MCF held its 2007 AGM on Tuesday 30 October, 2007 at KPMG.  The year's activities were briefly outlined Highlighting another successful year of capital growth, investment performance and nearly $1.5M in grants distributed to charitable organisations and projects.

MCF's funds under management grew to $33.5M a growth of $8.8M in the 06-07 financial year.  A 22.2% return on investments was achieved, another excellent result.  Over the past 3 years MCF, in conjunction with its investment advisers, Carnbrea & Co have benefited from a strong investment return averaging 21.7%.

Since MCF was established 10 years ago, in 1997, it has distributed more than $7.5M to a range of community organisations and activities.   Over the past 12 months 170 grants were made totalling $1.47M.

Below is the AGM Speech delivered by Andrea Rumph, Executive Director, and the 2006-07 Annual Report and the Final Financial Statements 2006-07 are available for download.

Annual Report / Financials

• Annual Report Document 2007 (2mb PDF)
  
• Performance Report - Sept 2007 (PDF)
   

Executive Director's AGM Report 2007

Good evening I am Andrea Rumph the Executive Director of Melbourne Community Foundation. Welcome to the 2007 Annual General Meeting of Melbourne Community Foundation (or MCF as we are commonly known) and its not for profit trustee, Community Foundation Network Ltd.

In particular welcome to MCF board members, sub-committee members, ambassadors, donors, and supporters.   

I would especially like to thank Michael Andrew and KPMG, for their continued and generous support of MCF and its work.  This year we were delighted that Stuart Rose a partner of KPMG agreed to join our Professional Advisers Sub-committee.  KPMG is MCF’s probono auditor and I would like to thank Peter Jovic, Catherine O’Flynn and their team for carrying out the audit in 06-07.

I will provide you with a snapshot of the year’s activities and briefly outline the new MCF scholarship and national funds, before I introduce our guest speakers from the Australian Federation of University Women (Vic).   

At the end of the 06-07 financial year, MCF had $33.5 million under management in 113 sub-funds.  This is again a record growth in funds under management of $8.8M and an excellent result.

I would like to highlight here the breakdown in donations received.

A total of $5.02M was gifted in donations.  $1.10 was donations from new donors and sub-funds and $3.92 from existing donors.  This compares with last year, where $4.64M was received in donations, $2.42M of this, was new donations and $2.22 from existing donors.

Donations from our existing MCF donors have almost doubled with an additional $1.7M received.  This represents 78%, or over ¾ of total donations.

Whilst Peter Hero from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and now an MCF Board Member was in Melbourne, in April, to help us celebrate our 10^th Anniversary, he attended the annual Board Retreat.  He informed the Board that the successful community foundations in the U.S receive 2/3 of donations each year from existing donors. 

We are delighted that we have achieved this in the past year, as we believe, it represents that MCF is continuing to build a relationship of trust with our donors, we are meeting their needs through the excellent management, administration and investment of funds and the grantmaking expertise and knowledge of community needs we share with our donors, so we can continue to make effective grants both locally, nationally and internationally. 

We are achieving one of our goals of a ‘’’trusted and preferred vehicle for donors wishing to undertake sustainable and effective giving to their local community.

Over the past 12 months, 22 new sub-funds have been established.  These sub-funds are made up of 76 individuals and family funds, 13 company, and the remaining 24 of, like-minded groups, not-for-profits, government and the MCF General Fund.

Of these sub-funds, 6 have a capital base of over $1 million, and 40 with more than $100,000, 43 between $20 and 100,000 and 24 that are building their sub-funds to MCF’s required minimum level within 2 years of $20,000.

Thanks to the sound investment decisions made in conjunction with our advisers Carnbrea and Co MCF had a return on investments in 2006-07 of 22.2%, our second highest return and again an excellent result. 

Since MCF appointed Carnbrea and adopted a market linked investment strategy, we have benefited from strong investments returns – the average in the past 3 years of 21.7%. The best performing asset classes for the year were Australian Equities and Listed Property generating returns in excess of 25%. The tax free nature of the Foundation also provided us with a significant franking credit refund which enhanced our return.  Carnbrea continues to manage the portfolio in a conservative risk controlled manner and we are comfortable with the outlook for 2007-08.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Carnbrea, in particular, Sandy Boag and Adrian Spencer.  Thanks also to the MCF Finance Committee chaired by Ian McHutchison for their expertise, experience and time commitments.

Since MCF was established 10 years ago, in 1997, it has distributed more than $7.5M to a range of community organisations and activities.   Over the past 12 months 170 grants were made totalling $1.47M.

The percentage of funds directed to arts and cultural activity decreased from the previous year from 27 to 11%.  This was mainly due to a couple of significant grants which had been made in this area, were not made during 2006-07.

