Givewell's Australian Charity Awards

The 5th Annual Australian Charity Awards are to be staged in Melbourne in May 2008 and will coincide with the release of a new publication profiling the Third Sector.

Previously, these awards have been presented in conjunction with Ethical Investor’s Australian Sustainability Awards, but according to Givewell’s Michael Walsh it is now time for the Charity Awards to take centre-stage in their own right.

Full details of the awards criteria and the nomination and judgment process are available online, along with nomination forms and a list of previous winners.

The closing date for nominations is December 20th; a short-list for each category will be announced in mid-January.

Walsh says that profiles of the Australian Charity Award winners, as well all short listed charities, will be included in an exciting new publication, The Good Giving Guide.

The guide, to be published by Penguin Books Australia in May 2008, will be launched at the presentation of the Australian Charity Awards.

The book, to be written by Lyn Amy and Mary Pearce, aims to give its readers a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the third sector and provide context for the reader’s personal giving decisions.

Walsh says the book is the first of its type to be produced and distributed by a mainstream publishing house in Australia and will include profiles of approximately 100 key Australian Not for Profits.

Those profiles will be drawn from the information held on the Givewell database.

All royalties from sales of the book are to be donated to a Not for Profit enterprise to be announced early in 2008.

For more information and nomination forms go to http://www.givewell.com.au/Awards/CharityAwards.html