In South Australia, so far this month 56 greyhounds have either been injured on just two race tracks, or have been too injured to compete in their scheduled races. Two of these dogs, Spring Acclaim and My Mate Max, were killed by the on-track vet after being injured. Greyhound Racing – you bet, they die.
![Image](https://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/372951_195244413843476_1052374433_n.jpg)
https://www.facebook.com/GreyhoundActionAustralasia
Cancer research foundations are such a scam anyway. There are natural cancer cures already out there but big pharmaceutical aka medical industry suppress any knowledge. It pays to keep you ill.
If you truly want to be cured from Cancer, I suggest you watch video below.
![Image](http://images.smh.com.au/2011/08/26/2585063/ipad-art-wide-pg1-shane-warne-420x0.jpg)
Glamour for a cause … Shane Warne and Liz Hurley promote Warne’s charity auction.ONE of Australia’s leading charities, the McGrath Foundation, spent barely a tenth of the funds it raised from public and corporate donors in 2009-10 on the good works it promised. Instead, its accounts show, it banked the donations for future operations and has accumulated a $10 million piggy bank.Another charity, the Shane Warne Foundation, does not produce any accounts. Each year it holds a glitzy poker tournament at Melbourne’s Crown Casino as its main fund-raiser, attended by the likes of James and Erica Packer, the actor Glenn Robbins, the Test cricketer Merv Hughes and the Australian Rules footballer Jason Akermanis.
The takings from the event, its costs and the proportion that finds its way to the charities the cricketing great Shane Warne supports remain a secret. The only financial information disclosed is a list of grants it has made to other charities.
Last year it gave $458,316 mainly to children’s charities including the Starlight Foundation, Stewart House and the Clown Doctors. But how much it costs to run the poker nights, or the eBay celebrity auction going on now – which includes a pair of Liz Hurley’s white jeans and an arrow shot by Russell Crowe in Robin Hood - is impossible to find out.
So, too, is the salary of the charity’s chief executive, Jason Warne, Shane Warne’s brother. Despite requests from the Herald, Jason Warne said the company did not make its accounts public.
The Herald has investigated the foundations of seven prominent sporting figures as a sample of how charities are managed.
First the good news: all provided significant support, either through direct programs to the community, such as the McGrath Breast Care Nurses, or indirectly through grants to other charities, as the Shane Warne Foundation does. But they also revealed widely varying levels of accountability, a hodge-podge of accounting practices and little or no information about how the charity dollars were used.
None of the seven published an annual report on their website. Some, such as the McGrath Foundation, provided financial statements to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which is how the Herald learnt it has a $10 million reserve. The chief executive, Kylea Tink, said the reason it was accumulating funds was that it signed a three-year contract with each nurse and banked the full cost of the contract – $350,000.
”I think we are trying to fund the program in a responsible way,” she said. ”As we spend, we also bank money for the full length of the contract.”
Including the 44 nurses funded by a federal grant, the foundation now has 68 nurses and plans more.
The McGrath Foundation was happy to disclose how it spent donor dollars. Ms Tink said it spent 78¢ in every dollar ”realising its mission”, 15¢ on everyday costs, and 7¢ on fund-raising.
NSW is the only state that requires a non-profit organisation to keep operating costs below 50 per cent of all funds collected.
Linda Lavarch, the chairwoman of the national Not for Profit Sector Reform Council, said the disparate reporting was due to a lack of common accounting practices and differences in state legislation. More than 178 pieces of Commonwealth, state and territory legislation regulate charities.
Reporting requirements depend on whether foundations are set up as registered charities or under trusts.
”It most definitely is a problem from the public’s perspective because you are unable to gain insight or information about the charity and its operations if you wanted to make an informed choice about whether to donate,” Ms Lavarch said.
In its last budget the federal government said it would establish a national regulator from July 1 next year. Susan Pascoe is the commissioner and Robert Fitzgerald, well known in the non-profit sector, is chairman of the advisory board.
Mr Fitzgerald noted the rapid growth in charities that bore the name of famous people and said some appeared to be promotional vehicles. But rather than trying to regulate spending on overheads, it would be better to require disclosure so that donors could make up their minds.
It was also important to keep the regulatory burden low as many charities were very small.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia has long lobbied for uniform regulations as charities struggle with the complex system. Its head of reporting, Kerry Hicks, said disclosing fund-raising costs was important if people were to understand ”where their ‘donor dollar’ has gone”.
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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/good-int ... z1oQSLZnM5