150,000 of the foundation's money at the club's ATM.
The pattern of the bank account's transactions shows a disturbing regularity. Several afternoons each week $800 in cash would be withdrawn from the club's ATM. About two hours later, a further $200 would be withdrawn. Occasionally the pattern would change, with $500 being the initial amount withdrawn, followed 90 minutes to two hours later by another $500.
A liquor store, a beauty salon and the rates on a Gold Coast flat owned by Gambin and his wife appeared to have been paid from the charity's account, which is littered with multiple dishonour fees from cheques written for as much as $40,000. There were also many fund transfers of thousands of dollars each into at least three different credit cards.
Confronted by Channel Nine on Monday, Gambin said he had put only about a tenth of the account's funds into the pokies. He met clients and donors in the club and often he would hand out cash directly to those in need, without receipts, he said.
By Thursday night a public relations firm was helping him out, but yesterday he was still declining to answer an extensive list of questions put to him by the Herald.
Was this the charismatic entrepreneur revered on the church, school and Rotary Club speaking circuit, who wooed the Packer media executive John Alexander to roll up his sleeves and dish out hot meals alongside him, and who with his wife Alina, according to his foundation website, spent $7.5 million of his own money on helping the homeless?
Was this the same man who in 1996 claimed: "I've won several cocktail and chef awards in my time - both here and in Paris and Chicago. In fact you can say I'm credited with having invented the now-famous Blue Lagoon cocktail in 1972"?
Or who said in 2005: "I had a resort-style home, a Mercedes, a motor lodge cruiser, everything"?
Many have been helped by the man's good works. But many have also been burnt by his grand schemes gone awry. Fearing damage to the cause of aiding the poor, all have held their tongues until now.
Hidden truths have begun to tumble out about the dark side of Gambin's grandiose gestures. Perhaps most burnt of all are the volunteers who became bewildered, then disenchanted, over Gambin's cavalier attitude to accounting.
"Jeff insisted there was absolutely no money and I kept wondering how could a charity operate on such a shoestring," says Alan Byrne, former member of Friends of Just Enough Faith, a committee whose members have blown the whistle.
After seven years of feeding the homeless every Friday night and raising more than $120,000 for the charity, in January last year John Oliver, a retired investment banker with Babcock & Brown, decided to walk away.
"I was just concerned about the lack of governance and financial transparency out there. And there were rumours of Jeff having some sort of a gambling problem. People said that they'd seen him gambling, but it was just their word against Jeff's."
Oliver says that by the end of 2006, he and his fellow volunteers had been reduced to buying pigs' cheeks for 50 cents a kilogram to keep the food program going. "Once the money ran out the food deteriorated quickly. All we had was fatty rubbish, the food was absolutely dreadful and we struggled in the kitchen to make suitable quality."
In 2004, Gambin had told Qantas's inflight magazine: "I give them lobster, duck a l'orange, quail, prawns … what we try to do is ease the pain."
About the same time, a group of well-heeled corporate identities realised there was a need to ease the foundation's book-keeping pain. A separate company, Just Enough Faith Foundation Limited, which emanated out of the Packer family's Publishing and Broadcasting Limited headquarters in Park Street, was set up with the aim of raising funds "for the distribution to Just Enough Faith registered charity", according to its 2005 financial report.
Its directors included Gretel Packer, the Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris, and Alexander. Its big fund-raiser was a $2000-a-ticket shindig for the premiere of the Russell Crowe movie Cinderella Man, with the full support of the star. It raised $1.4 million, which was apportioned to the charity in monthly instalments over the next 12 months. The Packer interests also provided the charity with an accountant who was on the PBL payroll to help with the chaotic book-keeping.
But not even the accountant was able to access the accounts, controlled by Gambin and his wife. When the charity failed to provide the paperwork, Park Street cut the money flow. The company was deregistered in December. "I think when PBL and Russell Crowe got involved, it just went to his head," Byrne says.
Since October 2005, the Park Street interests alone have donated almost $1.8 million into a charity that cost just $300,000 a year to run efficiently, according to Friends of Just Enough Faith committee members. Yet the charity appeared to be broke.
Gambin appears to have lived by the poet Browning's thought: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp."
Oliver says: "He was always prone to exaggeration … embellishing how much he did … Quite often he'd tell people he was feeding 600 to 700 people a night … there were seldom as many as 300 people."
In 1999, Gambin reportedly offered $6 million for Notre Dame, the 42-hectare castle estate with a private zoo at Mulgoa, before pulling out of the sale. Byrne recalls him talking about establishing an Olympics for homeless people, then becoming fixated with the idea of establishing a rural airline to reach drought-ravaged farmers.
"It was very frustrating, because we were just trying to make sure a simple service which fed 150 homeless people a night was not going to go under," Byrne says.
In southern NSW, Gambin has become a local hero over the past year.
"He's been wonderful to our town," says the licensee of the Deniliquin's Exchange Hotel, David Rogers, who is still owed hundreds of dollars from a farmers' social function Gambin organised in the pub last month.
"The money is nothing at all," Rogers says.
In February, Gambin planned an ambitious morale-boosting event for farmers. Griffith and Conargo shire councils needed little persuasion to help; Gambin had put together an extraordinary list of celebrities he claimed had volunteered for his Australia's Biggest Ever Bloke's Day Out.
On the program - advertised in press releases from both councils - were Kostya Tszyu, Wayne Gardiner, Ron Barassi, Glenn McGrath, Mark "Bomber" Thomson, Paul Vautin, Craig Parry, Paul Harrogan, the entire Holden and Ford racing teams, the Sydney Swans, Vince Sorrenti and James Morrison. More than 3000 men, many brought in by bus from hundreds of kilometres away, converged on remote Pretty Pine, 18 kilometres north-west of Deniliquin.
Brad George, a Deniliquin radio announcer who had promoted Gambin's event on his radio program, recalls: "There wasn't too much happening, I can tell you.
"Don't get me wrong. The food was all free, the blokes had a good day, but everyone was asking 'where's Kostya Tszyu?"' In Russia, as it turns out. Of all the celebrities Gambin had promised, just two - Gardiner and Sorrenti - showed up.
George confronted Gambin. "He was evasive … and just kept walking."
The general manager of Conargo Shire Council, Barry Barlow, says: "So a couple of names didn't appear on the day … but Jeff provided two tonnes of sausages and 600 kilos of onions. All we saw was smiles on people's faces and slaps on the back saying what a tremendous success the day was."
Is this man crooked or just plain eccentric and the world's worst bookkeeper? Channel Nine asked earlier this week.
Where had the Packer millions gone? "On all this," Gambin replied, as the camera panned around the interior of a new Rozelle dental and medical centre, destined to treat 28,000 patients a year, the program said.
Gambin expressed fears the centre would not open this week because of the bad publicity. But, according to five of the tradesmen who built the centre and who spoke to the Herald this week, it was finished months ago - and came in at almost zero cost to the foundation, because materials and labour worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were all donated.
The centre has been waiting for its first patient for months, says Byrne, who estimates he has ploughed more than $60,000 of his company's money into the centre's construction. Despite the dental crisis for Sydney's poor, its doors remain closed.
Transparency has been the missing element in Gambin's life mission, seeing that it involves a tax-free charity and the use of public funds, says Doug Ferris, a community affairs consultant who has worked with him in western Sydney.
"He needs to separate the private money for the business from the money for the charities, because it is not clear [which is which]. People could think it is the private money going in there [to his business or the poker machines]," Ferris says.
"He has never faced that. He allows his magnanimous gestures to overcome that. He keeps cycling through people."
On Sydney's south-west fringe there is still bad blood between Gambin and Minto real estate residents because of his handling of a slice of former Department of Housing land, according to Ferris.
Gambin's charity obtained the land in December 2001 for $1 to hold in trust for the residents to create their dream of a children's community park. But Gambin failed to sign a document drawn up pro bono by Blake Dawson Waldren. In May 2004, the foundation mortgaged the land for $350,000, unbeknown to the children's park group.
The foundation defaulted on the mortgage and Campbelltown Council stepped in and bought the land for $350,000 to ensure the park went ahead.
Ferris says even though the charity had to pay rates and land tax, it made a good profit, leaving some children's park organisers livid. Ferris tried to help Gambin's organisation to become more professional and accountable. "I offered my help. But I wasn't able to. He just wanted to control things. I just walked away."
It took Gambin five years and a legal fight to agree to pay outstanding rent on a Berala property he leased from an elderly woman under a residential tenancy agreement he signed in March 2000. He finally paid in January this year, after failing to comply with a court order, sending a cheque that was dishonoured and taking defamation action against the debt collector.
Late yesterday, a spokeswoman from the board of trustees said the foundation would be unable to comment on the events of the past week until it received legal and accountancy advice. Gambin had told Channel Nine earlier in the week: "I regret it. If I had to spend more time on book-keeping, I would have spent less time on what I do best."
After seven years of volunteering and fund-raising for the foundation, Oliver says that like many other volunteers, he feels more frustrated than angry that it has come to this.
"We've met some wonderful people and have helped a lot of people out. But if the funds had been used effectively, we could have achieved so much more," he says.
"If [the foundation] doesn't continue, we just hope another organisation can step in and use the facilities."
Media Man Australia Profiles
Charity
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
For years, he has been Sydney's nice guy, almost too good to be true.
"Only selfless service can encourage a person to reach the higher state of humanity," his charitable foundation's website declares.
He goes by the names Jeff Gambin, Geoff Gambin, Javert Gambin and Javert Herbert Gambin and, according to Australian Securities and Investments Commission records, was born in 1948 in Calcutta and Tibet.
His reported claims to fame are many: an entomology degree from Cambridge University, one-time ownership of a chain of 18 restaurants, a qualified gourmet chef with Parisian awards, holder of a commercial pilot's licence, a black belt in karate and possessor of a $7.5 million fortune that has been lavished on the homeless.
However, it was Gambin's invention of a charity to feed Sydney's homeless 15 years ago, inspired after reportedly being given a blanket on a cold, windy night by a homeless man on a park bench, that conferred on him a public image nearing sainthood, attracting stars of the screen, the corporate world and the media as money-pullers and volunteers.
Until this week.
At 9am on Thursday, investigators from the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing tried in vain to seize financial documents from the building at Rozelle that was donated so his foundation could have a kitchen from which to feed the poor. Lawyers for the foundation, appointed the night before, were given a further two weeks to produce records from Gambin's Just Enough Faith Foundation and a sister company of the same name set up by Packer family interests to assist him.
A week ago, Gambin was photographed by a newspaper playing pokies in the Balmain Leagues Club, where, as bank statements seen by the Herald show, between June 2005 and July 2007, he withdrew almost $150,000 of the foundation's money at the club's ATM.
The pattern of the bank account's transactions shows a disturbing regularity. Several afternoons each week $800 in cash would be withdrawn from the club's ATM. About two hours later, a further $200 would be withdrawn. Occasionally the pattern would change, with $500 being the initial amount withdrawn, followed 90 minutes to two hours later by another $500.
A liquor store, a beauty salon and the rates on a Gold Coast flat owned by Gambin and his wife appeared to have been paid from the charity's account, which is littered with multiple dishonour fees from cheques written for as much as $40,000. There were also many fund transfers of thousands of dollars each into at least three different credit cards.
Confronted by Channel Nine on Monday, Gambin said he had put only about a tenth of the account's funds into the pokies. He met clients and donors in the club and often he would hand out cash directly to those in need, without receipts, he said.
By Thursday night a public relations firm was helping him out, but yesterday he was still declining to answer an extensive list of questions put to him by the Herald.
Was this the charismatic entrepreneur revered on the church, school and Rotary Club speaking circuit, who wooed the Packer media executive John Alexander to roll up his sleeves and dish out hot meals alongside him, and who with his wife Alina, according to his foundation website, spent $7.5 million of his own money on helping the homeless?
Was this the same man who in 1996 claimed: "I've won several cocktail and chef awards in my time - both here and in Paris and Chicago. In fact you can say I'm credited with having invented the now-famous Blue Lagoon cocktail in 1972"?
Or who said in 2005: "I had a resort-style home, a Mercedes, a motor lodge cruiser, everything"?
Many have been helped by the man's good works. But many have also been burnt by his grand schemes gone awry. Fearing damage to the cause of aiding the poor, all have held their tongues until now.
Hidden truths have begun to tumble out about the dark side of Gambin's grandiose gestures. Perhaps most burnt of all are the volunteers who became bewildered, then disenchanted, over Gambin's cavalier attitude to accounting.
"Jeff insisted there was absolutely no money and I kept wondering how could a charity operate on such a shoestring," says Alan Byrne, former member of Friends of Just Enough Faith, a committee whose members have blown the whistle.
