The end of financial year is always exciting. An opportunity to engage with the for-purpose partners that we know and love or be introduced to a new charitable beneficiary in anticipation of finding a new organisation to support.

In the lead up to 30 June, Active Philanthropists received updates from past beneficiaries, read numerous impact and acquittal reports and spent time researching and getting to know new organisations. This is all a precursor to the Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation (ECF) that is made up of more than 288 families who are distributing more than $12,795,000 in charitable distributions by the end of financial year 2024.

This is the largest distribution total to date since the Foundation’s inception and more than 787 payments were made in FY24.

Here are some interesting insights from the year:

• The median grant distribution amount was $6,000

• The organisations that received the most number of distributions (but still less than 15 distributions) included: The Smith Family, The Salvation Army, The Fred Hollows Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontières

• 477 of the 787 payments made, were distributed to unique organisations

• 75% of Active Philanthropists did not designate a specific purpose for their grant distribution

As we delve deeper into the data, we look forward to sharing more insights.

NEW SPENDABLE BALANCES

If you have had an Equity Trustees Charitable Foundation account for a while, you will recall that granting would always occur after the March Quarter of each financial year. With the move to the Philanthropy Portal, philanthropy happens all year round.

In July each year, the Equity Trustees team ‘resets’ your account in preparation for the new granting year. We do this by determining your account’s balance as at 30 June. We then calculate each account’s ‘spendable balance’ (ie. the minimum distribution as determined by the ATO, which is 4%) and this is updated to your Account Dashboard.

If you log in to your Portal today, you will note that the Dashboard is reflecting the FY25 financial year as well as your new spendable balance for the current year.

We no longer have to wait until the end of a financial year to give. This spendable balance is available to be granted to your chosen beneficiaries from now.

ANNUAL GRANTING CHECKLIST

The start of a new year is a perfect time to reflect and reset – and the Annual Granting Checklist is a document we’ve put together to assist you with this process.

The checklist includes important aspects of your philanthropy that is worth revisiting each year.

If you would like to know more, please reach out to the Equity Trustees Active Philanthropy team.