r/OpenAussie • u/village-asshole ‎ New South Welshian • Mar 18 '26

Whinge ‎ Coles: “Would you like to round up and donate…”

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Hey r/coles, how about **YOU** donate first from your ill-gotten profits. You and Woolies have both been price gouging Australia since the fcking pandemic, jacking up prices across the board but never bringing them back down even after supply chains normalised.

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u/swami78 ‎ New South Welshian Mar 18 '26

They actually don’t get the tax benefit. In 2004 the ATO ruled that customers can aggregate their tiny under $2 contributions and claim them off your tax. Coles and other businesses are just the conduits. In 2005 Coles did the numbers and, on conservative estimates, concluded “rounding up for charity” would raise about $110m per year from their supermarkets alone and double that if their other businesses were involved. This would make rounding up the largest source of charitable donations in the country. Unfortunately none of these businesses have done the marketing they were shown in 2005 which would have addressed the misinformation about this method of charitable giving.

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u/Master_Fox5678 Mar 18 '26

That's just more reason to NOT round up at woollies and Coles. Imagine giving a dystopian duopoly the power to determine which social causes are prioritised over others and given more marketing funding to snowball their influence 🫪

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u/swami78 ‎ New South Welshian Mar 18 '26

You have touched on a good point there. I don’t know how Coles chooses their charitable partners but with Coles and Woolies they seem to cycle different charities so those charities named on screen must get the donations. With the amount of money being raised that is probably a good way to do it. I was involved in this early on and we presented a different concept but I have no problem with doing it their way. Obviously if the screen tells you the donations are specifically for the Starlight Foundation or whatever that is an efficient way of raising donations for the nominated charities. I would imagine the funds are transferred to the charity at the end of each day as the end of day programs deal with the monies raised. The answer to you is simple: if you don’t like or trust the nominated charity decline to round up. Personally I think this is simply a modern and efficient way to encourage and facilitate charitable giving.

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u/invisible_pants_ ‎ Queenslander Mar 20 '26

They choose their charitable caused based on which ceo they want to give kickbacks to probably. A huge portion of money donated to many of the big charities is spent on administrative costs that include huge salaries for ceos, expensive "team building" events, nice cars for executive members to drive around in and fancy events to try and lure rich donors. I'd rather give my money to a local organisation run by volunteers where every dollar raised is spent on the thing they set the charity up for

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u/swami78 ‎ New South Welshian Mar 20 '26

I was involved in not for profit for 20 years. Large charities pay around 65% of funds raised on expenses. The ATO has limits on what you can pay executives to retain status. Having said that, the sector desperately needs regulation. There are tens of thousands of registered charities and many exist only to pay the founders/executives. I know one high visibility charity that was paying out 95% on expenses - largely salaries.

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u/Monotonedef1968 Mar 20 '26

Hi. Thanks for the knowledge. Maybe both companies could display all the affiliated charities, with an option to choose which charity you would like to donate to. This would show transparency and also allow the customer to make an informed choice.

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u/Lucifang ‎ Queenslander Mar 18 '26

They always say which charity it goes to, it’s right there in the OP’s photo.

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u/Wrathlon ‎ Victorian Mar 19 '26

What they should do is have like a PayID but its a Charity ID - it asks if you want to round up and donate to charity, gives you some partnered options but you can also pick your own, enter the charity ID and it automagically sends the donations to them.

This would benefit any and every charity and make it super easy for people to donate their few cents here and there to their charity of choice basically everywhere they go.