The Thomas Challenge
From PhilanthropyWiki
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On November 28, 2006, The Nature Conservancy and Australian philanthropist David Thomas announced that Thomas has made one of the largest private gifts to conservation in Australia's history—an AU$10 million challenge grant.
- An aim of the Thomas Challenge is to encourage new private philanthropy in support of TNC [The Nature Conservancy] and its partners in Australia. The David Thomas Challenge Fund will provide matching gifts raised only from private individual benefactors (or their associated foundations or trusts) unless an exceptional case is made. Long-established public foundations and trusts play an important philanthropic role and their efforts in assisting nature conservation are needed ant welcomed. However, the Thomas Challenge seeks to enlarge the pool of new private philanthropic investment in nature conservation.
- Individuals responding to the Thomas Challenge may direct funding toward one of five organisations:Australian Bush Heritage Fund, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Greening Australia, The Nature Conservancy, Trust for Nature.
- - Information sheet distributed at launch
David Thomas sold Cellarmasters home wine sales business to Foster's in 1997 for $160 million, and has since headed The Thomas Foundation, an extremely private philanthropic foundation that does not accept unsolicited applications.
According to an interview in The Age, Mr Thomas cited his motivations for establishing the Challenge:
- "Australians are as generous as Americans, but I'm not sure that wealthy Australians are as generous as wealthy Americans," he said.
- Mr Thomas said Melbourne was more generous than Sydney because of its legislation encouraging giving, which dates back to the late 19th century. He said when people did well in Melbourne, they put something back into the community. In Sydney, the tendency was to "buy a bigger boat".
- Mr Thomas, a Sydneysider, said he saw the value of a challenge when US philanthropist Bob Wilson promised $3 million to the Nature Conservancy's Australian operations if others would match it. The pledge was successful.
The Thomas Foundation has identified three conservation projects that will benefit from the grant of up to $20 million:
- Gondwana Link - a plan to restore a 1000-kilometre band of bush between Kalgoorlie and the karri forests of southern Western Australia;
- the creation of a field station along the Murray River for ecological and cultural research;
- buying the Wongalara property near Kakadu National Park.
The Thomas Challenge announcement occured at a time when the issue of Climate Change is becoming predominant in Australian media and politics. Toward the later part of 2006 especially, the interest in funding in the area of Climate Change increased considerably within the philanthropic sector.
The Thomas Challenge, both in its volume and its form (encouraging other Australian philanthropists to give considerable donations that will be matched), set itself as a forerunner in the philanthropic sector's involvement in the Climate Change issue.
At the launch of the Thomas Challenge, one of the attendees set down a $100,000 donation on the spot.
See the links below for more detailed conditions of the Challenge.
Links
- Thomas Challenge press release
- An Unprecedented Conservation Challenge (PDF) - Explore how the Thomas Challenge grant brings new dimensions to Australian conservation efforts.
- News article from The Nature Conservancy
- ABC Rural Radio: Nature Conservancy gift (Bush Telegraph, 29/11/06)
- Philanthropist's $10m helps mean be green (The Age, 29/11/06)
Thomas Challenge partners