Bankroll Management for Horse Racing: How to Size Bets Across a Full Race Card
Step 1 – Set a Clear Horse Racing Bankroll for the Day or Week Bankroll management starts with a simple question: how much can you comfortably afford to…
Independent Australian field manual
Community Fundraising for Drought-Affected Farmers
A community drought appeal is a group of people raising money or goods for farmers in a defined area, usually outside any formal aid structure and usually in a hurry. The ones that work are not the ones that raise the most. They are the ones that decide early who holds the money, who receives the help, and what the help actually is, and then keep doing the unglamorous parts after the first truck has left.
Up to 20%of a hay bale can be lost when it is fed out on bare ground without a feeder
One documenta vendor declaration should travel with donated fodder, and asking for it costs nothing
Two questionswho holds the money, and who decides who receives help. Settle both before launch
Contents
What a drought-relief appeal is
In brief
A drought-relief appeal is a time-limited campaign that converts public generosity into something a farming household can use: feed for stock, water, freight, fuel, groceries, or simply cash. Most are run by volunteers with no prior fundraising experience, triggered by a specific season rather than by a strategy. That origin is their strength and their weakness at the same time.
The strength is speed and legitimacy. A local appeal can move within days, it knows which properties are in trouble, and it carries a social licence that an outside organisation has to earn. Donors give to it because they recognise the people running it.
The weakness is that everything which makes institutional fundraising slow exists for a reason. Money handling, recipient selection, record keeping, insurance and the legal authority to solicit donations are not bureaucratic decoration. They are what stops a well-intentioned campaign from ending in a dispute that outlives the drought.
The practical resolution is not to turn a community appeal into an institution. It is to decide a small number of things deliberately and in writing at the start, when it costs an afternoon, rather than retrospectively under pressure, when it costs relationships. Everything in this manual is a version of that idea.
Appeals come in three broad shapes
| Shape | How it works | Where the difficulty sits |
|---|---|---|
| Goods appeal | Buys and delivers something physical, most often fodder | Logistics, freight economics and biosecurity. Highest visibility, highest risk |
| Cash appeal | Raises money and transfers it to households or to an established organisation | Fairness and transparency of transfer. Least work per dollar, usually most useful per dollar |
| Event appeal | Raises funds through something people attend or take part in | The event carries its own permits, insurance and volunteer safety duties, separate from fundraising rules |
Many campaigns are hybrids, and the shape matters because each triggers a different set of practical questions. A goods appeal has to answer biosecurity and freight questions a cash appeal never meets; a cash appeal has to answer questions about fairness that a truckload of hay only appears to sidestep.
The roles a fundraiser actually needs
In brief
A community appeal needs six jobs done, and they should have six names against them even when one person holds two. The failure mode is not an absent role; it is a role everyone assumes somebody else is covering. Roles can be shared. Accountability cannot.
Campaign lead
Holds the purpose and the end point. Decides what the appeal will not do, which is harder and more valuable than deciding what it will. Speaks for the campaign publicly.
Community liaison
The person farming households will actually talk to. Often the single most important role, because the households in the most difficulty are the least likely to put their hand up.
Treasurer
Controls the account, receipts, reconciliation and the acquittal. Should not be the person who selects recipients, for the same reason a buyer and an approver are kept apart anywhere else.
Storyteller
Produces the material that moves people to give, without turning recipients into exhibits. Consent before publication, always, and a willingness to tell the story without names.
Logistics coordinator
Sourcing, freight, scheduling, access, unloading and the paperwork that travels with a load. The role that turns a goods appeal from a good intention into a delivery.
Nominations officer
Runs the recipient process against written criteria, records decisions and manages conflicts of interest. Protects the volunteers making the calls as much as the applicants.
Volunteers are not free
Volunteers bring obligations with them. Under work health and safety law a volunteer is generally treated as a worker, which means the organisation running the appeal owes them a duty of care. Loading hay, driving at night, working around trucks and handling cash are all activities where that duty is more than theoretical. Confirm what your insurance covers, and who it covers, before people turn up.
Name a deputy for every role at the start. Burnout is close to universal in these campaigns and is concentrated precisely among the people least willing to step back.
From donation to farm gate
In brief
A goods appeal has a supply chain whether or not anyone planned one. Money becomes a purchase, a purchase becomes a load, a load becomes a delivery, and each handover is a point where cost, risk and goodwill can be lost. Mapping it in advance takes an hour and prevents most of the problems that make people swear never to do it again.
- Define what the money buys. A specific unit, priced and described, gives donors something concrete to give to and gives the campaign a defensible basis for every purchase. Vague purposes attract vague giving and create acquittal problems later.
