The NORTH Foundation has a strong commitment to transparency and the communities we support, our clinicians, researchers, donors and other stakeholders can trust us to act ethically and wisely while maximising funds for our beneficiaries. On this page, we want to highlight some recent changes to our budget model, our Deductible Gift Recipient status and our ABN 15 652 292 423.

The NORTH Foundation is committed to:

1. Being transparent, informative and professional when soliciting gifts from donors;
2. Respecting donors’ privacy (including not selling or exchanging the personal details of donors) and having protocols for dealing with donor requests for anonymity and confidentiality;
3. Using gifts effectively, ethically and where possible in line with donor wishes; and
4. Acknowledging and recognising donors’ contributions by celebrating philanthropy.

New DGR status

Australian charities can be registered as Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) entities that are further endorsed with DGR1 or DGR2 status. The DGR status of charities determines the various tax rules applicable to them including from which entities they can accept donations.

From July 2021, The NORTH Foundation was endorsed as a DGR1.

Revised budget model

After a thorough review of our existing budget model by both the Northern Sydney Local Health District Board and NORTH Foundation Board, it was recognised that the existing model did not allow for adequate growth of our services.

To rectify this, a new budget model was established which changes the way the NORTH Foundation is funded.

Under the new budget model, the NSLHD, which previously fully funded the NORTH Foundation operating costs with a fixed value, now provides an annual contribution towards the NORTH Foundation costs with the balance of expenses funded through an allocation drawn from certain donations.

The existing allocation of 20% applied to all untied and semi-tied and 7% on tied philanthropic funding will continue as is. The NORTH Foundation in partnership with the NSLHD has agreed on the following allocation changes:

Benchmarking performance

Despite the NORTH Foundation being a relatively small charitable organisation, we are responsible for multiple beneficiaries across the NSLHD.

To help you better understand how we perform against industry standards we have compared our performance against similar organisations using relevant fundraising metrics like Cost Revenue Ratio and Fundraising Efficiency Ratio.

As can be seen from the snapshot, the NORTH Foundation compares favourably in industry benchmarks when measuring both metrics.

The graphs indicated above are provided by KPMG. The health foundation sector data presented above is a population of 17 similar sized hospital foundation or health foundation entities operating in NSW, VIC, QLD, WA and SA.

The 17 similar sized hospital foundation used in the benchmark are: 1) Sydney Children’s Hospital, 2) Women and Children Hospital Foundation Inc, 3) Canberra Hospital Foundation, 4) Ramsay Hospital Research Foundation, 5)Bupa Foundation (Australia) Limited, 6) Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation, 7) PA Research Foundation, 8) Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation, 9) Gold Coast Hospital Foundation, 10) Children Hospital Foundation Queensland, 11) Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, 12) Perth Children Hospital Foundation, 13) St Vincents Curran Foundation, 14) Westmead Medical Research Foundation, 15) Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation Randwick, 16) Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Foundation and 17) Mater Foundation  

For more information about our benchmarking, budget model and finances please read our Annual Report.

Gift acceptance

The NORTH Foundation accepts philanthropic funding from a wide variety of public and private sector sources who are interested in supporting the NORTH Foundation and its beneficiaries to achieve our goals and vision.

The NORTH Foundation takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the NORTH Foundation Board can be made aware of the source of funding for any gift. Where necessary the Chief Executive Officer can refer gifts to the NORTH Foundation Board for review and to decide whether a gift can be accepted. The Board also can review any concerns raised about an existing gift and decide whether to return the gift to the donor (where possible by law) or refuse additional gifts.

The NORTH Foundation will not accept gifts that may:

1. Contravene state and/or federal laws in Australia;
2. Create unacceptable conflicts of interest;
3. Expose the NORTH Foundation or its beneficiaries to undue adverse publicity or reputational risk;
4. Cause any other damage, including financial damage, deterring other donors from associating with the NORTH Foundation or its beneficiaries; or
5. Conflict with the values and aims of the NORTH Foundation or its beneficiaries in any other way.

This is determined at the absolute discretion of the NORTH Foundation CEO and Board.

Gift purposes

When a donor wishes for the gift to be used for a specific purpose – where it is possible to do so the NORTH Foundation will honour these wishes. If the donation is to establish an endowment for an ongoing purpose, that purpose should be defined as broadly as possible, to prevent difficulty in allocating the gift to the donor’s intended purpose.

Should it become impractical or impossible to carry out the donation’s expressed purpose(s), or where the NORTH Foundation or the relevant beneficiary reasonably believes that the original expressed wishes are no longer a suitable and effective means of using the gift, the NORTH Foundation, where possible will communicate with the donor or the donor’s nominated representative in order to review/change the purpose or will allocate the donation to an area that most closely aligns with the donors originally intended purposes.

Undesignated gifts not subject to specific terms may be used to advance the NORTH Foundation and its beneficiaries’ mission and priorities as determined by the NORTH Foundation Chief Executive Officer, NORTH Foundation Board and NSLHD Board or the appropriate delegate.