After seven years of feeding the homeless every Friday night and raising more than $120,000 for the charity, in January last year John Oliver, a retired investment banker with Babcock & Brown, decided to walk away.
"I was just concerned about the lack of governance and financial transparency out there. And there were rumours of Jeff having some sort of a gambling problem. People said that they'd seen him gambling, but it was just their word against Jeff's."
Oliver says that by the end of 2006, he and his fellow volunteers had been reduced to buying pigs' cheeks for 50 cents a kilogram to keep the food program going. "Once the money ran out the food deteriorated quickly. All we had was fatty rubbish, the food was absolutely dreadful and we struggled in the kitchen to make suitable quality."
In 2004, Gambin had told Qantas's inflight magazine: "I give them lobster, duck a l'orange, quail, prawns … what we try to do is ease the pain."
About the same time, a group of well-heeled corporate identities realised there was a need to ease the foundation's book-keeping pain. A separate company, Just Enough Faith Foundation Limited, which emanated out of the Packer family's Publishing and Broadcasting Limited headquarters in Park Street, was set up with the aim of raising funds "for the distribution to Just Enough Faith registered charity", according to its 2005 financial report.
Its directors included Gretel Packer, the Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris, and Alexander. Its big fund-raiser was a $2000-a-ticket shindig for the premiere of the Russell Crowe movie Cinderella Man, with the full support of the star. It raised $1.4 million, which was apportioned to the charity in monthly instalments over the next 12 months. The Packer interests also provided the charity with an accountant who was on the PBL payroll to help with the chaotic book-keeping.
But not even the accountant was able to access the accounts, controlled by Gambin and his wife. When the charity failed to provide the paperwork, Park Street cut the money flow. The company was deregistered in December. "I think when PBL and Russell Crowe got involved, it just went to his head," Byrne says.
Since October 2005, the Park Street interests alone have donated almost $1.8 million into a charity that cost just $300,000 a year to run efficiently, according to Friends of Just Enough Faith committee members. Yet the charity appeared to be broke.
Gambin appears to have lived by the poet Browning's thought: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp."
Oliver says: "He was always prone to exaggeration … embellishing how much he did … Quite often he'd tell people he was feeding 600 to 700 people a night … there were seldom as many as 300 people."
In 1999, Gambin reportedly offered $6 million for Notre Dame, the 42-hectare castle estate with a private zoo at Mulgoa, before pulling out of the sale. Byrne recalls him talking about establishing an Olympics for homeless people, then becoming fixated with the idea of establishing a rural airline to reach drought-ravaged farmers.
"It was very frustrating, because we were just trying to make sure a simple service which fed 150 homeless people a night was not going to go under," Byrne says.
In southern NSW, Gambin has become a local hero over the past year.
"He's been wonderful to our town," says the licensee of the Deniliquin's Exchange Hotel, David Rogers, who is still owed hundreds of dollars from a farmers' social function Gambin organised in the pub last month.
"The money is nothing at all," Rogers says.
In February, Gambin planned an ambitious morale-boosting event for farmers. Griffith and Conargo shire councils needed little persuasion to help; Gambin had put together an extraordinary list of celebrities he claimed had volunteered for his Australia's Biggest Ever Bloke's Day Out.
On the program - advertised in press releases from both councils - were Kostya Tszyu, Wayne Gardiner, Ron Barassi, Glenn McGrath, Mark "Bomber" Thomson, Paul Vautin, Craig Parry, Paul Harrogan, the entire Holden and Ford racing teams, the Sydney Swans, Vince Sorrenti and James Morrison. More than 3000 men, many brought in by bus from hundreds of kilometres away, converged on remote Pretty Pine, 18 kilometres north-west of Deniliquin.
Brad George, a Deniliquin radio announcer who had promoted Gambin's event on his radio program, recalls: "There wasn't too much happening, I can tell you.
"Don't get me wrong. The food was all free, the blokes had a good day, but everyone was asking 'where's Kostya Tszyu?"' In Russia, as it turns out. Of all the celebrities Gambin had promised, just two - Gardiner and Sorrenti - showed up.
George confronted Gambin. "He was evasive … and just kept walking."
The general manager of Conargo Shire Council, Barry Barlow, says: "So a couple of names didn't appear on the day … but Jeff provided two tonnes of sausages and 600 kilos of onions. All we saw was smiles on people's faces and slaps on the back saying what a tremendous success the day was."
Is this man crooked or just plain eccentric and the world's worst bookkeeper? Channel Nine asked earlier this week.
Where had the Packer millions gone? "On all this," Gambin replied, as the camera panned around the interior of a new Rozelle dental and medical centre, destined to treat 28,000 patients a year, the program said.
Gambin expressed fears the centre would not open this week because of the bad publicity. But, according to five of the tradesmen who built the centre and who spoke to the Herald this week, it was finished months ago - and came in at almost zero cost to the foundation, because materials and labour worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were all donated.
The centre has been waiting for its first patient for months, says Byrne, who estimates he has ploughed more than $60,000 of his company's money into the centre's construction. Despite the dental crisis for Sydney's poor, its doors remain closed.
Transparency has been the missing element in Gambin's life mission, seeing that it involves a tax-free charity and the use of public funds, says Doug Ferris, a community affairs consultant who has worked with him in western Sydney.
"He needs to separate the private money for the business from the money for the charities, because it is not clear [which is which]. People could think it is the private money going in there [to his business or the poker machines]," Ferris says.
"He has never faced that. He allows his magnanimous gestures to overcome that. He keeps cycling through people."
On Sydney's south-west fringe there is still bad blood between Gambin and Minto real estate residents because of his handling of a slice of former Department of Housing land, according to Ferris.
Gambin's charity obtained the land in December 2001 for $1 to hold in trust for the residents to create their dream of a children's community park. But Gambin failed to sign a document drawn up pro bono by Blake Dawson Waldren. In May 2004, the foundation mortgaged the land for $350,000, unbeknown to the children's park group.
The foundation defaulted on the mortgage and Campbelltown Council stepped in and bought the land for $350,000 to ensure the park went ahead.
Ferris says even though the charity had to pay rates and land tax, it made a good profit, leaving some children's park organisers livid. Ferris tried to help Gambin's organisation to become more professional and accountable. "I offered my help. But I wasn't able to. He just wanted to control things. I just walked away."
It took Gambin five years and a legal fight to agree to pay outstanding rent on a Berala property he leased from an elderly woman under a residential tenancy agreement he signed in March 2000. He finally paid in January this year, after failing to comply with a court order, sending a cheque that was dishonoured and taking defamation action against the debt collector.
Late yesterday, a spokeswoman from the board of trustees said the foundation would be unable to comment on the events of the past week until it received legal and accountancy advice. Gambin had told Channel Nine earlier in the week: "I regret it. If I had to spend more time on book-keeping, I would have spent less time on what I do best."
After seven years of volunteering and fund-raising for the foundation, Oliver says that like many other volunteers, he feels more frustrated than angry that it has come to this.
"We've met some wonderful people and have helped a lot of people out. But if the funds had been used effectively, we could have achieved so much more," he says.
"If [the foundation] doesn't continue, we just hope another organisation can step in and use the facilities."
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Net widens as celebrity fund raided, by Erik Jensen, Debra Jopson and Kelly Burke - The Sydney Morning Herald - 26th April 2008
The Rozelle headquarters of the Just Enough Faith Foundation has been raided by gambling officials in a attempt to seize papers from its founder, Jeff Gambin, and a related company affiliated with the Packer family.
The raid occurred days after Mr Gambin admitted he fed poker machines with money donated to feed the homeless.
NSW authorities have determined that the foundation breached laws governing charitable fund-raising three times in the past 11 years but, after barring the foundation's registration to raise funds, did little to alert members of the public that they should not donate to it.
The foundation's website was still calling for donations yesterday, saying it was a registered charity and urging those wanting to give cash to contact Mr Gambin or his wife by phone.
The Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, which registers charities in NSW, is investigating the finances of both the incorporated foundation established by Mr Gambin 15 years ago and a company of the same name set up by people associated with Packer media interests, a spokesman for the liquor office said.
The board of the company, which was deregistered in December, included John Alexander, the chairman of James Packer's company Consolidated Media Holdings; Mr Packer's sister, Gretel; and the founder of Wizard Home Loans, Mark Bouris.
Mr Gambin was not at the headquarters when officers raided it on Thursday morning but the foundation's lawyers, appointed the night before, undertook to provide financial documents within two weeks, said the spokesman, Mark Nolan.
The foundation was banned from raising funds in NSW in 2002, after it was found in breach of the Charitable Fundraising Act three times. But it is exempt from paying tax and is staffed by offenders placed by the Department of Corrective Services. Donations to it are tax-deductible.
A restaurateur and philanthropist whose food vans have fed the homeless since 1993, Mr Gambin has won the support of prominent people other than members of the Packer circle.
The broadcaster Alan Jones said he was concerned by what he had read about the charity but Mr Gambin had done "a phenomenal amount of good for destitute people" in Sydney. "And what's to happen to those people if this charity is torpedoed, I don't know," he said.
According to bank statements seen by the Herald, Mr Gambin has withdrawn almost $150,000 from the foundation's bank account at Balmain Leagues Club. Other withdrawals had been made to pay for liquor and rates on the Gold Coast unit Mr Gambin owns with his wife, Alina.
On Monday, Mr Gambin told the Channel Nine program A Current Affair he had put foundation money into poker machines. By yesterday he had secured the services of Professional Public Relations but declined to answer questions from the Herald.
At the foundation's Rozelle kitchens, 23 staff who have been sentenced to community service are supplied by the Department of Corrective Services.
"Since these allegations [of financial mismanagement], we're reviewing the offenders working there," a spokeswoman for the department said. "But at the moment it seems they are doing charitable work."
Asked about the discrepancy between the charity's deregistration in NSW and its federal tax status, a Tax Office spokeswoman said the laws were separate.
The Herald has also found that in 1997 the charity regulator asked police to investigate a fund-raising dance held without authority and with no record of money going to the foundation. There was not enough evidence for police to act.
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The raid occurred days after Mr Gambin admitted he fed poker machines with money donated to feed the homeless.
NSW authorities have determined that the foundation breached laws governing charitable fund-raising three times in the past 11 years but, after barring the foundation's registration to raise funds, did little to alert members of the public that they should not donate to it.
The foundation's website was still calling for donations yesterday, saying it was a registered charity and urging those wanting to give cash to contact Mr Gambin or his wife by phone.
The Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, which registers charities in NSW, is investigating the finances of both the incorporated foundation established by Mr Gambin 15 years ago and a company of the same name set up by people associated with Packer media interests, a spokesman for the liquor office said.
The board of the company, which was deregistered in December, included John Alexander, the chairman of James Packer's company Consolidated Media Holdings; Mr Packer's sister, Gretel; and the founder of Wizard Home Loans, Mark Bouris.
Mr Gambin was not at the headquarters when officers raided it on Thursday morning but the foundation's lawyers, appointed the night before, undertook to provide financial documents within two weeks, said the spokesman, Mark Nolan.
The foundation was banned from raising funds in NSW in 2002, after it was found in breach of the Charitable Fundraising Act three times. But it is exempt from paying tax and is staffed by offenders placed by the Department of Corrective Services. Donations to it are tax-deductible.
A restaurateur and philanthropist whose food vans have fed the homeless since 1993, Mr Gambin has won the support of prominent people other than members of the Packer circle.
The broadcaster Alan Jones said he was concerned by what he had read about the charity but Mr Gambin had done "a phenomenal amount of good for destitute people" in Sydney. "And what's to happen to those people if this charity is torpedoed, I don't know," he said.
According to bank statements seen by the Herald, Mr Gambin has withdrawn almost $150,000 from the foundation's bank account at Balmain Leagues Club. Other withdrawals had been made to pay for liquor and rates on the Gold Coast unit Mr Gambin owns with his wife, Alina.
On Monday, Mr Gambin told the Channel Nine program A Current Affair he had put foundation money into poker machines. By yesterday he had secured the services of Professional Public Relations but declined to answer questions from the Herald.
At the foundation's Rozelle kitchens, 23 staff who have been sentenced to community service are supplied by the Department of Corrective Services.
"Since these allegations [of financial mismanagement], we're reviewing the offenders working there," a spokeswoman for the department said. "But at the moment it seems they are doing charitable work."
Asked about the discrepancy between the charity's deregistration in NSW and its federal tax status, a Tax Office spokeswoman said the laws were separate.
