30 COMMUNITY | LEGAL SECTOR SUSTAINABILITY INSIGHT 2016 CORPORATE GIVING 26 27 19 8 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Corporate donations Staff giving Matched giving Foundations Not-for-profit organisations provide a range of critical services in Australia and play an invaluable role in responding to community needs, building social capital and bolstering our resilience. They also generate almost four percent of Australia’s GDP or around $55 billion and facilitate the contribution of over 600 million hours of volunteer work - equivalent a 320,000 full-time jobs. Large businesses, of over 200 employees, gave $9 billion (or $2.5 million on average) in 2015/16. These financial contributions went mostly to fund education and research ($3 billion), health ($1 billion) and social services ($990 million). These businesses saw their giving as being strategic and a source of competitive advantage for employee engagement, social licence, and stakeholder engagement (2016 Giving Australia Report). The 2016 Giving Australia Report described a series of drivers for supporting giving and volunteering: • seeking to do good by making a positive contribution to the community • generating social impact • employee expectations • a business desire to attract and retain the best people (employee engagement) • a strategy for the community to allow the business to operate and implement its plans. Corporate community partnerships are becoming more sophisticated and widespread as the size and importance of firms’ giving programs grows. Increasingly firms are packaging their legal pro bono, non-legal volunteering and financial support into structured and longer-term partnerships that deliver on their community and social development objectives. In 2016 these community partnerships accounted for 69% of the total value of large business giving in large Australian businesses Contributions from workplace-giving programs are often matched by employers, making them doubly valuable to the chosen charity. Direct deduction from employees’ salaries ensures that more money directly and consistently reaches the cause. FORMAL PROGRAM INITIATIVES 91% 6% 3% Yes No Not Reported Number of firms