The Australian Major Performing Arts Group has released the results of its annual philanthropy survey, showing that income from donations, corporate sponsorship, and fundraising to our major performing arts companies grew by 15.2 per cent in 2016.

The survey showed revenue from these private streams grew by $12.6 million to a total of $95.7 million from 2015 to 16. It reveals a huge increase in philanthropy and corporate sponsorship over the last 15 years, more than tripling from its 2001 figure of $30.3 million.

You can find the report and more details on the AMPAG website here

We’ve heard a lot recently from the UK about the discussion on privacy with regard to prospect research, so we thought it might be useful to summarise a few points and draw together some relevant web links.

The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined two charities in December for data protection breaches. Both charities paid the fines while publicly disagreeing with the ICO’s assessments. The way these fines have been reported in some quarters have implied that activities such as data screening, or appending phone numbers to donor records, are not permitted under UK legislation, which is not the case.  The key issues were about transparency to donors, and about whether these activities came within the definition of the data holder’s ‘legitimate interest’ and so constituted ‘fair processing.’ The ICO further outlined its position on these issues at a conference last month, and is considering possible penalties for another eleven UK charities.

Charities in the UK have expressed concern about the judgmental tone of remarks made by the ICO representative about charities’ practices which the charities felt were inappropriate and misleading and which lead to headlines like this “The UK Information Commissioner’s office (ICO) has slammed a number of big-name charities, including the RSPCA and the British Heart Foundation, for 'wealth screening' donors. “

As the UK prospect research firm Prospecting for Gold commented last month: Wealth screening is not and never has been illegal. Nor is prospect research.  The key is to make sure you meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act so you can lawfully undertake these activities.
http://prospectingforgold.co.uk/files/4414/8795/4888/PFG_Statement_on_DPA_updated_24th_Feb_2017_.pdf

And the Commissioner herself in her speech to the February conference said:
“Let me be clear. It’s not that the activity is against the law but failing to properly and clearly tell your donors that you’re going to do it, is.”
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2017/02/fundraising-and-regulatory-compliance-conference/
 
UK charities are also concerned that the ICO’s views on these issues do not necessarily agree with those of the NCVO, as expressed in their guidelines on charities’ relations with donors published in September 2016
https://www.ncvo.org.uk/images/images/about_us/media-centre/NCVO_-_Charities_relationships_with_donors.pdf

How much of this debate is relevant for us here in Australia?
As in Australia, the UK data protection laws require that data holders inform their data subjects if they intend to append to their records information provided by third party suppliers. If you look at your telco supplier’s privacy agreement you will probably find a statement like this: We may also collect personal information from other companies that are able to disclose it to us, if it's not practical to collect it from you. For example, we buy or obtain personal information from trusted sources to help us identify people who might be interested in hearing about our products. (Optus privacy statement).

At FR&C we remind clients in our written materials of this obligation to disclose: the relevant Australian Privacy Principle information can be found in APP 5 at https://www.oaic.gov.au/agencies-and-organisations/app-guidelines/
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What the ICO actually said
These are the links to the two penalties levied in December
https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/british-heart-foundation-cmp/
https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/rspca-cmp/

This is the ICO’s page for the public about the practices they criticised
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/charity-fundraising-practices/

This is the ICO’s paper produced for the meeting they held with selected charities in February https://ico.org.uk/media/2013426/fundraising-conference-2017-paper.pdf

This is a recording of the Information Commissioner’s speech at the conference https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/charity/

This is the link to the guidelines the ICO issued after the meeting
https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/information-registration-for-fundraisers/guidance/personal-information-fundraisingconsent-purpose-transparency/

This is the British Heart Foundation’s updated privacy policy
https://www.bhf.org.uk/utilities/our-privacy-and-cookies-policy

Some other good commentaries:

Factary’s posts on the situation here https://factary.com/category/fundraising-research/
And Chris Carnie’s blog here https://factary.com/category/chris-carnies-blog/
The UK Researchers in Fundraising Group’s newspage here http://www.institute-of-fundraising.org.uk/groups/sig-researchers/news/

 The 2016 World Wealth Report from Cap Gemini is out and available for download here. Cap Gemini report that Asia-Pacific recorded robust HNWI population and wealth growth rates (9.4% and 9.9%, respectively), highest across the globe, and edged past North America to become the region with the highest HNWI wealth of $ 17.4 trillion.   The population of HNWIs in Australia increased from 226k in 2014 to 234.4k in 2015

JB Were recently published their latest review of giving in Australia, looking in particular at the trends shown by the NAB Charitable Giving Index, and noting the continuing growth in the number of PAFs registered (now totalling almost 1400). The report can be accessed on their website here

We've been writing about what's happening in major gift fundraising in FR&P and here on their website (subscription only, sorry)

Our website list of Australia’s $1m+ donors has grown to over 250 names: the list now includes 10 donors who have given more than $100m in donations, 57 who have given more than $10m, and a further 190 who have given $1m+, as well as a number of estates which are distributing $1m or more each year. You can find the list here on our website

Many of those donors will be among the 226,000 High Net Worth Individuals the 2015 Capgemini World Wealth Report estimates can be found in Australia.

Capgemini’s World Wealth Report for 2015 (figures for 2014) came out in June, showing continued but slower growth in the world’s population of wealthy individuals, and that for the first time the number of high net worth individuals in Asia has overtaken the number in the USA. Key growth countries are India and China. Australia showed some growth, with the total population of individuals meeting Capgemini’s criteria rising from 219,000 in 2013 to 226,000 in 2014.

The report defines a ‘High Net Worth Individual’ as someone who has US$1m or more in investable assets; figures exclude the individuals main residence but do not exclude superannuation.

The most interesting feature for our sector is the increasing attention the WWR has been giving to the question of social impact and philanthropy over the last few years. In this edition of the report, they highlight advice on social impact as one of the key things that investors, and especially younger investors, are looking for from their advisors. More on this topic here https://www.worldwealthreport.com/Social-Impact-for-Wealth-Managers

You can access and download the 2015 report here