The Herald has also found that in 1997 the charity regulator asked police to investigate a fund-raising dance held without authority and with no record of money going to the foundation. There was not enough evidence for police to act.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Charity
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Friday, April 25, 2008
Virgin Unite (Wikipedia profile)
Virgin Unite is the working name of The Virgin Foundation, the independent charitable arm of the Virgin Group. Created by Richard Branson and Virgin employees in September 2004, Virgin Unite pools volunteering efforts from across the Virgin Group and its hundreds of subsidiaries and associated companies to grow the efforts of smaller grassroots charitable organizations. Partnered with more than a dozen charities worldwide the company also provides a resource through the Internet by serving as an online donation centre for those wanting to contribute.
The primary aims of the foundation are to make sustainable change through economic development towards tough social and environmental issues. These include addressing the issue of delivering healthcare to rural parts of Africa. Branson and Virgin underwrite all the operating costs of the organization, so 100% of contributions can be applied towards causes.
History
Parent charitable organizations - 1987
AIDS was first recognized on June 5, 1981. In 1986, it was reported that three to five million Americans would be HIV positive and one million would be dead of AIDS by 1996. In response to such reports, Virgin incorporated a charitable group called The Healthcare Foundation on August 3, 1987 to provide research in and education about AIDS.[4] In July 1988, the foundation's charitable objectives expanded to include the relief of poverty and the relief of disabled persons from their disabilities.
Virgin Unite - 2004
In 2003, the foundation sought to determine what others thought it should focus on. After spending six months speaking with social issues groups, Virgin Group suppliers and partners, and numerous Virgin staff members in South Africa, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the organization concluded that many people and companies were deterred from participating in philanthropic activities by the complexities of the charity sector. The foundation sought then to use the Virgin Group's corporate and organizational experience to identify the best practices in this sector and to facilitate the entry of new participants.
Between 1987 and 2004, Virgin Unite operated first as The Healthcare Foundation and then the The Virgin Healthcare Foundation. In mid-September 2004, Virgin established the subsidiary The Virgin Foundation doing business as Virgin Unite in the United Kingdom to coordinate all Virgin's worldwide charitable ventures. Citing the spread of HIV in Africa and the twin problems of malaria and malnutrition as the first priority issues, Branson explained his reasoning behind Virgin Unite:
I've reached the age [54] where I've made a lot of money, the companies are going really well and we've got a lot of talented people working for us. Now we are going to turn our business skills into tackling issues around the world where we can help. ... In the next 30 years or so I can make an enormous difference to a lot of people's lives just by using the strength of my own brand name and being able to pick up the phone and get through to the President of Nigeria or Thabo Mbeki. We have the financial resources and the business know-how. If the Virgin foundation works as I hope it will, it could be that Virgin becomes better known for that than for the businesses we are in.
Branding
Virgin Unite has created a branding scheme based around the idea of redemption to encourage Virgin company employees to donate their time, rather than their money, to one of twelve partner charities. The launch scheme included the strapline 'Spend time with your better side', a brochure, posters and promotional items that juxtapose the seven deadly sins with seven good deeds: lust is contrasted with love, for instance, and gluttony with generosity. According to Virgin Unite, this approach was largely driven by the principles of having fun and celebrating the reality of how people live their lives, while encouraging them to donate time.
Distribution of educational materials
Also in 2004, Virgin Unite helped launch "Your Finest Hour", a campaign that distributed more than one million copies of educational materials across the United Kingdom. The campaign also raised more than GB£50,000 for South Africa's "Women and Men on the Move Project",[ uniting three South African charities and targets vulnerable young women between ages 15 and 24, who comprise four of every five new HIV infections among South Africans in this demographic. For these actions, Virgin Unite received the Business Excellence Leadership award from the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC) in September 2005.
Outside the UK
In 2006, Virgin Unite established itself in the United States and Canada and presently is operational in the South Africa and Australia. In addition, Virgin Unite was cited in 2006 as an example of organizations founded by philanthropic entrepreneurs, young billionaires putting the benefits of capitalism to charitable use.
Activities
The foundation is involved in several activities, including to end obstetric fistula. It has also been involved in youth AIDS awareness campaign, and helped organize a clothing drive for homeless and at-risk youth at Virgin Megastores in cooperation with the charity StandUp for Kids. A main activity of Virgin Unite is to raise money and awareness to help defeat on a global scale what the foundation refers to as The Big 3: AIDS, HIV, and malaria/tuberculosis. In the United States, Virgin Unite is focusing on global warming and rehabilitating homeless children.
Website
Virgin Unite
Media Man Australia Profiles
Virgin Unite
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Disclaimer: Media Man Australia director, Greg Tingle, is a pro active member of Virgin Unite
The primary aims of the foundation are to make sustainable change through economic development towards tough social and environmental issues. These include addressing the issue of delivering healthcare to rural parts of Africa. Branson and Virgin underwrite all the operating costs of the organization, so 100% of contributions can be applied towards causes.
History
Parent charitable organizations - 1987
AIDS was first recognized on June 5, 1981. In 1986, it was reported that three to five million Americans would be HIV positive and one million would be dead of AIDS by 1996. In response to such reports, Virgin incorporated a charitable group called The Healthcare Foundation on August 3, 1987 to provide research in and education about AIDS.[4] In July 1988, the foundation's charitable objectives expanded to include the relief of poverty and the relief of disabled persons from their disabilities.
Virgin Unite - 2004
In 2003, the foundation sought to determine what others thought it should focus on. After spending six months speaking with social issues groups, Virgin Group suppliers and partners, and numerous Virgin staff members in South Africa, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the organization concluded that many people and companies were deterred from participating in philanthropic activities by the complexities of the charity sector. The foundation sought then to use the Virgin Group's corporate and organizational experience to identify the best practices in this sector and to facilitate the entry of new participants.
Between 1987 and 2004, Virgin Unite operated first as The Healthcare Foundation and then the The Virgin Healthcare Foundation. In mid-September 2004, Virgin established the subsidiary The Virgin Foundation doing business as Virgin Unite in the United Kingdom to coordinate all Virgin's worldwide charitable ventures. Citing the spread of HIV in Africa and the twin problems of malaria and malnutrition as the first priority issues, Branson explained his reasoning behind Virgin Unite:
I've reached the age [54] where I've made a lot of money, the companies are going really well and we've got a lot of talented people working for us. Now we are going to turn our business skills into tackling issues around the world where we can help. ... In the next 30 years or so I can make an enormous difference to a lot of people's lives just by using the strength of my own brand name and being able to pick up the phone and get through to the President of Nigeria or Thabo Mbeki. We have the financial resources and the business know-how. If the Virgin foundation works as I hope it will, it could be that Virgin becomes better known for that than for the businesses we are in.
Branding
Virgin Unite has created a branding scheme based around the idea of redemption to encourage Virgin company employees to donate their time, rather than their money, to one of twelve partner charities. The launch scheme included the strapline 'Spend time with your better side', a brochure, posters and promotional items that juxtapose the seven deadly sins with seven good deeds: lust is contrasted with love, for instance, and gluttony with generosity. According to Virgin Unite, this approach was largely driven by the principles of having fun and celebrating the reality of how people live their lives, while encouraging them to donate time.
Distribution of educational materials
Also in 2004, Virgin Unite helped launch "Your Finest Hour", a campaign that distributed more than one million copies of educational materials across the United Kingdom. The campaign also raised more than GB£50,000 for South Africa's "Women and Men on the Move Project",[ uniting three South African charities and targets vulnerable young women between ages 15 and 24, who comprise four of every five new HIV infections among South Africans in this demographic. For these actions, Virgin Unite received the Business Excellence Leadership award from the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC) in September 2005.
Outside the UK
In 2006, Virgin Unite established itself in the United States and Canada and presently is operational in the South Africa and Australia. In addition, Virgin Unite was cited in 2006 as an example of organizations founded by philanthropic entrepreneurs, young billionaires putting the benefits of capitalism to charitable use.
Activities
The foundation is involved in several activities, including to end obstetric fistula. It has also been involved in youth AIDS awareness campaign, and helped organize a clothing drive for homeless and at-risk youth at Virgin Megastores in cooperation with the charity StandUp for Kids. A main activity of Virgin Unite is to raise money and awareness to help defeat on a global scale what the foundation refers to as The Big 3: AIDS, HIV, and malaria/tuberculosis. In the United States, Virgin Unite is focusing on global warming and rehabilitating homeless children.
Website
Virgin Unite
Media Man Australia Profiles
Virgin Unite
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Disclaimer: Media Man Australia director, Greg Tingle, is a pro active member of Virgin Unite
Charitable unity, by Steve Creedy - The Australian - 25th April 2008
Qantas is consolidating its charitable and community activities in a single charitable foundation under a separate board of directors.
Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford announced yesterday that the new board, headed by Starlight Foundation chair Doug Jukes, would oversee a fund of more than $5 million, including $3.4 million raised from the sale of some artworks. He said it would co-exist alongside the airline's existing community programs and allow it to expand into new areas, including the environment, humanitarian relief and Australian contemporary art.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Qantas
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford announced yesterday that the new board, headed by Starlight Foundation chair Doug Jukes, would oversee a fund of more than $5 million, including $3.4 million raised from the sale of some artworks. He said it would co-exist alongside the airline's existing community programs and allow it to expand into new areas, including the environment, humanitarian relief and Australian contemporary art.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Qantas
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Charity had high-profile support but no trace of paper trail, by Connie Levett and Erik Jensen - The Sydney Morning Herald - 21st April 2008
Two former supporters of Just Enough Faith, a charity that feeds the homeless in Sydney, expressed serious concern yesterday about the way its founder, Jeff Gambin, has managed it.
The charity, which once had the support of the Packer family and such high profile backers as Alan Jones and Russell Crowe, is in the spotlight after The Sunday Telegraph published allegations that Mr Gambin financially mismanaged it.
The stockbroker Tim Buckley was a volunteer with the charity when Mr Gambin asked him to join a six-member committee, Friends of Just Enough Faith, that was to take over the operations of Just Enough Faith.
He became public officer on the committee but resigned from that post, and from the committee, last July.
"My No. 1 concern was the lack of any financial records, any bank statements, any paperwork, any procedures that suggested the charity was even remotely complying with the requirements for a charity," Mr Buckley said yesterday. "That was my observation. If those procedures were being done, I was not privy to them, yet I had 100 per cent access to the offices of Just Enough Faith. If such paperwork existed I never saw it."
Mr Gambin has been lauded for his work with the homeless. He received a humanitarian of the year award in 2000. In 2005 Russell Crowe premiered his film Cinderella Man at a charity fund-raiser hosted by Alan Jones and sponsored by the Packers that raised $1.3 million.
"PBL had agreed under Kerry Packer's guidance it would fund up to $66,000 a month to the extent that documentation was provided," Mr Buckley said.
"The first $1.3 million was paid without documentation and only one more payment was made after that, because we were unable to provide documentation."
Alan Byrne, another committee member of Friends of Just Enough Faith, told the Herald Mr Gambin "comes across as brilliant, very charismatic. He undoes more than he does".
"I never saw any money physically go into the charity," Mr Byrne said. "He used to sit in the committee and say 'I know I've done wrong'. I think he meant the money wasn't going where it was supposed to be going."
At Callan Park yesterday, the charity's operations manager, Ian MacGregor, said he did not know of Mr Gambin's gambling and had not seen details of the charity's finances. He said Mr Gambin often paid running costs without him knowing whether it was Mr Gambin's money or the charity's.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
The charity, which once had the support of the Packer family and such high profile backers as Alan Jones and Russell Crowe, is in the spotlight after The Sunday Telegraph published allegations that Mr Gambin financially mismanaged it.
The stockbroker Tim Buckley was a volunteer with the charity when Mr Gambin asked him to join a six-member committee, Friends of Just Enough Faith, that was to take over the operations of Just Enough Faith.
He became public officer on the committee but resigned from that post, and from the committee, last July.
"My No. 1 concern was the lack of any financial records, any bank statements, any paperwork, any procedures that suggested the charity was even remotely complying with the requirements for a charity," Mr Buckley said yesterday. "That was my observation. If those procedures were being done, I was not privy to them, yet I had 100 per cent access to the offices of Just Enough Faith. If such paperwork existed I never saw it."
Mr Gambin has been lauded for his work with the homeless. He received a humanitarian of the year award in 2000. In 2005 Russell Crowe premiered his film Cinderella Man at a charity fund-raiser hosted by Alan Jones and sponsored by the Packers that raised $1.3 million.
"PBL had agreed under Kerry Packer's guidance it would fund up to $66,000 a month to the extent that documentation was provided," Mr Buckley said.
"The first $1.3 million was paid without documentation and only one more payment was made after that, because we were unable to provide documentation."
Alan Byrne, another committee member of Friends of Just Enough Faith, told the Herald Mr Gambin "comes across as brilliant, very charismatic. He undoes more than he does".
"I never saw any money physically go into the charity," Mr Byrne said. "He used to sit in the committee and say 'I know I've done wrong'. I think he meant the money wasn't going where it was supposed to be going."
