Charity Spotlight

Welcome to Givewell's Charity Spotlight.

The Givewell Good Giving Guide Charity Awards were announced on 30 April in Melbourne, and this month’s Spotlights continue this theme featuring three awards finalists. This month’s Charity Spotlights include The Smith Family, finalist for the Best Practice Not-for-Profit Award, and Schizophrenia Research Institute, finalist for the Best Communications Program Award, for its Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank (ASRB).

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Spotlight 1

The Smith Family is a national, independent, social enterprise that helps unlock opportunities for disadvantaged children and their families through education. Celebrating their 85th Birthday in 2007, they have successfully emerged from a dramatic transformation that began back in 1998 to move towards a capacity building model. No longer a charity focused on providing welfare services, their mission now centres around social inclusion, recognising that education is the key to unlocking opportunities for disadvantaged Australians. Through this process they have continued to reflect, review and refresh over the years by adapting existing programs and developing new ones which respond to both the needs and expectations of the now 85 communities across Australia in which they work. Strong revenue growth of 10% was experienced in 2007, bringing their Gross Revenue from all Sources to $79m. Fundraising Revenue also grew by 5%, with Fundraising Costs kept low at 19%. The Smith Family has now emerged as an organisation that is able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and exemplifies Best Practice in all its endeavours, as a finalist for the 2008 Best Practice Not-for-Profit Award.

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Spotlight 2

The Schizophrenia Research Institute (SRI) was formed in 1996 as an independent research institute that aims to find the means to prevent and cure schizophrenia. In 2006, the SRI was awarded funding to create the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank (ASRB), the largest ever national schizophrenia research project and an internationally unique facility. The ASRB aims to recruit 4,000 Australians (2,000 with schizophrenia and 2,000 controls) over 5 years to provide data that would be available for researchers to use in large-scale schizophrenia research projects. Schizophrenia is highly stigmatised and reaching people with the disorder and motivating them to commit to being part of the solution has always been a fundamental challenge for researchers. A multi-media communications/recruitment and PR campaign was developed on a pro bono basis by the Singleton Ogilvy and Mather group and included television, radio, print and web advertisements, with Russell Crowe providing the voiceover for the TV advertisement (also pro bono). The communications campaign commenced in May 2007 and the results have been completely beyond expectations with over 2,600 people volunteering to join the ASRB to date.

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