Inaugural Awards Highlight the Value of Workplace Giving

Professional services firm PriceWaterHouseCoopers has taken out two awards at the Australian Charities Fund’s Inaugural Workplace Giving Awards, with cancer support charity RedKite and home entertainment retailer JB Hi-Fi also among the award winners.

Image: Simon McKeon, 2011 Australian of the Year and Jenni Seton, CEO, Redkite

PwC won both the award for best practice employer organisation and the award for innovation. 32% of PwC employees take part in their program, with 20 million dollars having been donated since the program was introduced in 2002.

RedKite – a Not for Profit organisation that provides support for children with cancer and their families – took the award for best practice community organisation for their work in encouraging their corporate partners to introduce workplace giving programs and for encouraging dollar for dollar matching to the employee organisations by the employer.

Home entertainment retailer JB Hi-Fi, who match all their employee donations, won the award for organisational engagement. Their 2010/11 financial year workplace giving totaled $1, 086 000.

Entertainment, hospitality, and leisure company Amalgamated Holdings Limited and children's family cancer charity Camp Quality won the collaboration-join award employer organisation/community organisation award and Kevin Perkins from Collins Foods Group won the award for inspirational leadership.
 

Image: Simon McKeon, 2011 Australian of the Year and Mark Reading, Corporate Responsibility Partner, PwC

Almost 200 people attended The Australian Charities Fund’s Inaugural Workplace Giving Awards ceremony at NSW Parliament house on Monday September 5.

The awards, presented by Australian of the Year Simon McKeon and The Australian Charities Fund CEO Edward Kerr, celebrate meaningful and impactful partnerships between charities and corporates and are designed to promote best practice in the field of workplace giving.

Encouraging and facilitating workplace giving programs is the core business of the Australian Charities Fund which was set up in 2003 following a study that revealed that Australians were giving 3-6 times less than individuals in other developed nations. Since then, they have helped over $55 million worth of workplace giving donations reach over 180 community organisations.

Despite the negative perceptions that exist around the corporate sector, McKeon says that businesses want to be a part of the community. Too often business is seen as part of the problem, if business were seen to be part of the solution, that desertion would start to change.

Many people in the business sector have good intentions but are leaving their giving till too late in life, says McKeon. Workplace giving encourages employees to give now, and provides them with a tax efficient minimal fuss way to go about it.

McKeon also pointed to the positive role that commerce has played in poverty reduction around the globe, as well as the non-monetary contributions the business world provides such as through the building of infrastructure.

Businesses and community organisations prepared submissions to be considered for the awards which were judged by a panel of three highly accomplished professionals in the business and community sectors. Those eligible to apply had programs in place that met the charity fund’s definition of workplace giving as pre-tax salary deductions to deductible gift recipient charities.

The Australian Charities Fund will be publishing case studies following the awards ceremony to document the exemplary examples of the workplace giving programs.

10 students from Gawura, a school for disadvantaged Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children opened the Awards Ceremony with an ‘acknowledgement to country’ by the Captain of Gawura, Rhianna Kinchela-Packer.

This report was filed by Pro Bono Australia's Sydney Correspondent, Tamara Newman.