At Callan Park yesterday, the charity's operations manager, Ian MacGregor, said he did not know of Mr Gambin's gambling and had not seen details of the charity's finances. He said Mr Gambin often paid running costs without him knowing whether it was Mr Gambin's money or the charity's.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Community and Philanthropy Websites
Media Man Australia recommends the following websites and resources relating to community and philanthropic matters
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The Elders
Virgin Unite
Australian Specific Websites
Grants Link (Government Grants website)
Philanthropy Australia
Community Builders NSW
Social Ventures Australia
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The Elders
Virgin Unite
Australian Specific Websites
Grants Link (Government Grants website)
Philanthropy Australia
Community Builders NSW
Social Ventures Australia
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Community Media - Social Entrepreneur (Wikipedia)
Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurialship principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.
History
The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were first used in the literature on social change in the 1960s and 1970s [1]. It came into widespread use in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton the founder of Ashoka, [2], and others such as Charles Leadbeater [3]. From the 1950s to the 1990s Michael Young was a leading promoter of social enterprise and in the 1980s was described by Professor Daniel Bell at Harvard as 'the world's most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises' because of his role in creating over 60 new organizations worldwide, including a series of Schools for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK.
Although the terms are relatively new, social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship can be found throughout history. A list of a few historically noteworthy people whose work exemplifies classic "social entrepreneurship" might include Florence Nightingale, founder of the first nursing school and developer of modern nursing practices, Robert Owen founder of the cooperative movement and Vinoba Bhave (founder of India's Land Gift Movement). During the 19th and 20th centuries some of the most successful social entrepreneurs successfully straddled the civic, governmental and business worlds - promoting ideas that were taken up by mainstream public services in welfare, schools and healthcare.
Current practice
One well known contemporary social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank and its growing family of social venture businesses, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.[4] The work of Yunus and Grameen echoes a theme among modern day social entrepreneurs that emphasizes the enormous synergies and benefits when business principles are unified with social ventures. [5] In some countries - including Bangladesh and to a lesser extent the USA - social entrepreneurs have filled the spaces left by a relatively small state. In other countries - particularly in Europe and South America - they have tended to work more closely with public organizations at both the national and local level.
The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program empowers women by providing education, cooperative farming, vocational training, savings plan, and business development. In 2006 the cooperative farming program, Baldev Farms, was the second largest banana grower in South India with 250 acres under cultivation.[6] Profits from the farm are used for improving the economic status of the workers and for running the other charitable activities of the foundation.[6]
Some have created for profit organizations. A recent example is Vikram Akula founder CEO of SKS Microfinance, the McKinsey alumnus who started a microlending venture in villages of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Though this venture is for profit, it has initiated a sharp social change amongst poor women from villages.
There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Some have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that primarily rely on earned income – meaning income earned directly from paying consumers. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while others still include grants and donations. This argument is unlikely to be resolved soon. Peter Drucker, for example, once wrote that there was nothing as entrepreneurial as creating a new university: yet in most developed countries the majority of university funding comes from the state.
Today, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals promote, fund, and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs.
Organizations such as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, New Profit Inc. and Echoing Green among others, focus on highlighting these hidden change-makers who are scattered across the globe. Ashoka's Changemakers "open sourcing social solutions" initiative Changemakers uses an online platform for what it calls collaborative competitions to build communities of practice around pressing issues. The North American organizations tend to have a strongly individualistic stance focused on a handful of exceptional leaders, while others in Asia and Europe emphasize more how social entrepreneurs work within teams, networks and movements for change.
Youth social entrepreneurship is an increasingly common approach to engaging youth voice in solving social problems. Youth organizations and programs promote these efforts through a variety of incentives to young people.[7]
Fast Company Magazine annually publishes a list of the 25 best social entrepreneurs, which the magazine defines as organizations "using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems."[8]
The International Business Leaders Forum, an NGO that promotes responsible business practices, has shown how multinational companies can support social entrepreneurship - either through in their businesses, engaging in public policy debate or creating better internal climates within their organisations. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Charity
History
The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were first used in the literature on social change in the 1960s and 1970s [1]. It came into widespread use in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton the founder of Ashoka, [2], and others such as Charles Leadbeater [3]. From the 1950s to the 1990s Michael Young was a leading promoter of social enterprise and in the 1980s was described by Professor Daniel Bell at Harvard as 'the world's most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises' because of his role in creating over 60 new organizations worldwide, including a series of Schools for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK.
Although the terms are relatively new, social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship can be found throughout history. A list of a few historically noteworthy people whose work exemplifies classic "social entrepreneurship" might include Florence Nightingale, founder of the first nursing school and developer of modern nursing practices, Robert Owen founder of the cooperative movement and Vinoba Bhave (founder of India's Land Gift Movement). During the 19th and 20th centuries some of the most successful social entrepreneurs successfully straddled the civic, governmental and business worlds - promoting ideas that were taken up by mainstream public services in welfare, schools and healthcare.
Current practice
One well known contemporary social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank and its growing family of social venture businesses, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.[4] The work of Yunus and Grameen echoes a theme among modern day social entrepreneurs that emphasizes the enormous synergies and benefits when business principles are unified with social ventures. [5] In some countries - including Bangladesh and to a lesser extent the USA - social entrepreneurs have filled the spaces left by a relatively small state. In other countries - particularly in Europe and South America - they have tended to work more closely with public organizations at both the national and local level.
The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program empowers women by providing education, cooperative farming, vocational training, savings plan, and business development. In 2006 the cooperative farming program, Baldev Farms, was the second largest banana grower in South India with 250 acres under cultivation.[6] Profits from the farm are used for improving the economic status of the workers and for running the other charitable activities of the foundation.[6]
Some have created for profit organizations. A recent example is Vikram Akula founder CEO of SKS Microfinance, the McKinsey alumnus who started a microlending venture in villages of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Though this venture is for profit, it has initiated a sharp social change amongst poor women from villages.
There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Some have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that primarily rely on earned income – meaning income earned directly from paying consumers. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while others still include grants and donations. This argument is unlikely to be resolved soon. Peter Drucker, for example, once wrote that there was nothing as entrepreneurial as creating a new university: yet in most developed countries the majority of university funding comes from the state.
Today, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals promote, fund, and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs.
Organizations such as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, New Profit Inc. and Echoing Green among others, focus on highlighting these hidden change-makers who are scattered across the globe. Ashoka's Changemakers "open sourcing social solutions" initiative Changemakers uses an online platform for what it calls collaborative competitions to build communities of practice around pressing issues. The North American organizations tend to have a strongly individualistic stance focused on a handful of exceptional leaders, while others in Asia and Europe emphasize more how social entrepreneurs work within teams, networks and movements for change.
Youth social entrepreneurship is an increasingly common approach to engaging youth voice in solving social problems. Youth organizations and programs promote these efforts through a variety of incentives to young people.[7]
Fast Company Magazine annually publishes a list of the 25 best social entrepreneurs, which the magazine defines as organizations "using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems."[8]
The International Business Leaders Forum, an NGO that promotes responsible business practices, has shown how multinational companies can support social entrepreneurship - either through in their businesses, engaging in public policy debate or creating better internal climates within their organisations. (Credit: Wikipedia)
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Charity
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Companies should 'adopt' schools, by Sid Marris - The Austrralian - 19th April 2008
The nation's top 100 companies should "adopt" a high school and provide students with mentors and examples of success.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard today told the Australia 2020 Summit that the idea would be a practical way to help link education and business.
The idea was one of dozen different suggestions from some of the 100 participants of the Productivity stream at today's summit, just prior an afternoon of brainstorming sessions that were expected to generate many more.
With 2650 secondary schools across the country, the challenge would be for firms to adopt up to 27 schools - from the least to the most advantaged - and provide mentors or practical support on areas such as information technology and human resources.
``I meet all the time with representatives of the top 100 businesses who want to give back,'' she said.
``I also visit a lot of schools and in many of those schools students rarely would have access to adults who can talk to them about what it is like to succeed in our society.
``...Those top 100 could provide mentors for people about what succeeding in life is like.
``They could provide work experience for students at the appropriate point and they could provide the knowledge and expertise they have got in-house to school councils, on things like IT knowledge or human resource knowledge that they might have on tap but which schools might not have access to.''
On a similar theme, Ernesto Peralta, has suggested a "peace corp" of retired Australians who could be engaged across the community providing training and mentoring.
The theme of collaboration and sharing information between schools, training providers, higher education and industry permeated many of the discussions in the Productivity session - one of 10 different topics being covered by the summit of 1000 delegates.
A teacher from Victoria, Gail Davidson, said the acknowledging and encouraging the ``interconnectedness'' of modern education, careers and the needs industry was essential.
``I would hope that there would be some sort of link that says you can't just do this research, it has to be research that is connected with business, schools or whatever,'' she said.
NSW education and training public servant Marie Persson adopted a similar approach in a different session stressing the need for greater collaboration across government, industry and educational institutions in what they were doing and where they were spending their money.
At the end of the first sessions of the two day summit, the groups had devised a range of draft goals that would steer their discussions: the ambition that all children would be ready for school when they started, that education not be tied to institutional demands of when you start and when you finish, that participation should mean helping people access they work the wanted at the level they chose and that by 2020 there should be a doubling of both public and private spending on research and development.
While some participants favoured setting targets for increasing workplace participation, other resisted the idea and said a greater emphasis was needed on the quality of the contribution.
Indigenous representatives, such Professor Marcia Langton, said all available human resources in Australia, such as young indigenous people but increasingly rural white people as well, should be job ready before bringing in skilled migrants and guest workers.
Business executive Ken Loughnan, however, warned that by 2020 Australia would need an additional one million workers, which meant that the needs could not be met within Australia alone.
Others warned that skills shortages were hitting businesses now and they did not have time to wait for an increase in the numbers of job ready workers.
Western Australian academic Marilynne Paspaley said that the restrictions on the movement of labour should be reduced, making its flow similar to the flow of capital.
An NSW academic Marion Baird said the demands being placed on women in the modern society meant a paid maternity scheme was need as a matter of urgency.
``We are expecting women to both participate in the workforce and producing more children; we need to do both and we need to pay for it,'' she said to loud applause.
``We need that on the agenda for 2020 and before that by 2010 at least.''
Siddhartha Chakrabarti, who attended the youth summit last week, believed it should be expanded to fathers as well. That summit proposed that the Government introduce a scheme of 14 weeks at the minimum wage supplemented by the employer at a rate of 25 per cent of normal salary.
Bruce Chapman, an academic who helped developed the higher education contribution scheme where university students pay for their degree when they take paid employment, said the scheme could be expanded to all other forms of education and skills training.
A policy director at progressive Think Tank Per Capita, Michael Cooney, said there needed to be more thought on getting private investment into the development of early childhood education, identified as a crucial way of making sure children were ready to learn when they hit schools.
``We haven't talked at all about how you get more private income into these areas through better design of markets,'' he said.
Federal minister for small business Craig Emerson offered his own version of an ambition for the summit's productivity session to consider.
``By 2020 every Australia fundamentally believes that every child who is born in Australia has the same talent, the same capacity to have a fulfilling life and we then invest and ensure that those talents are unleashed,'' he said.
Participant Lucia Macali said that more thought needed to be given when designing policies, or building to those who suffered impairment.
There should be a general principle that policies and buildings should ``meet most of the needs of most of the people most of the time''.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard today told the Australia 2020 Summit that the idea would be a practical way to help link education and business.
The idea was one of dozen different suggestions from some of the 100 participants of the Productivity stream at today's summit, just prior an afternoon of brainstorming sessions that were expected to generate many more.
With 2650 secondary schools across the country, the challenge would be for firms to adopt up to 27 schools - from the least to the most advantaged - and provide mentors or practical support on areas such as information technology and human resources.
``I meet all the time with representatives of the top 100 businesses who want to give back,'' she said.
``I also visit a lot of schools and in many of those schools students rarely would have access to adults who can talk to them about what it is like to succeed in our society.
``...Those top 100 could provide mentors for people about what succeeding in life is like.
``They could provide work experience for students at the appropriate point and they could provide the knowledge and expertise they have got in-house to school councils, on things like IT knowledge or human resource knowledge that they might have on tap but which schools might not have access to.''
On a similar theme, Ernesto Peralta, has suggested a "peace corp" of retired Australians who could be engaged across the community providing training and mentoring.
The theme of collaboration and sharing information between schools, training providers, higher education and industry permeated many of the discussions in the Productivity session - one of 10 different topics being covered by the summit of 1000 delegates.
A teacher from Victoria, Gail Davidson, said the acknowledging and encouraging the ``interconnectedness'' of modern education, careers and the needs industry was essential.
