ABOUT a4a

A BRIEF HISTORY

In 2019, A small group got together to sell raffle tickets at the Westower Taven in Ballina, NSW, hoping to raise a bit of money for good local causes and charities. That year saw us give away just over $10,000 and gave us the inspiration to keep going and make it bigger and better in 2020. Donations in 2019 included Biala Support Services $1,000, Jodies Inspiration $1,000, QAS Legacy Fund $1,400 and NSW Rural Fire Service Units $4,265! We were actually the first pub on the Northern Rivers to start fundraising for the NSWRFS heroes, commencing at the beginning of November. As we all know, 2019 finished off in a bad way for Australia with the bushfires and 2020 started with the fires still raging. Even with a slow start to 2020 we managed to raise $1,500 before the pubs were shut down due to COVID-19 - an amazing effort from our locals! THE FUTURE Our primary source of “income” has gone, but we haven’t let up and are currently investigating ways to go “online”! Part of this plan is to expand (once life gets “back to normal”) to other pubs within our region, state and country. There are over 6,000 clubs and 5,000 pubs and taverns in Australia. Even 1 in 10 could see 1,100 establishments supporting aussies4aussies and if they each only raised $200 per week, that’s a massive $2.2 MILLION! Ambitious? Yes! Doable? Definitely! THE BIGGER PICTURE One thing that has become extremely obvious to us over the last 18 months is Aussies are fed up with their hard earned cash going into the coffers of huge National “Charities”. The bushfires showed us what the Salvation Army, Australian Red Cross and similar organisations are all about. Have you ever tried to read a financial statement from one of these organisations? Do they have total transparency? If they have an appeal for “Bushfires”, do they separate that in their financial reports showing money raised, handed out and more importantly the expenses that were incurred in distribution? NO! A normal business has separate trading accounts spelling out exactly what happened. At aussies4aussies, we understand fundraising costs money and the bigger you get the more it costs. Let’s just look at Bank charges. Any donation via Credit Card will suck 0.5% - 2.0% off the top. So for $1,000,000, in donations the banks get up to $20,000! Further to this, once you start talking millions of dollars in donations, you need someone appropriately qualified working within the organisation to ensure everything is above board, then an independent auditor - this costs money. The problem is, the big charities treat this as a cash cow with jobs for mates - knowing they are getting hundreds of millions from the government BEFORE any fundraising starts. Then we have the websites offering a percentage of profits to the Firies, RSL, or whatever other organisation they can hit the heart strings with. Private companies who do not, by law, have to disclose how much profit they have made (and therefore how much they “should” have donated) can get away with murder almost! aussies4aussies will be 100% about transparency and justification of expenses. Our figures will be updated and visible on the website at all times. All general donations via normal fundraising efforts will be held in a general account in the financial statements, whilst special fundraising for natural disasters, emergency situations, etc., will always be declared in a separate detailed account. THE BIGGEST PART OF THE PICTURE! aussies4aussies will be member driven! That’s right, any Aussie can become a member and help decide where their money is going to be donated!