Queensland Community Foundation (QCF)
Reception in honour of sponsors, key supporters and donors and to present grants to applicants awarded funding from the QCF General Fund
Tuesday 28th July, 2009
The Hon Mike Ahern AO, Patron of the Queensland Community Foundation,
QCF Chairman, Dr John de Groot,
Mr Peter Carne, Public Trustee of Queensland and QCF Trustee,
Members of the Board of Governors and Management Committee,
Representatives of community organisations,
Other distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
In the spirit of reconciliation that we wish to see respected and promoted throughout Queensland, I acknowledge the first custodians of the land on which Brisbane was built, the Jagera and Turrbal peoples and their descendants.
I extend to you all a very warm welcome to Government House and to this reception to honour all who work for and support the Queensland Community Foundation.
Although we have had a flurry of last minute ‘regrets' this afternoon, from people who had previously accepted - mostly because of colds and flu - I am gratified and impressed by the attendance this evening. It is a veritable ‘Who's Who' of major community organisations in Queensland. I am especially pleased to see so many familiar faces and representatives of organisations with which I have a special relationship, as Patron, and many of which I have come to know very well over the past twelve months (I mark my first year in Office tomorrow).
There is, of course, a very practical dimension to this evening's function: in a few moments we will be presenting grants, under the 2009 program, to successful applicants awarded funding from the QCF General Fund; and I am sure those receiving cheques will be very pleased indeed to receive them!
But there is an equally pleasing, larger purpose in hosting this function - to recognise and to thank the Queensland Community Fund - its sponsors, donors and key supporters - for the very significant contribution it makes to our State.
Australians/Queenslanders have always been generous about helping others: service organisations, charities and not-for-profit organisations have been part of the fabric of our community since the establishment of our State; but as the State has grown, in size and complexity - so the world of giving has also become more complex. For individuals, there is a bewildering array of good causes to support; and, for many good-hearted people, an even more bewildering world of finances and legalities to navigate when making decisions about contributions and bequests. At a different level, within the not-for-profit sector, even for well known and well established community organisations, confident about their standing and appeal - as charity and philanthropy assume more and more the mantle and character of business in our society - (and, indeed, it is very big business - you only have to read the front page of today's Courier Mail to be reminded of that!), there are a host of operational and other challenges which need to be managed in ever-more sophisticated and innovative ways; and in an increasingly crowded and competitive space, greater efficiencies constantly need to be found and priorities adjusted to meet changing needs. That's never easy - and even harder in a State the size of Queensland and with our unusual - by comparison with other states - population dispersal.
The Queensland Community Foundation emerged in 1997, in part as a response to these complexities, these changes and challenges - and in part because of the vision and determination of its founders, who could see the practical benefits that would flow from introducing different systems for managing and distributing funds to charities and community groups in Queensland - influenced in part by the models of the US and UK community chest organisations.
In its twelve years of operation, the QCF has had a significant impact and made a significant difference. It has led the way in making it so much easier and straightforward to make charitable donations and by offering to all Queenslanders - both the wealthy and not so wealthy - a low-cost way of giving in perpetuity. It has been innovative in many ways, but one approach which has been especially effective and valuable in our State - given those geographic and demographic realities to which I referred earlier - is its approach of enabling QCF donations to be allocated for specific purposes and to specific regions. I understand - with the exception of a much smaller foundation in Melbourne - this is not the practice elsewhere in Australia. The value that this ‘ear-marking' represents for Queensland is highlighted this evening, by the emphasis placed on grants to organisations active in rural, remote and regional Queensland.
Wherever they may be directed, the yearly grants have been made possible by the steady growth of the Foundation - and of its General Fund, since its inception, under the purposeful governance of its talented voluntary Board - a quite exceptional array of community leaders, including a former Governor, a former Premier, legal specialists, academics and researchers, tax experts, businessmen and women and generous philanthropists.
Their activism and acumen has led to $350 million in bequests being made to the QCF, to $25 million now under management and to the $1 million being distributed this year.
These impressive figures show just how much the art of giving has evolved: how individual gestures and acts of goodwill and kindness can be mobilised, pooled and channeled to help sustain large numbers of charities and community groups throughout our State. As Governor, I have a keen awareness of the numbers and activities of these groups - but in the wider community, it is my clear sense that there is less appreciation of the immense contribution they make overall: few would know that across our State, with its population of 4.2 million, there are an estimated one million volunteers, helping with the day to day activities of these organisations, or that the value of their work has been estimated as being worth around $70 billion per annum.
Even so, there are still those who make invidious comparisons with the philanthropic habits in other countries. My attention was drawn recently to an article which noted that America's 20 richest men gave on average 14.4% of their wealth to charity compared to Australia's average of just 4%. The discrepancy suggests we could do better: and maybe we can - in Australia and here in Queensland - but in making such comparisons, I think we need also to consider some of the differences between our two societies. A far greater proportion of America's wealth - an extraordinary 23% - is held by the top 1% of its population. In Australia, that proportion is held by a little less than 10% of the population. It is also evident that we can claim a considerably more comprehensive and egalitarian social welfare safety net.
It's not the job of the generously endowed or of the generously disposed members of our community to replace that safety net - nor, as some free market ideologues would have it - to privatise the provision of welfare. But it is important - with our smaller population and correspondingly more limited capacity to respond to ever-growing needs - to maximise our effectiveness in harnessing the philanthropic and charitable instincts and impulses evident in our community; to develop systems that are creative and flexible and can direct assistance quickly and effectively to where needs are most evident: systems that can both complement and offer alternatives to the government systems of distribution, which are invariably, some might say inevitably, less flexible and slower-moving, which can run the risk pointed out by the famous US economist Milton Freedman, some 40 years ago, of having the redistribution of welfare end up in the hands of middle and upper income earners who least need it - and which patently cannot meet all the needs so evident in the community.
This question of needs is obviously central: both in relation to recipients and systems. For this reason I was very pleased to see the work that QCF initiated a few years ago, with its partner, the QUT's Centre for Philanthropy and Non Profit Studies, to conduct research to determine where the unmet needs of the philanthropic sector lie. And even more pleased to see that one of the central recommendations arising from that investigation - of a need to direct funding to capacity-building of the not-for-profit sector - has now become a cornerstone of QCF's objectives and operations. Perhaps we will hear more about how that is working from John, but from my observation - as Patron of many, many Queensland charities - which allows me to see first-hand what they do and how they do it - this approach seems to be paying real dividends. And perhaps also there may be a link between that and the organisations which have been selected to receive the grants being presented this evening - beyond the fact that they are working to meet the needs of Queenslanders living in regional, rural and remote locations. Whatever the factors that have determined their selection, I extend my warm congratulations to each of these organisations, and my thanks for the valuable work they are carrying out - as I extend my warm congratulations and profound thanks to the Foundation - and everyone associated with it, for the professional and purposeful way it is pursuing its valuable mission in the service of the Queensland community.
Thank you