``I would hope that there would be some sort of link that says you can't just do this research, it has to be research that is connected with business, schools or whatever,'' she said.
NSW education and training public servant Marie Persson adopted a similar approach in a different session stressing the need for greater collaboration across government, industry and educational institutions in what they were doing and where they were spending their money.
At the end of the first sessions of the two day summit, the groups had devised a range of draft goals that would steer their discussions: the ambition that all children would be ready for school when they started, that education not be tied to institutional demands of when you start and when you finish, that participation should mean helping people access they work the wanted at the level they chose and that by 2020 there should be a doubling of both public and private spending on research and development.
While some participants favoured setting targets for increasing workplace participation, other resisted the idea and said a greater emphasis was needed on the quality of the contribution.
Indigenous representatives, such Professor Marcia Langton, said all available human resources in Australia, such as young indigenous people but increasingly rural white people as well, should be job ready before bringing in skilled migrants and guest workers.
Business executive Ken Loughnan, however, warned that by 2020 Australia would need an additional one million workers, which meant that the needs could not be met within Australia alone.
Others warned that skills shortages were hitting businesses now and they did not have time to wait for an increase in the numbers of job ready workers.
Western Australian academic Marilynne Paspaley said that the restrictions on the movement of labour should be reduced, making its flow similar to the flow of capital.
An NSW academic Marion Baird said the demands being placed on women in the modern society meant a paid maternity scheme was need as a matter of urgency.
``We are expecting women to both participate in the workforce and producing more children; we need to do both and we need to pay for it,'' she said to loud applause.
``We need that on the agenda for 2020 and before that by 2010 at least.''
Siddhartha Chakrabarti, who attended the youth summit last week, believed it should be expanded to fathers as well. That summit proposed that the Government introduce a scheme of 14 weeks at the minimum wage supplemented by the employer at a rate of 25 per cent of normal salary.
Bruce Chapman, an academic who helped developed the higher education contribution scheme where university students pay for their degree when they take paid employment, said the scheme could be expanded to all other forms of education and skills training.
A policy director at progressive Think Tank Per Capita, Michael Cooney, said there needed to be more thought on getting private investment into the development of early childhood education, identified as a crucial way of making sure children were ready to learn when they hit schools.
``We haven't talked at all about how you get more private income into these areas through better design of markets,'' he said.
Federal minister for small business Craig Emerson offered his own version of an ambition for the summit's productivity session to consider.
``By 2020 every Australia fundamentally believes that every child who is born in Australia has the same talent, the same capacity to have a fulfilling life and we then invest and ensure that those talents are unleashed,'' he said.
Participant Lucia Macali said that more thought needed to be given when designing policies, or building to those who suffered impairment.
There should be a general principle that policies and buildings should ``meet most of the needs of most of the people most of the time''.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Monday, April 14, 2008
Social and Community Entrepreneurs, Virgin Unite and more
The Media Man Australia profile on Social and Community Entrepreneurs has been updated.
Have a good look at the great work of Virgin Unite, who we are pro activivly doing our litle bit for.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Have a good look at the great work of Virgin Unite, who we are pro activivly doing our litle bit for.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Two-thirds of Aussies more positive to Earth Hour firms - B&T - 31st March 2008
Almost two-thirds of Australians said they felt more positive toward a company if it took part in Earth Hour, while just under half said a firm’s participation would make them more likely to use their products or services, according to research out today.
Figures from AMR Interactive which carried out a survey on behalf of Earth Hour organisers WWF found that 47% of those questioned agreed and 15% strongly agreed that a company’s participation in Earth Hour would make them more positive toward it, while 33% of the 3393 questioned agreed and 10% strongly agreed that this would make them more likely to use its products and services. When asked if participation would make them more likely to recommend the company to family and friends, 32% agreed and 10% strongly agreed.
The online survey was started the moment Earth Hour started at 8pm on Saturday.
Figures comparing people’s attitudes in Sydney last year to this show that 60% felt positive toward a participating Earth Hour company, compared to 51% last year. 42% said they were more likely to use their products this year, compared to 33% in 2006, while 40% said they were more likely to recommend the company to family friends up from 32% last year.
“Earth Hour has moved from being an event that simply encourages people to turn their lights out. It clearly now has a tangible effect on how people view and organisation and its products,” Gary Wilkinson, managing director of AMR Interactive said.
“How a company operates within the environmental field is starting to be noticed by employees. However, there is still considerable scepticism that exists around the environmental claims made by businesses. Businesses will need to provide continuing evidence of their commitment to the environment and climate change issues.”
AMR Interactive surveyed 3393 Australian adults living in capital cities about their attitudes and participation rates for Earth Hour 2008. Results show that an average of 58% of Australian adults living in capital cities took part in this year’s event.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Earth Hour
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Figures from AMR Interactive which carried out a survey on behalf of Earth Hour organisers WWF found that 47% of those questioned agreed and 15% strongly agreed that a company’s participation in Earth Hour would make them more positive toward it, while 33% of the 3393 questioned agreed and 10% strongly agreed that this would make them more likely to use its products and services. When asked if participation would make them more likely to recommend the company to family and friends, 32% agreed and 10% strongly agreed.
The online survey was started the moment Earth Hour started at 8pm on Saturday.
Figures comparing people’s attitudes in Sydney last year to this show that 60% felt positive toward a participating Earth Hour company, compared to 51% last year. 42% said they were more likely to use their products this year, compared to 33% in 2006, while 40% said they were more likely to recommend the company to family friends up from 32% last year.
“Earth Hour has moved from being an event that simply encourages people to turn their lights out. It clearly now has a tangible effect on how people view and organisation and its products,” Gary Wilkinson, managing director of AMR Interactive said.
“How a company operates within the environmental field is starting to be noticed by employees. However, there is still considerable scepticism that exists around the environmental claims made by businesses. Businesses will need to provide continuing evidence of their commitment to the environment and climate change issues.”
AMR Interactive surveyed 3393 Australian adults living in capital cities about their attitudes and participation rates for Earth Hour 2008. Results show that an average of 58% of Australian adults living in capital cities took part in this year’s event.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Earth Hour
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Monday, March 03, 2008
All About: Eco-philanthropy, by Rachel Oliver - CNN - 2nd March 2008
(CNN) -- If the excessive lifestyles of the rich have been partly to blame for destroying the environment, then it seems equitable that they use their money to preserve it. But the degree to which they are actually helping does largely depend on what they do with their money. And some 'beneficiaries' of that aid are yet to be convinced.
According to last year's Merrill Lynch survey of the world's wealth, there are 9.5 million U.S. dollar millionaires in the world today, who have pocketed a cool $37.2 trillion between them. By 2011, Merrill Lynch says, this tiny (but growing) group of people will have more than $50 trillion in their bank accounts.
That money could go a long way to aid the fight against climate change and the different ills it brings. Fortunately, a modest proportion of this exclusive group of people have realized this. Around 11 percent of the world's richest gave 7 percent of their wealth to philanthropic causes in 2006; and 17 percent of the world's "ultra rich" (those with more than $30 million to their names) gave 10 percent, says Merrill Lynch. In total those donations totaled $285 billion.
Some of the more notable donors are household names: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson all dug deep into their pockets in the name of doing good, the latter specifically promising $3 billion to fight global warming over the next 10 years.
Ted Turner, George Soros and Luciano Benetton have also contributed, notably buying land in South America in the name of conservation. Turner, the founder of CNN, owns more than 100,000 acres of land there; Benetton owns 2 million acres; Soros 1 million.
If you accept the fact that much of the world's environmental ills have landed on the shoulders of the world's poorest nations, then this looks like a match made in heaven.
"It is pretty hard for a country to turn down a gift of 300,000 hectares," Doug Tompkins, founder of clothing chain Esprit, told one reporter recently. Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt, former CEO of Patagonia clothing company, specialize in investing in national parks in South America and own around 900,000 hectares of Chilean and Argentinean land between them.
With the amount of money and influence these individuals possess, one key advantage they have is that they can get things done -- and quickly. Dutch philanthropist Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, for example, brought South Africa's Marakele National Park to life in "barely two years" by investing millions of dollars of his own money in it, completing a job "that would likely have taken more than a decade without his backing" reports The Age.
Philanthropy can spur backlash
But not everyone welcomes the foreign assistance.
The implication that foreigners can do a better job than those in the host country receiving the aid has been taken as an insult by some. And it has aroused suspicion elsewhere. In the 1990s Tompkins drew ire in Chile, including the Catholic Church and former president Eduardo Frei. The accusations against him ranged from from kicking workers off his land, promoting abortion, and creating a "Zionist enclave," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
When it comes to rain forests there is also a degree of concern among some environmental groups that any system that allows individuals to take ownership of vast swathes of environmentally crucial land is bound to be flawed.
In the case of the Amazon rain forest, Survival International has expressed concerns over the future of the rain forest inhabitants, the indigenous people. The organization points out that if the world really wanted to protect the rain forests, it would just leave them alone and let the people who have been protecting them for centuries carry on doing what they do best.
"The forest cannot be bought, it is our life; we have always protected it," tribal leader Davi Kopenawa told the Guardian newspaper recently.
Pragmatists would argue there are many ways to "protect" a rain forest. Yes, leaving them alone is the ideal solution. But when cash-strapped governments face ongoing pressure from logging companies, mining companies, not to mention the agricultural lobby to convert the land for other uses, there is only one thing that really counts: Money. And indigenous groups don't have any.
So, the argument goes, better a philanthropist own the land than a business interest.
The business of giving
A philanthropist deciding to do charitable work does not by itself guarantee successful results. Much can depend on the philanthropist doing the "right thing" with their money. George Soros, for example, could be seen as either an environmental savior or an eco-villain, depending on one's view of biofuels.
The philanthropist manages more than 170,000 hectares of Argentinean land, but his latest venture -- worth reportedly up to $300 million -- is to produce biofuel from corn and sugar cane grown in Brazil's Cerrado. That area of land is among the most endangered on Earth, with deforestation rates easily eclipsing that of the Amazon, according to Conservation International.
More than 50 percent of the Cerrado has been converted to farm land in less than four decades and there are genuine fears that by 2030, all remaining natural vegetation will have disappeared, reports the Washington Post. There will be one predominant reason for this if that happens: Worldwide demand for ethanol.
It should not be forgotten that the art of giving is a business, too.
Some of the favored destinations for philanthropic spending have been in areas of the world offering the potential for the biggest returns. It was the collapse of the peso which led to a collapse in land prices in Argentina that helped remote Patagonia become such a favored investment destination for the world's wealthiest.
Equally, if the price isn't right, environmental concern can go out the window. Cameroon has been trying to lease 830,000 hectares of its rain forest since 2001 in an attempt to raise capital and do the right thing at the same time. It could easily lease it to logging companies, but prefers not to, according to The Economist.
The problem is, Cameroon can't find a buyer, as no one has been willing to pay the asking rate of $2 a hectare, which would work out at a mere $1.6 million a year.
"The fine words of the rich-world's armchair conservationists butter few parsnips in the poor world," writes The Economist. "Here is a good opportunity to spread some butter."
Media Man Australia Profiles
Richard Branson
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Environmentalists and the environment
According to last year's Merrill Lynch survey of the world's wealth, there are 9.5 million U.S. dollar millionaires in the world today, who have pocketed a cool $37.2 trillion between them. By 2011, Merrill Lynch says, this tiny (but growing) group of people will have more than $50 trillion in their bank accounts.
That money could go a long way to aid the fight against climate change and the different ills it brings. Fortunately, a modest proportion of this exclusive group of people have realized this. Around 11 percent of the world's richest gave 7 percent of their wealth to philanthropic causes in 2006; and 17 percent of the world's "ultra rich" (those with more than $30 million to their names) gave 10 percent, says Merrill Lynch. In total those donations totaled $285 billion.
Some of the more notable donors are household names: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson all dug deep into their pockets in the name of doing good, the latter specifically promising $3 billion to fight global warming over the next 10 years.
Ted Turner, George Soros and Luciano Benetton have also contributed, notably buying land in South America in the name of conservation. Turner, the founder of CNN, owns more than 100,000 acres of land there; Benetton owns 2 million acres; Soros 1 million.
If you accept the fact that much of the world's environmental ills have landed on the shoulders of the world's poorest nations, then this looks like a match made in heaven.
"It is pretty hard for a country to turn down a gift of 300,000 hectares," Doug Tompkins, founder of clothing chain Esprit, told one reporter recently. Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt, former CEO of Patagonia clothing company, specialize in investing in national parks in South America and own around 900,000 hectares of Chilean and Argentinean land between them.
With the amount of money and influence these individuals possess, one key advantage they have is that they can get things done -- and quickly. Dutch philanthropist Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, for example, brought South Africa's Marakele National Park to life in "barely two years" by investing millions of dollars of his own money in it, completing a job "that would likely have taken more than a decade without his backing" reports The Age.
