Philanthropy and charitable donations

In Australia, philanthropy and giving to charity occur in many ways. Philanthropy Australia defines philanthropy as the giving of money, time, information, goods and services, influence and voice to improve the wellbeing of humanity and the community. Donations to registered charities can be tax deductible if the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has endorsed the entity as a deductible gift recipient (DGR) (ATO 2017). Fewer than half of charities in Australia have DGR status.

Some charities are set up primarily to deliver structured philanthropy such as ancillary funds. For others, distributing grants may be only one element of their operations (Cortis et al. 2018).

The not-for-profit sector consists of approximately 30% charities; the remainder of the sector largely consists of self-assessed income tax exempt entities and a small percentage of taxable not-for-profit entities. The self-assessed income tax exempt entities fall into 8 purpose-based categories, such as community service and sporting. These entities play an integral role, along-side charities, to improve the wellbeing of the community (ATO 2020). From the 2023–24 income year, the reporting requirements for non-charitable not-for-profit entities with an active ABN need to lodge an annual tax return. For more information see the ATO’s latest reporting requirements.

Volunteering – time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain (VA 2015) – is also considered to be philanthropy and/or charitable giving but is not directly covered on this page. For more information see Volunteers. 

For more detail on financial philanthropic and charitable donations, see Philanthropic and charitable donations. 

As of 1 April 2025, there were 62,876 registered charities in Australia. The analysis below is based on the 52,627 Annual Information Statements submitted by charities to the ACNC for the 2023 reporting period (ACNC 2025). The charity sector is made up of charities of varying sizes, from tiny local community groups to large universities and international aid organisations.

A charity’s size for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) purposes is based on its total annual revenue for a reporting period. Charity thresholds changed in 2022 and are as follows:

• Extra small charities have an annual revenue of less than $50,000
• Small charities have an annual revenue of $50,000 or more but less than $500,000
• Medium charities have an annual revenue of $500,000 or more but less than $3 million
• Large charities have an annual revenue of $3 million or more but less than $10 million
• Very large charities have an annual revenue of $10 million or more but less than $100 million
• Extra large charities have an annual revenue of $100 million or more (ACNC 2025).

Most charities conduct a range of activities or programs working across Australia and internationally in a broad range of areas, including health, education, social welfare, religion, culture, human rights, the environment and animal welfare. The most common activities for charities were religious and faith based activities (20.3%), human services (15.7%) and education (15.1%) (ACNC 2025).

Charities reported having 1.54 million paid employees in 2023, which was around 10.0% of Australia’s workforce and the second largest workforce in Australia after Health care and social assistance (ACNC 2025; ABS 2025b). However, more than half (52.1%) of all operating charities employed no paid staff, relying entirely on volunteer efforts. This is the highest figure that has ever been reported to the ACNC. Charities reported 3.77 million volunteers helped deliver services in 2023 (ACNC 2025).

In the analysis that follows, all comparisons over time using data sourced from ACNC are reported in current prices, unadjusted for inflation, inline with ACNC reporting.

Giving by source

Charities receive funding from various sources. In 2023, charities generated a record high $222 billion in revenue, including: 

• $107 billion from government (including grants)
• $74 billion from funds raised from sales of goods or services
• $19 billion from donations and bequests
• $8 billion from investments
• $14 billion from other revenue sources (ACNC 2025).

The $222 billion in revenue received by charities in 2023 was an increase of $21 billion (10.7% increase), since 2022. 

In dollar terms, the biggest increase to total revenue in 2023 was through revenue generated from goods or services with an increase of almost $8 billion from the previous year. 

Just under half (48.4%) of the sector’s revenue is from government. While revenue from government remains the dominant revenue source for charities, the proportion of this revenue source to total revenue is the lowest since 2019. Larger charities are more reliant than other charities on the government when it comes to funding their purposes. 

In 2023, over $64 billion (51.8%) of the $107 billion in government revenue went to extra large charities, compared to extra small charities with just 8.1% of total revenue being from government. 