- Source the goods. Price, quality, distance and documentation all matter, and the cheapest load is rarely best value once freight and feed value are counted. Buying closer to the destination usually wins on every measure at once.
- Check it can lawfully move. For fodder this is not optional. Confirm the origin, request a vendor declaration and check restrictions applying to the destination before the load is on a truck rather than when it arrives.
- Arrange freight properly. Donated transport is generous and still has to comply with load restraint, fatigue management and dimension limits. Confirm who carries the risk if a load shifts or a truck is held up.
- Confirm access at the far end. Gate widths, wet ground, overhead lines, where a semi can turn around, and whether anybody will be there to unload. A delivery that cannot be unloaded has not happened.
- Record at the point of delivery. What was delivered, how much, to whom, on what date, at what cost. Written on the day, not reconstructed three weeks later when the acquittal is due.
- Follow up. A short call a fortnight later tells you whether the help landed, what is still needed, and whether the household is connected to longer-term support. Almost universally skipped, and where most of the learning lives.
The freight trap. On long hauls the cost of moving fodder can approach or exceed the value of the fodder itself. Campaigns rarely notice, because freight is often donated, which hides the real economics from everyone involved. Price it anyway, even when it is free, because that number is what tells you whether a cash transfer would have helped more.
Fodder biosecurity: the risk appeals miss
In brief
Fodder is an efficient way to move weed seed around the country, and drought makes it considerably worse: feed quality falls, people buy from districts they have never dealt with, and loads travel much further than usual. A community appeal that delivers contaminated hay can impose a cost on a receiving property that lasts for decades and exceeds the value of everything the campaign ever raised.
This is the part of fodder appeals that almost no fundraising guide covers, and the part experienced agronomists raise first. It is not a reason to avoid fodder appeals. It is a reason to run them with three or four specific habits that cost nothing.
| Control | What it involves | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Know the origin | Identify the district the fodder was grown in, not just the trader who sold it | Weed risk is geographic. You cannot assess a load without knowing where it came from |
| Vendor declaration | A supplier document describing growing conditions, chemical treatments and weed contamination risk | In New South Wales a vendor declaration or proof of purchase should travel with the feed. It is also a fast test of whether a supplier is worth dealing with |
| Prohibited material | Hay and straw from areas with certain declared weeds, including parthenium weed and branched broomrape, must not move into clean areas | These are not advisory. Other controls apply to pests such as green snail, and interstate movement adds further requirements |
| Designated feeding sites | Feed introduced fodder in a small number of recorded locations rather than across a property | If a weed does arrive it is contained in an area that can be monitored and treated, instead of distributed through every paddock |
| Monitoring afterwards | Inspect feeding sites through following seasons, and tell the recipient to expect this | Weed seed does not germinate on schedule. The problem usually appears after everyone has stopped paying attention |
| General biosecurity duty | Anyone dealing with biosecurity matter must know the risk and manage it so far as is reasonably practicable | The duty attaches to the appeal as well as to the farmer, which volunteers rarely realise |
What to say to a supplier
Three questions cover most of it. Where was this grown. Can you provide a commodity vendor declaration. Are you aware of any declared weeds in that district. A supplier who answers all three without hesitation is probably fine; a supplier who finds the questions strange is telling you something useful.
What to tell the recipient
Pass on the origin and the declaration with the load, and say plainly that the fodder is introduced feed. Farmers manage this risk routinely when buying feed themselves, and the only reason donated fodder is more dangerous is that it often arrives with no information at all. Handing over a piece of paper with the hay converts an unknown into something manageable.
Declared weed lists, movement restrictions and interstate requirements differ by jurisdiction and are updated. Check the current position with the state agriculture department or local land services body for both origin and destination.
What a bale actually does
In brief
A bale of hay is a unit of fundraising, not a unit of nutrition. How far it goes depends on its weight, its feed value, the class and condition of the stock eating it, and how it is fed out. Appeals that understand this deliver noticeably more help per dollar than appeals that count trucks.
Weight varies more than people assume
Round bales are not a standard unit. Two bales of the same apparent size can differ substantially in weight depending on density, moisture and the baler that made them. Because feed is bought and budgeted by dry matter rather than by object, a campaign that buys by the bale without weighing anything is buying an unknown quantity.
Feed value varies even more
Energy and protein content differ enormously between a well-made lucerne bale and weathered cereal straw, and in drought the market fills with the latter. The same number of bales can represent completely different amounts of actual nutrition. Where an appeal is buying at any scale, a feed test is inexpensive relative to the purchase and changes purchasing decisions.