Philanthropy can spur backlash
But not everyone welcomes the foreign assistance.
The implication that foreigners can do a better job than those in the host country receiving the aid has been taken as an insult by some. And it has aroused suspicion elsewhere. In the 1990s Tompkins drew ire in Chile, including the Catholic Church and former president Eduardo Frei. The accusations against him ranged from from kicking workers off his land, promoting abortion, and creating a "Zionist enclave," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
When it comes to rain forests there is also a degree of concern among some environmental groups that any system that allows individuals to take ownership of vast swathes of environmentally crucial land is bound to be flawed.
In the case of the Amazon rain forest, Survival International has expressed concerns over the future of the rain forest inhabitants, the indigenous people. The organization points out that if the world really wanted to protect the rain forests, it would just leave them alone and let the people who have been protecting them for centuries carry on doing what they do best.
"The forest cannot be bought, it is our life; we have always protected it," tribal leader Davi Kopenawa told the Guardian newspaper recently.
Pragmatists would argue there are many ways to "protect" a rain forest. Yes, leaving them alone is the ideal solution. But when cash-strapped governments face ongoing pressure from logging companies, mining companies, not to mention the agricultural lobby to convert the land for other uses, there is only one thing that really counts: Money. And indigenous groups don't have any.
So, the argument goes, better a philanthropist own the land than a business interest.
The business of giving
A philanthropist deciding to do charitable work does not by itself guarantee successful results. Much can depend on the philanthropist doing the "right thing" with their money. George Soros, for example, could be seen as either an environmental savior or an eco-villain, depending on one's view of biofuels.
The philanthropist manages more than 170,000 hectares of Argentinean land, but his latest venture -- worth reportedly up to $300 million -- is to produce biofuel from corn and sugar cane grown in Brazil's Cerrado. That area of land is among the most endangered on Earth, with deforestation rates easily eclipsing that of the Amazon, according to Conservation International.
More than 50 percent of the Cerrado has been converted to farm land in less than four decades and there are genuine fears that by 2030, all remaining natural vegetation will have disappeared, reports the Washington Post. There will be one predominant reason for this if that happens: Worldwide demand for ethanol.
It should not be forgotten that the art of giving is a business, too.
Some of the favored destinations for philanthropic spending have been in areas of the world offering the potential for the biggest returns. It was the collapse of the peso which led to a collapse in land prices in Argentina that helped remote Patagonia become such a favored investment destination for the world's wealthiest.
Equally, if the price isn't right, environmental concern can go out the window. Cameroon has been trying to lease 830,000 hectares of its rain forest since 2001 in an attempt to raise capital and do the right thing at the same time. It could easily lease it to logging companies, but prefers not to, according to The Economist.
The problem is, Cameroon can't find a buyer, as no one has been willing to pay the asking rate of $2 a hectare, which would work out at a mere $1.6 million a year.
"The fine words of the rich-world's armchair conservationists butter few parsnips in the poor world," writes The Economist. "Here is a good opportunity to spread some butter."
Media Man Australia Profiles
Richard Branson
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Environmentalists and the environment
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Young activist takes anti-whaling message to Tokyo, by Lauren Williams - The Daily Telegraph - 7th Feb 2008
TEENAGE anti-whaling campaigner Skye Bortoli will become the face of Australian anger at Japan's slaughter in the southern ocean when she takes The Daily Telegraph/Today show anti-whaling petition to Tokyo.
For the first time since the moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1982, ferocious public debate has forced the whaling issue into the public consciousness in Japan.
More than 93,000 people have signed our petition calling for an end to the senseless and provocative whaling.
Now it's time for their voices to be heard.
Soon The Daily Telegraph and the Today show will travel to Tokyo - taking Australia's message to the Democratic Party of Japan.
The party is in opposition in Japan but experts believe they have a strong chance of gaining power in elections this year and are more open to stopping the hunt than the country's ruling Liberal Democratic party.
Skye, 15, will hand deliver the petition, with a message that cannot be ignored.
The fresh face of Australian opposition to whaling knows the strength of people power, having become the youngest representative at the International Whaling Commission convention in 2005.
Yesterday, Skye said it was time the Japanese people woke up to their Government's lies.
"It's time we told Japan what's really going on," she said yesterday.
"We're not just presenting the petition, we are presenting the information that the Japanese people need to hear.
"We are presenting them with a decision. To go on listening to what their Government is saying, or to face a reality that whaling is unacceptable.
"We are stepping in and saying Australians are sick and tired of this. By going personally, we will make our presence felt. This is a message they can't ignore".
Only last week, the head of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, Minoru Morimoto, vowed to continue with his country's hugely unpopular killing program, under the guise of scientific research.
"We are confident of achieving the program's stated objectives for this season," he said.
But barely attempting to disguise the true nature of the so-called research, Mr Morimoto continued to insist the "lethal research" was the only way to validate commercial whaling.
"Whale stocks in the world today are abundant and commercial whaling can be managed on a sustainable basis," Mr Morimoto said.
The past two months have seen whaling catapulted on to the world stage as never before.
After announcing it would also kill humpbacks for "research" this summer, the Japanese were forced on December 23 to backdown, saying they would not cull them.
The backdown came after a concerted campaign against the Humpback hunt by The Daily Telegraph and the Today show.
Media Man Australia
Skye Bortoli
Whales
Environmentalists and the environment
For the first time since the moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in 1982, ferocious public debate has forced the whaling issue into the public consciousness in Japan.
More than 93,000 people have signed our petition calling for an end to the senseless and provocative whaling.
Now it's time for their voices to be heard.
Soon The Daily Telegraph and the Today show will travel to Tokyo - taking Australia's message to the Democratic Party of Japan.
The party is in opposition in Japan but experts believe they have a strong chance of gaining power in elections this year and are more open to stopping the hunt than the country's ruling Liberal Democratic party.
Skye, 15, will hand deliver the petition, with a message that cannot be ignored.
The fresh face of Australian opposition to whaling knows the strength of people power, having become the youngest representative at the International Whaling Commission convention in 2005.
Yesterday, Skye said it was time the Japanese people woke up to their Government's lies.
"It's time we told Japan what's really going on," she said yesterday.
"We're not just presenting the petition, we are presenting the information that the Japanese people need to hear.
"We are presenting them with a decision. To go on listening to what their Government is saying, or to face a reality that whaling is unacceptable.
"We are stepping in and saying Australians are sick and tired of this. By going personally, we will make our presence felt. This is a message they can't ignore".
Only last week, the head of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, Minoru Morimoto, vowed to continue with his country's hugely unpopular killing program, under the guise of scientific research.
"We are confident of achieving the program's stated objectives for this season," he said.
But barely attempting to disguise the true nature of the so-called research, Mr Morimoto continued to insist the "lethal research" was the only way to validate commercial whaling.
"Whale stocks in the world today are abundant and commercial whaling can be managed on a sustainable basis," Mr Morimoto said.
The past two months have seen whaling catapulted on to the world stage as never before.
After announcing it would also kill humpbacks for "research" this summer, the Japanese were forced on December 23 to backdown, saying they would not cull them.
The backdown came after a concerted campaign against the Humpback hunt by The Daily Telegraph and the Today show.
Media Man Australia
Skye Bortoli
Whales
Environmentalists and the environment
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Anti-dredge protesters launch new battle - The Age - 24th January 2008
A second Federal Court battle is looming as Melbourne's anti-dredging campaigners make a last-ditch attempt to stop the Port Phillip Bay channel deepening project.
The Blue Wedges Coalition is preparing an application to have federal approval for the $969 million project quashed.
The application is expected to be lodged in the next two days, a week before dredging of Port Phillip Bay is set to begin.
But the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) is confident the challenge will fail.
The court action is based on federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett's 15-page statement of reasons for approving the project.
Blue Wedges will use the new document to argue that the approval is invalid because the minister:
* Did not fully consider the social impacts of dredging, including on recreational fishing and swimmers.
* Failed to notify federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong that the project would raise water levels.
* Did not consider that the port breached its own environmental management plan during the trial deepening by continuing to dredge despite causing 20-metre rockfalls.
Blue Wedges president Jenny Warfe said they had consulted a QC who advised that their case was sound.
The group lost a similar application in the Federal Court last week.
"Our advice yesterday was that we have reasonable chance of success," Ms Warfe said.
"Based on that, we're happy to go ahead because we are committed to this project not going ahead because of it's economic and social risks and environmental risks."
PoMC chief executive Stephen Bradford could not comment on the case on Thursday because the application had yet to be lodged.
However, he said Justice Peter Heerey got it right last week when he ruled Mr Garrett's approval for the project lawful.
"This is not a new tactic by Blue Wedges, this is the third legal attempt they've had to either stop the trial or the full dredging project," Mr Bradford said.
"Both of those (previous) matters were heard in a day and both were dismissed.
"We believe the port has all the requisite approvals, we value Port Phillip Bay as much as anybody and the environmental management planning controls for this critical project will be the strictest ever to apply in a dredging project anywhere else in the world."
Blue Wedges hopes to have a preliminary hearing in the Federal Court early next week.
The matter is highly unlikely to be finalised before dredging is due to start on Friday next week.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Greenpeace Protects Japanese Whalers from Sea Shepherd
Greenpeace have finished their fund raising PR drama for the season and have deserted the whales to go back and tend their coffers.
Captain of The Steve Irwin wrote:
Greenpeace Protects Japanese Whalers from Sea Shepherd
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has stopped chasing the Japanese whaling factory ship the Nishiin Maru and is heading back to New Zealand.
Sea Shepherd 2nd Officer Peter Hammarstedt called Greenpeace Campaign Leader Karli Thomas on the Esperanza to request the position of the Nishiin Maru. She responded by saying that it was not necessary for Sea Shepherd to have the coordinates for the Niishiin Maru because the Oceanic Viking would continue documenting the activities of the factory ship to carry on the work that Greenpeace has been doing.
In other words, asked Mr. Hammarstedt, “you aren’t interested in Sea Shepherd preventing the killing of whales now that you’ve left?” Ms. Thomas responded by saying that Greenpeace had no intention of cooperating with Sea Shepherd and then hung up.
From the beginning of this campaign, Sea Shepherd has tried to cooperate with Greenpeace. Sea Shepherd provided coordinates to Greenpeace last year for the whalers and provided the coordinates to the catcher boats this year. Sea Shepherd also offered to share the Sea Shepherd helicopter with Greenpeace. All attempts to cooperate on a united front to protect whales have been rebuffed by Greenpeace.
“I really have to question just what is Greenpeace’s motivation in coming down here year after year.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “Their campaigns are always more of the same, buzzing about in rubber boats, hanging banners and filming whales being killed. Things have changed dramatically since Sea Shepherd has been intervening. Whales don’t die when we show up.
Instead the whalers run and they keep running. The whalers have never run from Greenpeace before and they were not running from them this year either. Even the whalers have admitted they have been running from the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin.”
What the general public is not aware of is the massive fund-raising advertising campaign that Greenpeace runs every year to raise millions of dollars for a campaign they spend only a fraction of that money on. In addition to television ads Greenpeace has bought the online advertising rights to major newspapers, to Google and other media sites. Whenever anyone clicks on a whale story up pops an ad asking for donations to be sent to Greenpeace.
“This is all well and good,” said Captain Paul Watson, “but with the amount of revenue Greenpeace is bringing in why are they leaving for the season? They should get up to the nearest port, fill up their fuel tanks and get back down to the Southern Ocean and continue their campaign. The whalers will be down here for another two months. Plenty of time to refuel and return. But they won’t do it. They have their pictures and they have their story and that is fuel enough to generate a fund-raising program for the rest of the year.”
If Sea Shepherd had the resources, the Steve Irwin would refuel and return but the annual Sea Shepherd budget of 2 million dollars is very small in comparison to the budget of Greenpeace which is in excess of one hundred million dollars.
“We will do everything we can with the resources we have but I can tell you this,” said Captain Watson. “If we had a fraction of the Greenpeace budget we will have two ships down here from the beginning of the whaling season until the end.
The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin continues to pursue the Japanese Catcher vessels in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Japanese ship Fukoyoshi Maru No. 2 continues to tail the Steve Irwin to keep the fleet posted on the Steve Irwin’s position.”
“Because of this spy vessel tailing us we will not be able to close in on the whalers but we can continue to chase them and keep them on the run and if they are running they won’t be whaling.” Said Captain Watson
Media Man Australia Profiles
Sea Shepherd
Greenpeace
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Captain of The Steve Irwin wrote:
Greenpeace Protects Japanese Whalers from Sea Shepherd
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza has stopped chasing the Japanese whaling factory ship the Nishiin Maru and is heading back to New Zealand.