Revenue from donations and bequests increased in 2023, however the main driver of the increase was a single charity – Minderoo Foundation Group, that reported donations and bequests totalling $4.9 billion. All charity sizes except large charities reported an increase in donations and bequests, with overall revenue from donations and bequests reported as $18.9 billion.

The donations made by individuals and businesses are used for different causes. These include advancing health, education, social or public welfare, environment, religion and culture as well as promoting or protecting human rights.

Smaller charities were more likely to rely on donations and bequests to operate – donations comprised around 40% of the revenue for extra small charities compared to just over 8% for large charities.

The top 30 charities (including those that report collectively as groups) accounted for roughly 40% of all the donations and bequests that Australian charities received (ACNC 2025). 

Donations made to non-deductible gift recipients (non-DGRs), or through buying items at a charity auction, or gifts made under a will, are not captured in income tax returns but are included in the total revenue generated by charities (ATO 2017). 

Charity assets and expenses

Between 2022 and 2023 charity assets increased by $32 billion to a total of $489 billion, a 7.0% increase. Charities across all size categories reported an increase in assets, with extra large charities accounting for around half of that increase (ACNC 2025).

In 2023, total expenses for charities increased to $212 billion, up from $196 billion in 2022. Of the total expenses for charities, 55% ($117 billion) was on employee expenses, $12 billion on grants and donations, $2 billion on interest and the remaining $81 billion on other expenses) (ACNC 2025).

In 2023, expenses grew by 8.4% to $212 billion while total revenue grew by 10.7% to $222 billion (ACNC 2025). 

How does Australia compare in giving?

The Charities Aid Foundation report World Giving Index 2024 (CAF 2024) ranked Australia as the eighth most generous country amongst over 140 countries in 2023. This was up 6 places from its ranking of 14th in 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, Indonesia topped the World Giving Index rankings. The United States ranked sixth highest in terms of giving. Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom all had lower giving index scores compared with Australia in 2023 at 11th, 17th and 22nd respectively.

The survey asked 3 questions about what people had done in the past month.

1. Have you donated money to charity?
2. Have you helped a stranger or someone you didn’t know who needed help?
3. Have you volunteered your time to an organisation?

Australia’s world giving index score of 54 in 2023 showed that over the past month:

• 7 in 10 (69%) adults helped a stranger
• 3 in 5 (59%) adults donated money to charity
• 1 in 3 (34%) adults volunteered.

Australia’s ranking went from fifth highest in 2020, to fourth highest in 2021, fourteenth in 2022 and eighth in 2023 (CAF 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024).

People choose to give for a variety of reasons, including to align with values and cultural identity, for personal satisfaction and caring about ‘doing the right thing’, and ‘giving back’ (McGregor-Lowndes et al. 2017).

The Australia Giving 2019 study reported the top 3 reasons why people give are that they:

• care about the cause (54%)
• want to help people less fortunate than them (41%)
• realising they can make a difference (33%) (CAF 2019).

The majority of donors give a one-off donation to charities without intending to make regular or planned ongoing donations to that organisation (Scaife et al. 2016).

Organisations that are endorsed as DGRs are entitled to receive donations that are deductible from the donor's income tax. This means when a donor makes a gift or contribution to a DGR endorsed charity, they may be able to claim a tax deduction. The amount of the claim will depend on the type of gift or contribution they make.

In order to inspire greater philanthropy across Australia and encourage future giving, the 2022–2025 Philanthropy Australia Strategic Plan was launched in December 2021 by Philanthropy Australia. Philanthropy Australia has also implemented a national framework to double structured giving from $2.5 billion in 2020 to $5 billion by 2030. See Philanthropy Australia’s Blueprint to Grow Structured Giving.

Furthermore, in March 2023, the Government established a Productivity Commission review to analyse motivations for philanthropic giving in Australia and identify opportunities to grow it further. The Future foundations for giving Inquiry report was released in May 2024 (Productivity Commission 2024).

