Where does your money go when you donate to charity
When you donate to charity, where does your money go? When it comes to charitable donations, it's important to consider how much of the donations you make actually go to the cause. After all, you want to make sure that your donation is going to be put to good use.
Save the Children Australia strongly believes in transparency and accountability in the charity sector, so we've prepared this guide to charity expenses and how to find out where charity money goes.
What percentage of donations go to charity in Australia
Each charity is set up differently, with factors like the charity's areas of focus and size greatly impacting what percentage of proceeds are distributed where. However, things to look out for when ensuring your donation is going to where it's needed are transparency and accountability.
Look for charities that are open about exactly how much of the donations go to charity administrative and employee costs within their organisation, and what measures they take to ensure funds are allocated appropriately. Regardless of how transparent they may be to their donors, there are ways to find charities with low administrative costs in Australia.
How to find out where charity money goes
Since the governing body was founded in 2012, every year charities in Australia provide their annual expenses in an Annual Information Statement to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). This information includes the breakdown of a charity's expenses and is easily searchable by size, areas of focus, and individual organisations. This transparency and accessibility of financial information allows for greater accountability and helps donors make informed decisions about which charities to support.
Which charity gives the most to its cause in Australia
According to the ACNC, large charities on average spend 55% of their funds on employee expenses, Save the Children Australia stands out in this category as one of the charities with the lowest administrative costs, with our program, consulting and training expenditure ratio in 2022 (the percentage spent on our initiatives,) at 80.9% and total employee expenditure at less than 28%.
Donations help cover necessary administration costs and expenses a charity needs to run daily. Including things like marketing that helps to raise awareness as well as the donations they need and the services and supplies needed to provide aid. As an example, in humanitarian emergencies, we provide life-saving medical care, shelter, food, and clean water along with providing families with cash grants so they can get the things they need.
When a disaster happens, anywhere in the world - we send specially trained teams to deliver immediate relief when children need it most. Recently in Tonga, where the nation was devastated by a volcanic eruption and tsunami, we sent critical supplies along with classroom kits, chalkboards, face masks, school bags, and large tents to be used as temporary classrooms so children could continue to learn in places where schools have been destroyed.
Make sure your donation has the maximum impact
If you're looking for a way to make sure your donation has maximum impact, look no further than Save the Children. We work hard to ensure that every donation makes a difference in the lives of children around the world. We are dedicated to our mission and with decades of experience, we know the best way to effectively help as many children as possible, making long-lasting change.
We have grown into a global organisation helping millions of children in 117 countries which means we can use our global scale to ensure we are as efficient and effective as possible working through a single structure when implementing projects internationally.
We are set up so that we can act quickly in the event of a disaster with specially trained teams on standby that can provide immediate aid on-site within 72 hours. And we don't leave when the immediate need has been addressed.