Sea Shepherd 2nd Officer Peter Hammarstedt called Greenpeace Campaign Leader Karli Thomas on the Esperanza to request the position of the Nishiin Maru. She responded by saying that it was not necessary for Sea Shepherd to have the coordinates for the Niishiin Maru because the Oceanic Viking would continue documenting the activities of the factory ship to carry on the work that Greenpeace has been doing.
In other words, asked Mr. Hammarstedt, “you aren’t interested in Sea Shepherd preventing the killing of whales now that you’ve left?” Ms. Thomas responded by saying that Greenpeace had no intention of cooperating with Sea Shepherd and then hung up.
From the beginning of this campaign, Sea Shepherd has tried to cooperate with Greenpeace. Sea Shepherd provided coordinates to Greenpeace last year for the whalers and provided the coordinates to the catcher boats this year. Sea Shepherd also offered to share the Sea Shepherd helicopter with Greenpeace. All attempts to cooperate on a united front to protect whales have been rebuffed by Greenpeace.
“I really have to question just what is Greenpeace’s motivation in coming down here year after year.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “Their campaigns are always more of the same, buzzing about in rubber boats, hanging banners and filming whales being killed. Things have changed dramatically since Sea Shepherd has been intervening. Whales don’t die when we show up.
Instead the whalers run and they keep running. The whalers have never run from Greenpeace before and they were not running from them this year either. Even the whalers have admitted they have been running from the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin.”
What the general public is not aware of is the massive fund-raising advertising campaign that Greenpeace runs every year to raise millions of dollars for a campaign they spend only a fraction of that money on. In addition to television ads Greenpeace has bought the online advertising rights to major newspapers, to Google and other media sites. Whenever anyone clicks on a whale story up pops an ad asking for donations to be sent to Greenpeace.
“This is all well and good,” said Captain Paul Watson, “but with the amount of revenue Greenpeace is bringing in why are they leaving for the season? They should get up to the nearest port, fill up their fuel tanks and get back down to the Southern Ocean and continue their campaign. The whalers will be down here for another two months. Plenty of time to refuel and return. But they won’t do it. They have their pictures and they have their story and that is fuel enough to generate a fund-raising program for the rest of the year.”
If Sea Shepherd had the resources, the Steve Irwin would refuel and return but the annual Sea Shepherd budget of 2 million dollars is very small in comparison to the budget of Greenpeace which is in excess of one hundred million dollars.
“We will do everything we can with the resources we have but I can tell you this,” said Captain Watson. “If we had a fraction of the Greenpeace budget we will have two ships down here from the beginning of the whaling season until the end.
The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin continues to pursue the Japanese Catcher vessels in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Japanese ship Fukoyoshi Maru No. 2 continues to tail the Steve Irwin to keep the fleet posted on the Steve Irwin’s position.”
“Because of this spy vessel tailing us we will not be able to close in on the whalers but we can continue to chase them and keep them on the run and if they are running they won’t be whaling.” Said Captain Watson
Media Man Australia Profiles
Sea Shepherd
Greenpeace
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Tsunami aid 'spent on politics', by Ean Higgins - The Australian - 27th December 2007
A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture.
The activities - listed as tsunami relief - include a "travelling Oxfam gender justice show" in Indonesia to change rural male attitudes towards women.
Another Oxfam project, reminiscent of the ACTU's Your Rights at Work campaign, instructs Thai workers in Australian-style industrial activism and encourages them to set up trade unions.
A World Vision tsunami relief project in the Indonesian province of Aceh includes a lobbying campaign to advance land reform to promote gender equity, as well as educating women in "democratic processes" and encouraging them to enter politics.
Also in Aceh, the Catholic aid group Caritas funds an Islamic learning centre to promote "the importance of the Koran".
This is seen as recognition of the importance of Islam in a province that has been the scene of a long-running and bloody independence struggle against the secular central Government.
The tsunami on December 26, 2004, created the most powerful earthquake in 40 years, killing about 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean nations, just under half of them in Aceh.
Critics say the aid agencies have exceeded the mandate provided to them by mum-and-dad donors from middle Australia who thought they were giving money to rebuild houses and lives shattered by the tsunami, rather than forcing the ideological views of the Australian left on traditional Asians.
One critic, Don D'Cruz, wrote at the outset of the relief operation that Indonesian claims of "foreign interference" through Australian NGOs were too often brushed aside.
Mr D'Cruz, then a research fellow with the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, wrote "it would be a mistake to ignore the substance of these claims, especially when it comes to the activities of Western aid groups operating in Indonesia. The trend among aid organisations has been to become more involved in politics, although this activism has been largely masked."Going beyond humanitarian and development aid, he wrote, risked alienating Asian governments, which could deny access.Looking through their websites, the aid groups ventured farbeyond standard aid and development.
The Oxfam website describes how $18,690 of its tsunami relief fund is being spent on a theatre production to "help change attitudes toward women in Acehnese society".
"In one scene, Apa Kaoy, who cannot cook, grumbles when his wife, exhausted from working in the rice field, has not prepared supper," Oxfam says of the play.
"In another, he disapproves of his daughter's ambition to study at university. Instead, holding a newspaper upside down because he cannot read, Apa Kaoy tells his daughter it is important that she learn to cook, clean, marry and have children.
"Eventually, though, his attitude towards women softens as other more enlightened men point out the error of his ways."
Oxfam Australia chief executive Andrew Hewett yesterday said his organisation initially concentrated on immediate humanitarian relief, including providing food, shelter and medicine to those affected by the tsunami.
It had since then turned to reconstruction, and rebuilding the ability of those affected to earn a living.
But Mr Hewett said Oxfam "did not shy away" from its concentration on those less well off and less empowered, including women, indigenous groups and the low caste, saying it was a practical issue of delivering aid for maximum effect.
"Women, like it or not, fare least well when it comes to resources and political power, including within a village community, and those who are disadvantaged often suffer most when disaster hits," he said.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Tsunami
Charity
Politics
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Seasons Greetings
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
e: greg@mediaman.com.au
w: www.mediaman.com.au
Seasons Greetings
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
e: greg@mediaman.com.au
w: www.mediaman.com.au
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Traditional laws and customs for Githabul People set to live on forever - 30th November 2007
Yesterday’s Federal Court decision recognising the native title rights and interests of the Githabul People of northern NSW is one of the most significant native title determinations in the state for 10 years, according to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma.
The decision, which recognises native title rights for the Githabul to an area including nine national parks and 13 state forests, resolves the claim which was first lodged in 1995.
“This is a truly outstanding outcome and testament to the cooperation and goodwill of not only the Githabul People themselves but also the NSW Government,” Mr Calma said.
Under the agreement, the Githabul’s non-exclusive native title rights have been recognised enabling access to the land for spiritual purposes, to camp, fish, hunt and gather animals and plants for personal use. The agreement also protects places of importance to the Githabul People.
The consent determination follows the signing of an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) earlier this year which outlined use and management of the land by the Githabul People, the northern NSW community and the NSW Government.
Mr Calma congratulated all parties for their constructive and cooperative approach which made reaching the agreement possible and again highlighted how ILUAs helped pave the way for a successful native title outcome.
“This is a historic moment for the Githabul People and the entire reconciliation and Indigenous land reform process,” Commissioner Calma said.
“This consent determination proves yet again that traditional owners want to work with government and other bodies in true partnerships.”
Media Man Australia Profile
Githabul people
Aboriginal and Indigenous Media
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Charities cast net for funds, by Simon Sharwood - The Sydney Morning Herald - 30th October 2007
Like many other organisations, charities are embracing the latest web technologies. But unlike many others, they are helping save lives - and save money that can be better spent on a good cause.
Online self-service is being used by charities to automate entry to events, offer credit-card donation facilities or build communities with social networking. Some have seen donations quadruple as a result.
The internet has been as a method of collecting donations for several years, often very effectively. Red Cross Australia, for example, reported that its appeal in the wake of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami resulted in 90,000 new donors coming through its website. Most charities therefore offer online donation facilities, with some, including the Leukaemia Foundation, adopting internet-only tactics such as PayPal to enhance their prospects.
Mass-participation events are finding the net is especially powerful.
"Many people in charities think events are a waste of time in terms of fund-raising," says Luke Edwards, fund-raising project manager for the MS Society, which funds research into multiple sclerosis though events such as its annual Sydney to Wollongong bicycle ride.
The cost of staging events is high but they have been considered effective communications tools. Thanks to the net, they are also becoming money-spinners. Mr Edwards says that after the society implemented its new website (gongride.org.au) last year, donations rose by 300 per cent and increased participant numbers by 50 per cent.
He says the site's facilities are directly responsible for the surge in donations and participation in last year's bicycle event, making it easier for people to register and raise funds.
"In the past, the only way participants could get sponsorship was using books. Riders would fund a sponsor, write them a receipt, collect the money, go to the bank and then post us the book."
This process was cumbersome for riders and expensive for the society.
Virginia Dell, general manager for marketing and communications at the Leukaemia Foundation, says its site for the World's Greatest Shave (worldsgreatestshave.com) helped it to raise $12 million this year, well beyond its target. It also freed up staff and volunteers for duties directly related to fund-raising.
"Most of our registrations come from the web," she says. "That reduces the amount of time that our people spend on the phone."
When the foundation's staff do interact with participants, they can now focus on supporting their fund-raising efforts, instead of dealing with simple inquiries.
"We did a really comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions list on the site this year," Ms Dell says. "All our printed material pointed to the site, too. It has meant we can focus on running the campaign and trying to make it bigger and better each year."
Marcus Blease, who is the events marketing manager at the Cancer Council, also appreciates the benefits of online tools for charity events. He says the council's website for Relay for Life (relayforlife.org.au), a 24-hour walking event, results in more money reaching cancer research. "Because more processes are automated, we need fewer staff and there is more money for the cause."
Participation in the relay has also doubled since it went online.
The internet also helps charities find new audiences. Luke Slattery, a director of the Movember Foundation, which raises money to treat prostate cancer and male depression, says the charity's decision to create a web presence (movember.com) has not only helped it to find more donors and participants but has also been crucial in raising awareness of the causes it supports among an audience that is not noted for its engagement with charities.
"The reason we went online was that we were all 30-somethings working on computers every day," he says. "We felt it was a great way to get the message across.
"Prostate cancer is seen as an older man's disease. But communications and education need to happen at a younger age, which is the online age."
Movember seeks to engage younger people through fun online activities, social networking and even a rewards scheme.
Other charities also find online interactivity is an important element of their efforts. The gongride site, for example, keeps track of the teams and individuals that have raised the most money, with a leader board of the top five fund-raisers visible on every page designed to spur on other participants to raise more money and climb the rankings.
The Cancer Council also finds that fostering competition among participants in its Relay for Life is paying off. It has gone to considerable lengths to make sure every dollar can be attributed to donors.
"Many of our relay walkers fund-raise online and off," Mr Blease says. "So we record how much money they collected offline as well as online. This is important, because if you set a fund-raising goal online but the money comes from offline, it can seem like you are not achieving a goal."
Online interactivity is also being used as a tool for the beneficiaries of charities. The Starlight Children's Foundation is piloting Livewire, a social network for seriously ill and disabled young people that includes chat rooms, blogs and forums - activities the foundation recognises as attractive to the 10 to 18-year-olds it represents.
"Livewire is a program that brings these teenagers together with others who have experienced similar challenges," says Anne Johnston, Starlight's head of marketing. "It connects seriously ill and disabled young people with their family and friends in a safe and secure environment."
Charities also love the internet because it is proving more lucrative than other fund-raising tools.
"Our average online donation is $60 versus $15 offline," Mr Blease says. Mr Edwards and Ms Dell report similar results.
The internet also sees money arrive faster. And it helps the charities prove the worth of donations and therefore makes it more likely that the donors will make repeat donations.
"Because the site is there all year, for months after the event people can find out how the funds are used and how awareness has been raised," Movember's Mr Slattery says.
The information captured during an online campaign can be used for other fund-raising efforts. The Australian Red Cross, for example, has emailed the new donors it won after the tsunami to inform them how their funds have been used and also to enlist their support for further campaigns.
Best of all, the organisation says that online donors are sticking around.
"We get less opt-out from the online donors," says Susie Chippendale of Red Cross Australia.
Email marketing is also cheap. Andrew O'Keefe, chairman of White Ribbon Day, which campaigns to eliminate violence against women, says the cost of email is "often no more than 10 per cent and sometimes as low as 1 per cent the cost of traditional postage".
The author will donate his fee for this story to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Movember. If you want to sponsor him for either Movember or the gongride, visit movember.com/au/donate/ and enter registration number 63468 or register.gongride.org.au/?simonsharwood.