Tax-deductible donations

Donations by individuals of $2 or more to a DGR endorsed charity are deductible from an individual taxpayer’s assessable income. If the donation is property, a tax deduction may be claimed if the property is purchased and donated to a DGR within 12 months. There are several other gift types that may be deductible. For more information, see Gift types, requirements and valuation rules.

When an individual adds a gift or donation in their tax return, they enter a description, which usually indicates where the donation has been made (ATO 2022a). Tax-deductible donations obtained from tax returns represent only a subset of individual giving, as not all donations made can be (or have been) deducted from income tax. Not all donors claim deductions for gifts, also not all donors are required to lodge an income tax return. There may also be cases where a donor is not able to claim the full amount of their donation in a given year as the deduction cannot lead to a tax loss.

Non-deductible donations might include non-tax deductible contributions (raffle ticket, donations made directly to people), volunteering, donations to non-DGRs endorsed organisations or donations made by those who are not required to lodge a tax return.

In 2022–23:

• individual taxpayers claimed a total amount of $9.1 billion (ATO 2025) as a tax-deductible donation, double the previous year’s total of $4.6 billion, primarily due to a few very large donations reported in 2022–23
• 4.5 million tax payers (27.8% of all tax payers) claimed tax-deductible donations with a median deduction of $150. This compares to 4.3 million tax payers (27.5% of all tax payers) claiming a tax-deductible donation in 2021–22 with a median deduction of $148 in current prices (ATO 2025; Figure 1).

Between 2013–14 and 2022–23:

• total donations increased in real terms from $3.3 billion to $9.1 billion
• the proportion of individual taxpayers claiming donations fell (from 35.1% to 27.8%) (Figure 1)
• median tax-deductible donations claimed increased in real terms from $125 per person in 2013–14 to $150 in 2022–23.

Business giving

Business giving is often driven by an ethical desire to give back to the community and the belief the donations will make a difference. Businesses also recognise the benefits a giving culture has on employee recruitment, retention and engagement (Burns et al. 2017).

Giving from the corporate sector in Australia plays an important role. In addition to cash donations, corporates also engage in community investment by providing services at no or substantially reduced cost with no expectation of a commercial return, for example legal and accounting firms.

Many companies are joining the ‘Pledge 1% movement’ – wherein companies can pledge any combination of product, equity, profit, or time to a charity of their choice. Pledge 1% partners are leading organisations, committed to encouraging the early stage companies they work with, to make giving back a priority.

The Corporate Support Report from JBWere reported that in 2021:

• the top 50 companies contributed $1.3 billion into community investment, a 4% increase from the previous year. This represented 0.8% of pre-tax profit in 2021
• the average contribution was $26.5 million, with the largest contribution being $234.1 million and the smallest $3.5 million (WGA 2022).

Workplace giving

Workplace giving is a joint relationship between employers, employees and charities that enables individuals to donate a proportion of their pre-tax salary to charity and claim a tax deduction equal to the amount of donations. From the employer perspective, workplace giving enhances staff engagement, increases employee pride and demonstrates the company’s commitment to the community. A further incentive is that some employers match staff donations (WGA 2024).

In 2021–22:

• over 200,000 (people gave through their pay at work a total of just over $50 million (not including company matching) with the average donation size across all market segments being $245. Despite the low uptake in workplace giving, there were more than 6,000 employers with a total of 4.7 million employees having access to a workplace giving program 
• over 60% of large organisations in Australia have a giving program but the rate of uptake is below 5% overall (WGA 2024). 

Ancillary funds

Ancillary funds are charitable trusts created by deed for the purpose of making grants for public benefit in Australia. Ancillary funds cannot operate programs or deliver services, but they play a supporting role by funding eligible not-for-profit entities. Hence ancillary funds act as an intermediary between donors and DGRs (McGregor-Lowndes et al 2024).

