Charities to Discover the Top 40 Companies That Give Back in Australia

GoodCompany, Australia’s largest unified workplace giving, volunteering and fundraising platform has announced the results of its “Top 40 Best Workplaces to Give Back in Australia in 2018”.

IAG, which is Australia’s largest general insurer, has been identified as the best workplace to give back, closely followed by Origin and National Australia Bank (NAB). Each of the companies demonstrated a strong commitment to partner with their staff to support the community through volunteering, payroll giving, fundraising, sponsorship and other prosocial initiatives.

The index was the brainchild of Ash Rosshandler, GoodCompany CEO, and was born out of frustration that charities did not have a window into workplace giving efforts in corporate Australia.

“If companies offer paid volunteer leave, how long do staff get and do they have a budget? If companies offer payroll giving are the charity choices open or closed? And if they match donations, how much will they match? If companies provide sponsorships, who do they sponsor? And finally what other action items are companies committing to, to promote diversity, the environment, Reconciliation Action Plans etc.? These are all fairly straightforward questions and we felt that if we could get some answers, we should help shed some light for the sector,” explained Rosshandler.

Answers to these questions were then ranked based on three main criteria; the size of their programs, the broader context in which the programs were running and the innovation adopted by the company making their programs unique to their organisation. And this year, IAG came in at number 1.

“At IAG we’re driven by our purpose to make your world a safer place. We support our people, customers and communities to bring this purpose to life. We encourage our people to nominate charities they are passionate about and through the IAG Foundation they are able to make a positive contribution through workplace giving and volunteering. In recognition of their support we match each contribution dollar for dollar,” IAG Foundation board member, David Harrington explains.

In addition to the rankings, GoodCompany also identified that of the Top 40 companies:

• 64 per cent offer payroll giving, 81.2 per cent match with 30.8 per cent have this set as uncapped.
• 88 per cent offer paid volunteer leave and 61.4 per cent have budget to support volunteering.
• 65.9 per cent give a single day to volunteer with 34 per cent offering two or more days.
• The most popular action items were:
  • Diversity program (84.6 per cent);
  • Recycling Program (80.8 per cent); and
  • SDG’s (61.5 per cent).

Encouragingly, 76 per cent of companies felt community engagement was extremely important to the success of their company. Their leaders were happy to share their passion for the community.  

“There are many things that make me proud to lead this great Australian company, but one that sticks out is the passion and commitment of our people to making a difference in their communities. We support them to do this through our Foundation by volunteering their time and skills with our partners or donating to causes important to them through our matched giving program,” Origin (ranked number 2) CEO Frank Calabria said.

“As a workforce of 30,000, we understand the impact our people can have so we actively encourage and support them to become involved in their community.” Nicola Murphy, head of corporate responsibility engagement at NAB (ranked number 3) explained.

“We recognise that our workplace giving program is the most effective way for us to have real impact in our community. To further enhance the program, we match our employee workplace giving donations and work with a select group of charity partners to support key programs and projects”, noted Flight Centre (ranked number 6) CEO Graham “Skroo” Turner.

“Working at AGL means I am lucky enough to be able to help others.  AGL’s dollar for dollar donation matching means you can double the impact to your charity. I’m glad I can give back and I’m proud AGL supports me to make the biggest impact possible,” said AGL’s (ranked ninth) CFO Brett Redman.

Rosshandler loves the competitive nature of the index and hopes that it becomes an important accolade for companies to vie for.

“We believe that this can become a further indicator of a company’s success. Just as their yearly profits are viewed as a success measure, so too will their focus on contributing to the community around them.”

And as GoodCompany works with over half of the companies listed, we hope charities will contact us to see how we can best connect them to these companies to meet their funding, volunteering and sponsorship needs.

For more information see http://www.bestplacetogiveback.com.au/ and www.goodcompany.com.au

Top 40 ‘Good Companies’

1.   IAG
2.   Origin
3.   NAB
4.   Westpac
5.   Optus
6.   Flight Centre Travel Group
7.   AECOM
8.   ANZ
9.   AGL
10.   Small Giants
11.   Commonwealth Bank
12.   CSL Limited
13.   Toyota Australia
14.   Fuji Xerox Australia
15.   VIVA Energy Australia
16.   Zurich Financial Services Australia
17.   Corrs Chambers Westgarth
18.   Pandora Jewellery
19.   Accenture
20.   nbn co
21.   Konica Minolta Australia
22.   ClubsNSW
23.   nib health funds
24.   Pro Bono Australia
25.   Netwealth Investments Limited
26.   Event Hospitality & Entertainment
27.   Luminary
28.   Sodexo
29.   Spotlight Holdings Group
30.   TechnologyOne
31.   Blackbaud
32.   Stone & Wood Brewing Co.
33.   Gilchrist Connell
34.   Variance Infotech Pty Ltd
35.   American Express Global Business Travel
36.   QBE Insurance
37.   Colin Biggers & Paisley
38.   Stone & Chalk
39.   Synchronicity Consulting t.a. Spark Strategy
40.   PageUp People Limited