Financial Impact

The financial results of Hands Across Canberra Group are a consolidation of the operations of 3 entities: Hands Across Canberra Public Ancillary Fund, Hands Across Canberra Limited and the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund.

Summary results for 2023/24

Note 1: Excludes inter-entity charges. Note 2: Includes Named Funds receipts ($445,897) to build the long-term Perpetual Fund to support charities, donations to be transferred to Other Charities in July ($109,330), Net gain on investments ($158,508)

The results for 2023/24 reflected a continuing return to normal annual activities with a consolidation of the Canberra Day Appeal and a very successful End of Financial Year Appeal. The Named Funds initiative continues to gain traction: four new Named Funds founded during the year brought our total Named Funds to 21.

The Canberra Day Appeal was a consolidation on previous years. Although not reaching the same level as in 2022/23, the Canberra community continued to demonstrate their generosity and we reached a solid $687,160 in donations and matching funds.

Our major grant collaborative grant round for the year — through the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund in conjunction with the Snow Foundation, the John James Foundation, the Aspen Foundation and Aspen Medical — allowed an injection into the not-for-profit sector of $1.5m. The Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund contribution was $319,392.

In 2023 the Strathnairn Charity House in Ginnindery was completed and sold, enabling a surplus of $506,966 to be distributed evenly across four charities at $126,741 each, including Hands Across Canberra. A long settlement period was agreed, funds were received in July and distributed to charities in July 2023.

Over the past four years we have established an End of Financial Year Appeal so that community members can consider donating to Hands Across Canberra and linked charities as part of their donation considerations for their financial year planning.

In this past financial year, there’s been a significant increase in donations to Hands Across Canberra, the many other charities that are linked to us through our webpage, and towards increasing Named Funds. Overall, more than $500,000 was donated to Hands Across Canberra and smaller charities in June 2024.

The ACT Government provided a generous contribution of $750,000 to the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund in 2022/23 to support the purchase of land for the next charity house project. These funds are held in Trust within the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund while work progresses to identify land and builders to complete this project.

Overall, during the 2023/24 financial year, the Hands Across Canberra Group provided direct funding to charities of $1.5m and mobilized a further $1.2m in conjunction with partner foundations in the ACT to provide a total of over $2.7m to local charities.

The Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund provided substantial contributions for the year, with a total injection of $808,987 in support of Hands Across Canberra activities, appeals, grant programs and operating costs. These contributions from the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund complemented the general donations received from the community.

The Hands Across Canberra Perpetual Fund Corpus has continued to grow. A further $445,897has been injected into the existing and new Named Funds, with a corresponding $158,508 in net growth of the investment portfolio.

Overall, the Perpetual Fund has grown from $1,173,656 as at 30 June 2023 to $1,813,580 as at 30 June 2024 (this includes $344,901 received in June but transferred to investments in July). This was an increase of $639,924 or 54.5%.

Total funds distributed to charities were as follows:

*Includes $380,225 transferred to charities from proceeds of the sale of the Strathnairn Charity House. A balance of $109,330 of donations received on behalf of Other Charities in June and not included in this figure, will be transferred to them in July 2024.

** Contributions to Perpetual Fund Corpus are increasing to provide a sustainable funding pool for local charities in the future.

The activities of the Hands Across Canberra Group go beyond fund raising and are strategically divided between three operational pillars:

• raising awareness
• developing partnerships
• giving and fundraising.

We are conscious of the need to ensure we maximise the amount granted to charities. Therefore we seek to keep operational and fundraising expenses under control. As a percentage of total expenses, our current operating expenses profile across the three operational pillars is as follows:

Our Giving and Fundraising expenses represented 16.6% of the amount of funding provided to charities in 2023–24 in addition to building the Corpus for future charity funding

Summary of Results

Total Income

Distribution of funds