Rural Communities Australia is delighted to announce that it has gained Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) recognition.
The ACNC fact sheet clarifies what this means:
“A public benevolent institution is a type of charitable institution whose main purpose is to relieve poverty or distress. Public benevolent institutions are recognised by the ACNC and ATO as a subtype of charity.”
“Benevolent relief includes working for the relief of poverty or distress (such as sickness, disability, destitution, suffering, misfortune or helplessness).
“The level of distress must be:
- significant enough (and the circumstances difficult enough) to arouse compassion in people in the community
- beyond the suffering experienced as part of ordinary daily life, and
- concrete enough – aimed at helping people who are recognisably in need of benevolence.
“The purpose does not have to be to relieve financial hardship or need caused by poverty, but can relieve other needs. For example, a charity that provides counselling services to people traumatised by a natural disaster, or one that provides education and activities to disadvantaged young people to help them gain skills in life may be a public benevolent institution.
“As long as a charity’s main purpose is benevolent, it can also have other non-benevolent purposes that are incidental.”
Our recognition as a PBI has come in the context of our ongoing project in Mount Gambier on alleviating workforce exclusion.
With PBI status comes Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status. This means that all donations to RCA are eligible to be claimed as a tax deduction under Australian law. We are delighted to make this facility available to all our respected and greatly appreciated donors.