As is the case most years the largest supported area is Education/Training and Employment of 40%.

Grants to Greater Melbourne decreased from 42% in 05/06 to 27% in 06/07 – partly because of an increase in international grants from 14% to 21%.

There was a slight increase in grants to National, rural Vic, and statewide over the previous year.

The latest development in the Macro Melbourne Initiative has been the recent publication of the document MacroMelbourne: A Liveable City for all its People. The document, two years in the making and built on a solid base of research outlines 13 projects across five key areas, including affordable housing, digital divide, education, place based disadvantage and monitoring trends and change in disadvantage.  Copies of the document are available here tonight.

During the past 12 months the Board agreed to the establishment of three new funds under our tax umbrella structure. This has been in response to new tax initiatives, released by the ATO and the needs of our existing and potential donors.

Increasingly we are working with corporates in their philanthropic giving and CSR activity.    They are very keen on the community foundation concept and all the obvious benefits of no establishment costs, low administration fees, grantmaking expertise etc.
 
However some corporates which operate nationally raised concerns with MCF’s capacity to identify projects in other states and it could be difficult to engage staff in interstate offices, as it may be perceived that preference will be given to making grants in Melbourne because of MCF’s location and knowledge of local issues.  For eg.  If a grant was given to an organization in Sydney the recipient will not easily see the connection of a grant made to them by a sub-fund of MCF. The recipient organisation may believe it is a ‘head office’ initiative and not the local office wanting to contribute to their local community.

The MCF Board agreed to:

1. the establishment of two new funds the National Community Foundation Main Fund and the National Community Foundation Extension Fund, and,
2. Representatives have been appointed in both Sydney and Brisbane to service MCF donors in particular corporates.

In addition, In July 2006, the ATO announced a new tax deductible fund for the provision of education scholarships, prizes and bursaries.  MCF is one of the first in Australia to establish a Scholarship Fund.  This Fund enables tax deductible donations to be directed to both organisations and individuals. It will provide our donors with an additional charitable giving product. The aim of the Scholarship Fund is to promote educational excellence by rewarding and encouraging achievement by students in educational institutions, at the pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

Our guest speakers today which I will shortly introduce the Australian Federation of University Women (Vic) has already established a scholarship fund in addition to their existing sub-fund they established in 2003.

I recently travelled to the UK Community Foundation Network Conference in Liverpool, attended by over 350 delegates, with MCF’s chair Marion Webster. 

We attended this conference looking forward to the learning and inspiration from the movement in the UK, which started in the 1980’s and currently has over 60 community foundations.

It became evident  as we spent time at the conference, attending sessions and speaking with delegates, that in fact Melbourne Community Foundation is not only holding its own, we are in many cases leading the way.  The current average growth of endowment for UK community foundations is £100,000 per year and only a few receive gifts of more than £500,000. Over the past two years MCF has received an average of $4.8M in donations.

MCF differs considerably from the UK model, as they have been for the past 5 years acting as an agent for the distribution of government grants, some £50M.  This has enabled them to pour millions of dollars into the local community. 

It was very encouraging to learn that with the limited resources at MCF, we have become visible in the community and through our grantmaking and our community initiatives are just as, if not more informed of community issues. In addition we are being seen as ‘the glue’ that is the organisation that has the capacity to bring philanthropists, community organisations, foundations, corporates and government together to tackle social issues.

I also spent time with several community foundations and look forward to developing and implementing some of the initiatives I learnt about, at MCF and reporting on these at next year’s AGM.

Last year I commended the MCF Board and staff on their commitment to the growth and development of MCF, this year is no exception.  I discovered very quickly whilst in the UK, the problems they have with engaging their boards in the activities and the necessary roles they need to play to assist the development of their community foundations, that indeed we have, at MCF an exceptional Board and the successes achieved, since inception 10 years ago, is due largely to the constant active role they play.

My counterparts in the UK were ‘gob smacked” at how much we achieve with so few staff.  Our staffing levels have grown and will continue to expand next year. The enthusiasm, effort, expertise and commitment by all at MCF result in an organisation that continues to flourish. 

Finally I would like to welcome our special guests, The Australian Federation of University Women (Victoria).  The mission of AFUW is to act as "the voice of graduate women promoting the advancement of women worldwide and their equality of opportunity through initiatives in education, friendship and peace."

The AFUW (Vic) run a scholarship program through a sub-fund at MCF.  They have done this via a non-tax deductible fund established from a bequest.  They have now established a scholarship fund. 

This gives them a vehicle they can promote to attract new donors and

receive a tax deduction for their donations. It will enable AFUW Vic to both increase the number of scholarship they offer and the value of each scholarship.

THANK YOU.