So far I’ve converted 2 other people to give 10% of their incomes to effective charities. Also founded an organisation to evaluate and recommend Australian-based charities (for those that insist on tax-deductibility and/or not donating overseas).
Also, I became a vegetarian last year and I’d love to post that here, where hopefully you will all pat me on the back for what was a difficult change to begin with! Usually I just cop a lot of crap for it :(
If your aim is tax-deductibility, and there are charities that you can’t current get tax-deductibility to, then why not setup a charity that simply makes grants to overseas charities? This is what we have done in the UK with the Giving What We Can Trust, which has had hundreds of thousands of pounds donated through it to non-UK charities. This means that you can donate to any charity in the world rather than limiting yourself to Australian charities.
Turns out tax deductibility is much more complicated in Australia than elsewhere, and is made even worse by the fact that a couple of legal challenges are currently underway, so the case law is in flux.
There are a couple of people in Melbourne (not me!) who know their way around the tax system very well and are planning to write up the parts that would be relevant to setting up a re-routing fund. I think they’re not prioritising it because setting up such a fund looks like it would be at least 1 full time job, plus a decent amount of accounting/legal/senior-community-figure support.
Hi Niel—there are other people doing the trust idea :)
The aim of my group is mostly outreach—there are heaps of people interested in charity who want to give to effective Australian groups who aren’t EAs as such. (This is not something I personally agree with, but a large number of people do) so there’s a real need for some local guidelines.
Awesome job on becoming vegetarian! Sometimes the hardest part can be the lack of social acceptance. Maybe find some veg friends or join a vegetarian club/group? It can be helpful to surround yourself with people who have similar goals.
Haha thanks Michael—I have rural Australia problems :( There is actually an “ethical food” cafe that opened this year that has some delicious vege lunch items. A lot of beef is raised locally here so not supporting the local industry is pretty unpopular :/
So far I’ve converted 2 other people to give 10% of their incomes to effective charities. Also founded an organisation to evaluate and recommend Australian-based charities (for those that insist on tax-deductibility and/or not donating overseas).
Also, I became a vegetarian last year and I’d love to post that here, where hopefully you will all pat me on the back for what was a difficult change to begin with! Usually I just cop a lot of crap for it :(
If your aim is tax-deductibility, and there are charities that you can’t current get tax-deductibility to, then why not setup a charity that simply makes grants to overseas charities? This is what we have done in the UK with the Giving What We Can Trust, which has had hundreds of thousands of pounds donated through it to non-UK charities. This means that you can donate to any charity in the world rather than limiting yourself to Australian charities.
Turns out tax deductibility is much more complicated in Australia than elsewhere, and is made even worse by the fact that a couple of legal challenges are currently underway, so the case law is in flux.
There are a couple of people in Melbourne (not me!) who know their way around the tax system very well and are planning to write up the parts that would be relevant to setting up a re-routing fund. I think they’re not prioritising it because setting up such a fund looks like it would be at least 1 full time job, plus a decent amount of accounting/legal/senior-community-figure support.
Hi Niel—there are other people doing the trust idea :)
The aim of my group is mostly outreach—there are heaps of people interested in charity who want to give to effective Australian groups who aren’t EAs as such. (This is not something I personally agree with, but a large number of people do) so there’s a real need for some local guidelines.
This is really big—fantastic work, congratulations!
Awesome job on becoming vegetarian! Sometimes the hardest part can be the lack of social acceptance. Maybe find some veg friends or join a vegetarian club/group? It can be helpful to surround yourself with people who have similar goals.
Haha thanks Michael—I have rural Australia problems :( There is actually an “ethical food” cafe that opened this year that has some delicious vege lunch items. A lot of beef is raised locally here so not supporting the local industry is pretty unpopular :/