Melbourne Community Foundation (MCF) has recently established the National Community Foundation under its umbrella structure. The two new funds are the National Community Foundation Fund, a tax deductible fund and the National Community Foundation Extension Fund and non-tax deductible fund.

A number of companies have established or are planning to establish a sub-fund under our community foundation structure.

In Australia like other parts of the world, staff are becoming more engaged with their company's giving programs and CSR activities. Employees now look at prospective employers CSR programs as one of the criteria to be considered before working for a company.  They often feel more motivated to work for a company they believe is concerned about its impact on society and the environment.

National corporate donors who want to work with MCF but to engage staff at a national level have indicated it would be much easier with a fund which is seen to have a national reach than a Melbourne reach.  Through a sub-fund with NCF they have a vehicle for a workplace giving program and they can support organisations and charities both in Australia and overseas through registered Australian Charities.

In addition to MCF's grantmaking expertise philanthropic consultants in Sydney and Brisbane have been employed to work with donors to research and identify projects to support.

•  Click here to view our Community Foundation structure in PDF Format

Since MCF was established 10 years ago it has distributed over $7.5 million to a range of community organisations and activities.

• Read an article about MCF's first 10 years taken from the annual report in PDF format.
  

MCF held its 2007 AGM on Tuesday 30 October, 2007 at KPMG.  The year's activities were briefly outlined Highlighting another successful year of capital growth, investment performance and nearly $1.5M in grants distributed to charitable organisations and projects.

MCF's funds under management grew to $33.5M a growth of $8.8M in the 06-07 financial year.  A 22.2% return on investments was achieved, another excellent result.  Over the past 3 years MCF, in conjunction with its investment advisers, Carnbrea & Co have benefited from a strong investment return averaging 21.7%.

Since MCF was established 10 years ago, in 1997, it has distributed more than $7.5M to a range of community organisations and activities.   Over the past 12 months 170 grants were made totalling $1.47M.

Below is the AGM Speech delivered by Andrea Rumph, Executive Director, and the 2006-07 Annual Report and the Final Financial Statements 2006-07 are available for download.

Annual Report / Financials

• Annual Report Document 2007 (2mb PDF)
  
• Performance Report - Sept 2007 (PDF)
   

The new MacroMelbourne Liveable City report document was released today.

The document outlines MarcoMelbourne's vision for our city as one for all its people and provides information about the program and how to get involved. A link to the report in PDF format is provided below.

Media Contact Details:

Trudy Wyse 0419 581 678

Karen Mahlab 0417 538 001

• MacroMelbourne Liveable City - Sept 2007 (3mb PDF)
  

CPA has joined with Melbourne Community Foundation for Victorian CPA Congress, 2007. 

CPA believes it is an exceptional opportunity for alignment with a not-for-profit organisation that is broader than a single issue charity. 

 CPA Congress is one of the southern hemisphere’s largest annual meetings of finance, accounting and business professionals.

Each year the CPA Congress in Victoria attracts over 5,000 like-minded industry professionals providing outstanding networking opportunities.

MCF is hosting a luncheon with CPA on Wednesday 24 October at Congress, ‘How do you get your organisation involved in CSR that is effective, meaningful and safe?.’

For more information on the CPA Congress visit their website: cpaaustralia.com.au

On June 6th MCF held a donor get-together at the home of board member Annie Duncan. This function provided an opportunity for our fast growing band of donors to meet each other and catch up on latest developments at MCF.

A highlight of the function was hearing about the development of the where there's hope DVD -  a collaboration between  Orygen Youth Health and 3 of MCF's sub-funds -Sally Oatley Memorial Fund, Morawetz Social Justice Fund and Alf and Meg Steele Fund.

One of the donors spoke about the background to his family's interest in supporting mental health initiatives for young people and their families. Simon Dodd from Orygen provided some background to the DVD and showed some excerpts - following the stories of 3 families and their journey after their child has first been diagnosed with a mental illness.

The DVD is moving and powerful and will be a key resource for schools, health and support organisations, as well as the broader community.

Go to www.orygen.org.au for further information about the DVD to order a copy of it.

International expert agrees to join MCF's Board.

Peter Hero, international philanthropy expert and senior adviser to the USA's Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), has agreed to join the Board of Melbourne Community Foundation (MCF) after taking part in week-long activities to mark the foundation's 10th anniversary.

As part of his visit to Australia, Peter Hero was a guest speaker at a number of functions and workshops aimed at highlighting the benefits of community foundations to Australian professional advisors, corporates, community groups and donors. He also participated in the Board's two day annual retreat.

Mr Hero is credited with growing SVCF's assets from US$7 million to over US$1.6 billion, making it the fourth largest community foundation in the US, one which now distributes up to US$3 million a week in grants.

MCF set two targets to achieve by it's 10th anniversary to have 100 sub-funds and assets of $25 million. It surpassed both, and now has 104 sub-funds and a corpus of $30 million.

The highlight of MCF's 10th Anniversary was a dinner dance held at historic Abbotsford Convent.

During the evening, founding MCF Board member, Adjunct Professor Hayden Raysmith, led an engaging, amusing and often confronting conversation between Peter Hero and Peter Singer, Professor of Bio-ethics at Princeton University.

Responding to the topic 'The values that underpin philanthropic giving', both related their experiences of 'modern' philanthropists, especially in the US, who have made their fortune at a young age through the dot.com boom.

Peter Hero, with his greater experience of local place-based giving at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, stressed the difference that strategic philanthropic giving can make in local communities in the US, while Peter Singer focused more on the extraordinary impact that similar amounts of funding can have on alleviating problems of world health, such as TB and malaria.

Mr Hero also took part in a workshop hosted jointly by MCF and Changemakers Australia at the Australian Catholic University's Melbourne city campus. The workshop focused on how community foundations can play a leadership role in identifying and responding to community issues, in partnership with the community organisations they are supporting.

His message revolved around the role of community foundations in convening and collaborating to make social change. He reinforced the point that community foundations It turned out that every one of the groups had major fundraising projects for the next three years, projects that would see enormous competition between groups whose executives had never met each other.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation proposed working collaboratively to raise a shared endowment which could contribute to sustainable funding for all the groups.

The collaboration raised an initial US$12million and under the agreed formula various arts groups were able to pay off their operating deficit, have a working cash reserve and a permanent endowment for the future.

Many of the donors were more willing to contribute to the endowment on the basis that it would be held and managed by the community foundation.

In this instance the community foundation was able to work with the arts community to attract funds that they could not raise individually and have an impact beyond the community foundation's own grantmaking capacity.