Private ancillary funds (PAFs) enable individuals, families or organisations to put aside money or property in a trust to support charities over the long term. PAFs cannot raise funds from the general public but can be endorsed as a DGR.

Public ancillary funds (PuAFs) are communal and philanthropic structures that must establish a public fund and raise funds from the general public. A PuAF can be a DGR and therefore donations are tax deductible. Common PuAF categories include community foundations, corporate foundations or fundraising foundations for individual charities.

In 2022–23:

• there were 1,445 PuAFs and 2,196 PAFs, which received donations of around $1.9 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively
• PuAFs distributed around $487 million and PAFs distributed around $799 million, which represented 10.3% of net assets for PuAFs and 7.5% for PAFs
• charities receiving the highest proportion of the distribution from PuAFs were welfare and rights organisations $153 million (31.5%), charities with multiple purposes $123 million (25.2%) and not deductible gift recipient charities $70 million (14.4%)
• charities receiving the highest proportion of the distribution from PAFs were welfare and rights organisations $277 million (34.7%), charities with multiple purposes $147 million (18.4%) and cultural organisations $104 million (13.0%) (ATO 2025; Figure 2).
   

From 2016–17 to 2022–23:

• the total number of PAFs increased from 1,495 to 2,196; an average growth of 6.6% per year. For PuAFs, there was an increase from 1,304 to 1,445; an average annual growth of 1.7%
• donations to PAFs increased, on average by 3.7% per year in real terms, with the highest increase (46.1%) from 2019–20 to 2020–21. In the latest year there was a decrease in donations of 27.5%
• PuAFs donations increased on average by 15.2% per year in real terms. In the latest year donations received more than doubled (101.2% increase)
• on average, net assets for PuAFs grew 7.3% per year in real terms compared to a decline in net assets of 0.8% per year for PAFs. Assets for PuAFs remained below those for PAFs over the whole period
• PuAFs distributed an average of 12.0% of assets annually and PAFs distributed 6.5% on average (ATO 2025; Figure 2).

Disaster relief and recovery fund

Australians have been impacted by climate change related emergencies in the past several years, from bushfires to floods and cyclones. The consequences of such events have substantial impacts on people, communities, the economy, infrastructure and the environment. The total cost of natural disasters in Australia is forecast to increase from $18.2 billion to $39 billion per year by 2050 (ARC 2023a). Charities have supported individuals, households and communities during those difficult times.

Flooding in Queensland and New South Wales

Australia experiences many devastating floods and charity assistance often plays a part in recovery. An example of this is the floods that occurred in 2022.

In late February 2022, southeast Queensland experienced multiple rounds of devastating flooding. The estimated total costs to Queensland were $7.7 billion (Deloitte 2022).

To address the immediate and long-term impacts from these floods, a range of assistance was activated through charities, as well as state and commonwealth disaster recovery funding arrangements.

In the aftermath of the Queensland and New South Wales floods, the Australian Red Cross raised $55.6 million. Of this, $27.2 million was raised through the Australia Unites Telethon Appeal and $28.4 million was raised through the Queensland and New South Wales Floods Appeal. All proceeds from the Telethon Appeal were distributed as direct cash assistance to people impacted by the floods (ARC 2023b).

Impact of COVID–19 on giving

There was unprecedented disruption with the emergence of the COVID–19 pandemic, causing many charities to change, reduce or cease operations for varying periods. In 2023, COVID–19 continued to affect operations for some charities. In the 2023 Annual Information Statement, the number of charities that reported as ‘not operating’ in the 2023 Annual Information Statement decreased.

Only 9% of charities that did not conduct activities in 2023 cited COVID–19 as the reason why, compared with 25% in 2022 and 43% in 2021 (ACNC 2025).

Where do I go for more information?

For more information on philanthropy and charitable giving in Australia, see:

• Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission
• Giving Australia
• Philanthropy Australia
• Workplace Giving Australia
• Gifts and fundraising.