NEXT FACTS
When Terry Houguet-Pincham, CEO of DepressioNet, needed some advice on how to advance the charity's IT strategy, he turned to goodcompany (www.goodcompany.com.au), a site that pitches itself as "the seek.com for volunteers".
Goodcompany has a database of 5500 professionals willing to volunteer their services and, says site program manager Annabel Rattigan, has been able to attract these numbers because the organisation promises to help them put their skills to work.
"We kept hearing stories about professionals who wanted to volunteer and were asked to lick envelopes," she says. The service was therefore born out of a desire to help professional volunteers make a more profound contribution to charity.
Mr Houguet-Pincham says the service has been more than useful, after DepressioNet recently worked with a senior IT professional.
"He helped me understand the IT infrastructure that we have, its strengths and weaknesses. He found another expert, put us in touch with someone who evaluated our website in terms of accessibility and usability and then connected us with independent IT company who audited our infrastructure."
The CEO believes the work involved represents several tens of thousands of dollars of consultancy, a sum DepressioNet could never afford. Nor is it an option for other not-for-profit organisations. "If we paid, we would not be providing the best services to people living with depression."
How charity taps the net
The internet is becoming an increasingly clever way for charities to collect donations -Red Cross Australia picked up 90,000 new donors on its website following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Now more charities are seeing the benefit in a sharper online presence. The site for The World's
Greatest Shave (www.worldsgreatestshave.com) helped the Leukaemia Foundation raise $12 million this year, well beyond its targets. Donors love the ease of one-click giving; and participants in events such as a charity ride are freed from the task of carrying a receipt book for donors.
A Cancer Council spokeswoman says: "Because more processes are automated, we need fewer staff and there is more money for the cause."
Simon Sharwood reports inside on how self-service websites are helping charities raise more money for their good works.
Media Man Australia Profiles
CharitySocial and Community Entrepreneurs
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Candidates to face off at public forum - St George & Sutherland Shire Leader - 25th October 2007
Voters will have a chance to see candidates for the seat of Cook in action at a public forum on climate change next week.
Liberal candidate Scott Morrison will face Labor's Mark Buttigieg and the Greens' Naomi Waizer at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on Tuesday at 7.30pm.
Mr Buttigieg has been hailed by the Sutherland Climate Action Network as being "well ahead of his own party" on climate change.
Forum organiser Jonathan Doig said Mr Buttigieg's responses to the environment movement's survey at TheBigSwitch.org.au had been impressive.
"It's exciting to see a local politician openly support what the scientists tell us is necessary, which the vast majority of voters also want," he said.
"We look forward to a lively and informative debate on Tuesday night."
Mr Doig said Mr Morrison had not yet responded to The Big Switch survey, but has agreed to attend the forum. Candidates will present their climate solutions and then face audience questions.
The forum will be introduced by University of NSW renewable energy expert and author Dr Mark Diesendorf.
Details: 7.30pm Tuesday, October 30, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 782 Kingsway, Gymea. Entry by donation. No bookings needed, 0409 049 185
Websites
St George and Sutherland Shire Leader
Sutherland Climate Action Network
Climate Movement Media
Media Man Australia Profiles
Climate Movement
The Environment
Politics
Liberal candidate Scott Morrison will face Labor's Mark Buttigieg and the Greens' Naomi Waizer at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on Tuesday at 7.30pm.
Mr Buttigieg has been hailed by the Sutherland Climate Action Network as being "well ahead of his own party" on climate change.
Forum organiser Jonathan Doig said Mr Buttigieg's responses to the environment movement's survey at TheBigSwitch.org.au had been impressive.
"It's exciting to see a local politician openly support what the scientists tell us is necessary, which the vast majority of voters also want," he said.
"We look forward to a lively and informative debate on Tuesday night."
Mr Doig said Mr Morrison had not yet responded to The Big Switch survey, but has agreed to attend the forum. Candidates will present their climate solutions and then face audience questions.
The forum will be introduced by University of NSW renewable energy expert and author Dr Mark Diesendorf.
Details: 7.30pm Tuesday, October 30, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 782 Kingsway, Gymea. Entry by donation. No bookings needed, 0409 049 185
Websites
St George and Sutherland Shire Leader
Sutherland Climate Action Network
Climate Movement Media
Media Man Australia Profiles
Climate Movement
The Environment
Politics
Monday, October 22, 2007
CANDIDATES FRONT UP TO CLIMATE CHANGE FORUM - MEDIA RELEASE - 22ND OCTOBER 2007
Candidates vying for votes in the federal electorate of Cook have taken up a community group's challenge to face the public at a forum on climate change next week.
Liberal candidate Scott Morrison will face Labor's Mark Buttigieg and The Greens' Naomi Waizer at Hazelhurst next Tuesday at 7:30pm.
Mr Buttigieg has already fired the first shot by supporting a short-term target of at least 30% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020. He also supports the responsible phase-out of the coal industry, according to his response to the environment movement's The Big Switch online survey, where he scored 4.05 out of 5.
These policies put him way ahead of his own party, which scored just 1.8 out of 5, still ahead of the Liberals at 0.8.
However the public strongly supports his views. A Newspoll in August found 82% of NSW voters do not want a new coal-fired power station[1]. And an Australia-wide Newspoll late last year found 91% believe the federal government should change Australia's energy system from coal to renewable energy[2].
"It's exciting to see a local politician openly support what the scientists tell us is necessary, which the vast majority of voters also want," said forum organiser Jonathan Doig from Sutherland Climate Action Network. "We look forward to a lively and informative debate on Tuesday night."
Mr Morrison has not yet responded to The Big Switch survey, but has agreed to attend the forum.
The Greens' Naomi Waizer scored 5 out of 5 on The Big Switch, but may send an alternate to the forum as she is due to give birth the next day.
Candidates will present their climate solutions and then face questions from the audience. The forum will be introduced by University of NSW renewable energy expert and author Dr Mark Diesendorf.
Details:
IN THE HOT SEAT - candidates for Cook federal electorate front up to climate change.
7.30PM Tuesday 30th October 2007
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, 782 Kingsway Gymea
Entry by donation. No bookings neeeded. Refreshments provided.
More information: Jonathan Doig 0409 049185
Websites: sutherlandcan.org.au Ÿ thebigswitch.org.au
Liberal candidate Scott Morrison will face Labor's Mark Buttigieg and The Greens' Naomi Waizer at Hazelhurst next Tuesday at 7:30pm.
Mr Buttigieg has already fired the first shot by supporting a short-term target of at least 30% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020. He also supports the responsible phase-out of the coal industry, according to his response to the environment movement's The Big Switch online survey, where he scored 4.05 out of 5.
These policies put him way ahead of his own party, which scored just 1.8 out of 5, still ahead of the Liberals at 0.8.
However the public strongly supports his views. A Newspoll in August found 82% of NSW voters do not want a new coal-fired power station[1]. And an Australia-wide Newspoll late last year found 91% believe the federal government should change Australia's energy system from coal to renewable energy[2].
"It's exciting to see a local politician openly support what the scientists tell us is necessary, which the vast majority of voters also want," said forum organiser Jonathan Doig from Sutherland Climate Action Network. "We look forward to a lively and informative debate on Tuesday night."
Mr Morrison has not yet responded to The Big Switch survey, but has agreed to attend the forum.
The Greens' Naomi Waizer scored 5 out of 5 on The Big Switch, but may send an alternate to the forum as she is due to give birth the next day.
Candidates will present their climate solutions and then face questions from the audience. The forum will be introduced by University of NSW renewable energy expert and author Dr Mark Diesendorf.
Details:
IN THE HOT SEAT - candidates for Cook federal electorate front up to climate change.
7.30PM Tuesday 30th October 2007
Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Arts Centre, 782 Kingsway Gymea
Entry by donation. No bookings neeeded. Refreshments provided.
More information: Jonathan Doig 0409 049185
Websites: sutherlandcan.org.au Ÿ thebigswitch.org.au
Friday, October 19, 2007
Climate Movement Media News Update
I'm delighted to announce that we are now an active member of not only Climate Action Maroubra Beach and Climate Action Pittwater, but also Sutherland Climate Action Network.
Yesterday I spoke with Jonathan Doig from Sutherland Climate Action, and we will be meeting in the near future.
Pittwater Climate Action continues to make progress with the Pittwater High School Solar Power Station project.
Maroubra Beach Climate Action is a little quite at the moment as one of the key people, Kevin James (a carbon trading expert) has gone to Germany for a whilst.
Githabul people - Indigenous Australian tribe recently achieved yet another victory in a "dry run" this past Tuesday. It was held at the Court of Australia, Sydney, and the victory will likely take place on the Githabul people site in mid November.
Airlines and Aviation Companies - I wanted to congratulate the airline industry for being so pro active in regards to programes to offset carbon emissions and such. My associates and I have spoke and exchanged correspondence with number of Airlines including but not limited to Qantas, REX (Regional Express) Virgin Blue and Sky "X".
Carbon trading companies - I remain impressed by the great work and expertise of Australian companies such as Australian Climate Exchange, The Carbon Pool and the Carbon Reduction Institute.
Australian Geographic Society - founded in March 1988 by Dick Smith, I am now delighted to be assisting on a special project thanks to Todd Tai. The Australian Geographic Society has been pro active in environmental matters for a long time and continues strong.
Environmentalists and the environment - I have also rampted up profiles and content on the Media Man Australia company website:
http://www.mediaman.com.au/profiles/environmentalists.html
Thanks for reading.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Media Man Australia
Yesterday I spoke with Jonathan Doig from Sutherland Climate Action, and we will be meeting in the near future.
Pittwater Climate Action continues to make progress with the Pittwater High School Solar Power Station project.
Maroubra Beach Climate Action is a little quite at the moment as one of the key people, Kevin James (a carbon trading expert) has gone to Germany for a whilst.
Githabul people - Indigenous Australian tribe recently achieved yet another victory in a "dry run" this past Tuesday. It was held at the Court of Australia, Sydney, and the victory will likely take place on the Githabul people site in mid November.
Airlines and Aviation Companies - I wanted to congratulate the airline industry for being so pro active in regards to programes to offset carbon emissions and such. My associates and I have spoke and exchanged correspondence with number of Airlines including but not limited to Qantas, REX (Regional Express) Virgin Blue and Sky "X".
Carbon trading companies - I remain impressed by the great work and expertise of Australian companies such as Australian Climate Exchange, The Carbon Pool and the Carbon Reduction Institute.
Australian Geographic Society - founded in March 1988 by Dick Smith, I am now delighted to be assisting on a special project thanks to Todd Tai. The Australian Geographic Society has been pro active in environmental matters for a long time and continues strong.
Environmentalists and the environment - I have also rampted up profiles and content on the Media Man Australia company website:
http://www.mediaman.com.au/profiles/environmentalists.html
Thanks for reading.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Media Man Australia
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Media Man Australia Social and Community Entrepreneurs
The Media Man Australia Social and Community Entrepreneur Profiles have been updated.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Global Warming - Climate Crisis / Environmental Update
We had the pleasure to attend the Maroubra Climate Movement meeting at Matraville Library on the 6th March. Labor and The Greens were represented, and a stand in rep was sent in for Liberal.
Overall, it was most interesting, educational, and even, entertaining event.
Special thanks to Kevin James via Sandy Thomas for the tip off.
Visit our Climate Movement Media Blog (with another update soon)
Special thanks to The Southern Courier for attending the event.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Overall, it was most interesting, educational, and even, entertaining event.
Special thanks to Kevin James via Sandy Thomas for the tip off.
Visit our Climate Movement Media Blog (with another update soon)
Special thanks to The Southern Courier for attending the event.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Social and Community Entrepreneur, Penny Wynne, back in the news
Goat lady chews fact on running - The Sydney Morning Herald - click here
Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Profiles
Social and Community Entrepreneurs
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Social and Community Entrepreneur Blog
Negotiations have commenced with major Australian newspapers.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
e: greg@mediaman.com.au
w: www.mediaman.com.au
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
e: greg@mediaman.com.au
w: www.mediaman.com.au
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Friday, November 24, 2006
Media Man Australia Community Media Update
Update on the Media Man Australia website on the social and community entrepreneurs section.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Australian Community Media Update
Be sure to check out the Media Man Australia Australia profile of Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane etc. We are also building up the World Directory.
Recently we have come across some great community websites and portals.
Have a look at:
Middle Park (Melbourne suburb)
Craig's List
MyLocal (NineMSN local portal)
Media Man Australia is develping a portal directory.
More information on the Media Man Australia official website.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
Recently we have come across some great community websites and portals.
Have a look at:
Middle Park (Melbourne suburb)
Craig's List
MyLocal (NineMSN local portal)
Media Man Australia is develping a portal directory.
More information on the Media Man Australia official website.
Best Regards
Greg Tingle
Director
Media Man Australia
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