Australians who routinely scrutinise portfolio fees, compare mortgage rates and plan how wealth will pass to the next generation are often making untested assumptions that impact on their charitable giving, Fiona Higgins, Specialist Adviser at Australian Philanthropic Services (APS) says.

Higgins says these assumptions delay decisions, direct funds where they have less impact, or stop people giving at all.

“Philanthropy is one of the few areas of financial life in which people rarely benchmark their thinking against anyone else’s. But in part, philanthropy is an exercise in capital allocation, in the same way as running an investment portfolio or a self-managed super fund,” Higgins says.

“The most effective givers we work with are not necessarily the wealthiest. They are the ones willing to ask insightful questions and apply the same rigour and discernment to giving that they bring to the rest of their financial lives.”

Higgins says overheads is a good example, with donors often holding charities to a standard they would never apply to a commercial investment.

“Low overheads are not, of themselves, evidence of an effective charity. If donors expect strong organisations, they also need to be willing to fund what makes them strong.

“Refusing to fund a charity’s operational costs is a bit like a commercial investor insisting they will fund a product, but not the office, tech or people required to deliver it,” Higgins says.

Drawing on APS’s work with more than 1200 clients who have committed over $3.1 billion to charity, Higgins identifies seven common assumptions that bottleneck giving:

• Bigger is better: in reality, a $5,000 gift can transform a small, volunteer-led charity but barely register at a large organisation with healthy reserves.
• Overheads don’t deserve funding: refusing to pay for operational costs can starve charities of the staff, technology and governance they need to succeed.
• If you can’t measure it, it can’t be working: prevention, research, advocacy and systems change are often ‘measurement-resistant’ – and often exactly where philanthropy should play.
• ‘Donor experience’ is a dealbreaker: donor reporting expectations should be proportionate to both the size of the charity and the donation.
• Cash is the only currency: time, expertise and networks can be just as valuable as gifts, provided the charity wants them.
• Giving is a private matter: keeping generosity private makes it harder for people to learn from one another, or be inspired to start giving.
• Starting a charity is the solution: with around 60,000 registered charities in Australia, one is usually already doing similar work.

Higgins says formal giving structures, such as a private giving fund (PGF) or a giving fund within a public giving fund (PuGF), help givers take a longer-term, more strategic view of their giving and its impact. They can do this in the same way they track the performance of their self-managed super fund or investment portfolio.

“Givers are used to asking whether their capital is working hard enough when they invest it, and a formal structure lets them apply a similar lens to their giving,” Higgins says.

“It turns ad hoc, sporadic gifting into an annual discipline which cannot be sidelined when life gets busy or market conditions shift. Most importantly, it creates a rare and highly prized source of predictable revenue for charities doing vital work. And it can be incredibly meaningful for individuals and families, when generosity becomes an integral part of their financial life.”

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Australian Philanthropic Services (APS) is the leading independent, not-for-profit philanthropic services organisation in Australia. APS has 1,200+ clients who donated over $250 million to charity last financial year and have committed over $3.1 billion to charity held in structures that we support.

We offer fulfilling ways for you to manage your charitable giving over time using tax-efficient structures called giving funds. With APS, you can establish your own private giving fund (PGF) or a named giving fund (also known as a sub-fund) in our public giving fund, the APS Foundation.

29 September 2026