A) Ongoing updating of our resources & charities information pages. It is our intention to make as much information available, not only for donors to be able to make informed choices, but to make the most effective use of the limited "charity" dollar.

B) A voluntary "Standards for Charitable Accountability" which will be made available for discussion later this year. It would cover such areas as:

Governance and Oversight
Measuring Effectiveness
Finances
Fundraising and Informational Materials

It would be anticipated that after a consultation period Charitel Charitable Trust would award some recognition to those charities who either conformed completely with the voluntary code or were working towards acceptance. It has to be said at this stage that we know of many charitable organisations who would qualify 100% right now, that we ourselves would only qualify for the working towards recognition and that, unfortunately, there are some "organisations" or "trusts" who would never qualify right now, but they may change.

C) Lobbying of the Government of the day to adopt the United Kingdom model for personal charitable deductions. Ever since 1987 we have been told that the government has no place in the spending of public money on other than essential services and that it is up to the private (ie you, me and businesses) sector to support non-essential services, under which most charitable organisations fall. The government/s have certainly withdrawn support but have not granted us modern sophisticated methods for our charitable donations.Compare that to the UK where pre-tax deduction at source was introduced concurrently with the Governments withdrawal from the "private sector". Did we get a "fair deal"?
What we would be asking for
Charitable donations at payroll source to be deducted before tax
No limit on charitable donations for persons on PAYE.
That to encourage personal giving and responsibility all charitable donations under the payroll source scheme attract a 10% addition from the government for a period of 3 years.

Limits for companies - changes recently recommended would leave companies free to donate up to 5% of nett income. As well companies can claim tax deductable sponsorship or advertising costs. This of course does lead to GST implications for the charities.