"In the short run, a corporation can save money by not giving. But in the long run through giving it can become part of the community and be trusted and admired. And that is a huge part of being successful," former ANZ chief executive John McFarlane once said.

Philanthropy in Australia is booming. There has been a huge growth in not-for-profit companies in recent years, with $778 million donated to the nation's top 10 charitable organisations last year.

At the turn of 2008 there were 700,000 registered not for profits in Australia, of which 48,000 were established to support charitable purposes.

Charitable giving's popularity was given a kick start in 1985 by Bob Geldof's Live Aid and again in 2006 when Warren Buffett donated $37 billion to the Bill Gates Foundation, one of the largest known philanthropic donations in history.

"It encouraged business leaders in the corporate sector to consider their own position, to consider what their corporate social footprint was and legacy they wanted to have," Trust philanthropy head Clare Stanford says.

Today charitable giving is an $11 billion industry in Australia and the not-for-profit industry represents 5 per cent of gross domestic product.

The Australian community has been benefiting from organisations such as the Macquarie Bank Foundation and AMP Foundation for decades.

Enrich Australia executive Tim Hardy says charitable giving by successful businessmen such as former Colonial First State chief executive Chris Cuffe is about achieving significance beyond success.

"Rather than becoming more successful, they're becoming more significant," Hardy says.

Philanthropy birthdays
The inception of philanthropy in Australia arose from the abolition of death duty. Previously there had been an incentive to bequeath assets to charities via a testamentary trust to avoid death duties.

"After the abolition of death duty there was more of an incentive for people to turn their minds to establishing charitable structures during their life time," Stanford says.

Another key date in Australia's philanthropy timeline is 2001; the year the Federal Government introduced prescribed private funds (PPF) as a tax-effective structure to house philanthropic donations.

The year of establishment, 22 PPFs were set up. At the start of 2008 there were 610 with $1 billion in funds under management.

Four years later, the Boxing Day tsunami changed Australians' perceptions about the impact their charitable giving could make.

In the wake of the disaster, Australians donated $240 million, which ranked them as one of the most generous countries in the world.

"From 2005 we've seen a tightening of the regulations surrounding philanthropic structures and donating to these trusts. In part the tightening has occurred due to a number of high-profile breaches .the ATO 9Australian Taxation Office) wants to make sure that when people get these tax benefits they don't want it to be cycled back to the donor," Stanford says.

The response to regulatory constriction has been to outsource the administration of PPFs and other charitable structures.

Conspicuous giving, not anonymous donation
Australia is moving away from chequebook philanthropy. Donors want to engage with their giving.

"People no longer want to write a cheque, hand it over and that be the end of it. They want to have a far more engaged process. They want to know what impact their money has on the community," Stanford says.

"We're seeing a move towards donors wanting to support sustainable projects; capacity building projects that can be replicated in other communities as opposed to a once-off donation that supports a once-off project."

In the mould of not-for-profit organisation Social Ventures Australia, more sophisticated investors and donors want to see business principles and practices applied to the charitable projects they support. Investors expect sustainability and mandatory reporting.

"What I'm finding is that people are putting as much into thinking about investment solutions for their charitable giving as they are for their personal investments," Stanford says.

Stanford has seen a steady rise in the amount of workplace giving arrangements put in place.

"Employees are expecting their employers to be able to facilitate the workplace giving arrangement for them and I think we'll see a move where more employers will expect organisations that they work for have time off to be able to volunteer should they want to," she says.

Philanthropic services have also become part of top-shelf financial planners' service list.

Charitable giving is being incorporated into the wealth management strategies of Australia's high net worth clients.