March is the time for giving in New Zealand

With the end of the personal financial tax year looming, and personal tax credits available, Auckland Communities Foundation is reflecting on a year of giving through their individual donors.

The Foundation is a ‘donor services organisation’, which helps caring and generous donors give their charitable funds away for the best results in the community. They are place-based rather than cause based which means the Foundation facilitates giving for any charitable purpose or cause within the greater Auckland region.

Although still a relatively new model to the Auckland region (in the US a community foundation isn’t considered to be maturing until it’s at least 20 years old), ACF is seeing a greater uptake of its services as people start to seek advice on how best they can help the causes they care about, and know that their donation will be making a difference.

Over the past 12 months there has been an increase in funds being established with ACF and in individual gifts passing through the organisation. Board Member Philippa King, who along with partner Clint and daughters, are building their own fund at ACF says; “More and more people are looking at how they can help develop and support their community through long term philanthropy as well as immediate charity. There is also a growing awareness of pooling donations for greater investment and impact, and the Community Foundation is an independent, robust and transparent vehicle to do this.”

ACF works with all sorts of donors, including a group of around 20 women who are the ‘Fabulous Ladies Giving Circle’; established at the Business School at the University of Auckland. Members of this group each donate between $10-20 per week (the amount is confidential for each individual) and after just over 18 months they have accumulated $25,000. Their first grant was made this year with a scholarship to help a student who is also a parent with childcare costs so they can attend university. The aim for this group is to grow their capital and distribute the interest on the capital each year. One of the Founders, Deborah Levy is a huge advocate of Giving Circles as a means of democratizing philanthropy. “A lot of us don’t have a lot to give away, but we want to do something which will make a difference and this way together we can. I think the Circle model is great and we’d love to support more and more of them setting up.”

So at this time of year, there is the chance to give to a cause, an issue or a charity and benefit yourself by reducing your taxable income. One third of personal giving is returned as a tax refund and there is no threshold on that gift, which is a huge incentive to help contribute to our communities.

“This year we’ve seen a marked increase in private individuals coming forward, wanting to increase their giving and wanting our support to make it as effective, easy and enduring as possible.” says CEO Hilary Sumpter. “We’ve had individual people personally give away between $1,500 to over $150,000 to varying different charities, on whom we’ve done the due diligence. We’ve also had people ask us to help with their charitable aims, rather than setting up their own Foundation or Charitable Trust. And at the end of the last year we saw increased activity in people making donations into their Funds to benefit from the end of the financial year – Aucklanders are starting to get the idea!”

New Zealanders are notoriously generous and during March it’s the time to remember that generosity can get a give-back by way of a tax refund, as well as the get-back people get through giving.

Tuesday, March 31st is the last day to benefit your community and yourself through a donation to your favourite cause.

ENDS

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