Wastage is the quiet loss
Hay rolled out on bare ground is trampled, soiled and spoiled, and the loss can reach around a fifth of the bale. On a typical round bale that is a substantial fraction of what the campaign paid for. Feeders, troughs and confined feeding areas convert donated feed into fed animals instead of into mud, which is why experienced relief organisations often fund infrastructure alongside fodder.
A useful reframe for donors. Instead of asking how many bales the appeal delivered, ask how many days of feeding it funded, and for how many animals. The second question is answerable, comparable between campaigns, and far closer to the thing donors actually intended to buy.
Do the sum rather than guess
State agriculture departments publish free feed budgeting tools, including calculators holding nutritional values for dozens of feeds that let you compare rations and prices on a like-for-like basis. Using one takes a few minutes and converts an argument about generosity into a calculation about outcomes. It also lets an appeal answer the obvious donor question with a real number instead of a shrug.
Fodder prices, freight rates and agistment rates move constantly with season and region. Use a current calculator and current quotes rather than any figure quoted in an article, including the ones here.
Choosing recipients fairly
In brief
Write the criteria and the conflict of interest rule before nominations open. In a small community the people running an appeal will know most of the people nominated, and decisions made without written criteria will be read as favouritism regardless of how carefully they were made. The written rule protects the volunteers at least as much as the applicants.
What a workable process looks like
| Safeguard | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Third-party nomination | Letting neighbours nominate rather than requiring self-nomination reaches the households least willing to ask, who are usually in the most difficulty |
| A defined area | State the boundary. Appeals that drift outward lose their rationale and their local support at the same time |
| A stated need basis | Not necessarily a means test, which most community appeals cannot administer, but a written description of what the appeal is responding to |
| More than one decision maker | Decisions recorded by a small panel rather than made by an individual, with the reasoning noted briefly |
| Declared conflicts register | Panel members declare relationships and step out of relevant decisions. Routine practice, not an accusation |
| Privacy by default | Recipients are not publicity material. Publish aggregate outcomes and name individuals only with explicit consent |
The dignity problem
Accepting help is difficult, particularly for people who have spent a working life being the ones who help others. Appeals that photograph recipients, stage handovers or require public gratitude reduce the number of people willing to come forward next time, and the effect persists for years.
The practical alternatives are well established: deliver without an audience, let people decline publicity without explanation, tell the story through volunteers rather than recipients, and use aggregate numbers in reporting. Campaigns that get this right find nominations easier in subsequent rounds, which is the clearest evidence that it matters.
Common pitfalls to watch for
In brief
Campaigns rarely fail loudly. They stall, drift and quietly stop, and the causes repeat across completely different communities. Most are visible early to anyone who knows what to look for.
Donor fatigue
The same local audience is asked repeatedly, often by several campaigns at once, and response rates fall with each round. The usual error is to respond by asking more often. The better response is to widen the audience beyond the immediate community and to vary what is being asked for, because people who will not give again will frequently still turn up, lend a truck or share an appeal.
Unclear purpose
An appeal that cannot say in one sentence who it helps and what the money buys struggles to raise funds and struggles even harder to acquit them. Vagueness also makes the recipient process impossible to defend, because there is no stated basis to measure nominations against.
Timing
Public attention to drought follows media cycles, while need follows seasons and lags well behind rain. Campaigns launched at the peak of coverage raise money easily and often arrive after the critical decisions have already been made on farm. Campaigns launched in the long dry middle raise less and land better.
No follow-through
Funds raised, trucks delivered, and then nothing: no acquittal, no report to donors, no formal close. This is the most common failure of all and is fatal to the next appeal, because the people who gave once have no evidence that it worked.
Key person dependency
One person holds the relationships, the records and the momentum, and the campaign stops when they burn out. The people who start appeals are the people who find it hardest to step back, which is exactly why deputies have to be named at the beginning.
Scope creep
The appeal widens its area, adds causes and accepts goods it cannot store or move. Each extension is individually reasonable and the cumulative effect is a campaign that no longer has a definition, cannot report meaningfully and exhausts its volunteers.
Unmanaged in-kind donations
Offers of goods arrive, are accepted out of politeness, and become a storage and disposal problem. It is entirely acceptable to publish a short list of what the appeal can and cannot use, and declining unsuitable goods early is kinder than letting them arrive.
Measuring success beyond dollars raised
In brief
The total raised is the easiest figure to publish and the least informative. It says nothing about how much reached the stated purpose, how many households were helped, what each unit of help cost to deliver, or whether the community is in a better position to do this again. A fuller set of measures is not harder to collect if you decide on it before you start.
| Measure | What it tells you | How to capture it |
|---|---|---|
| Proportion reaching purpose | How much of every dollar became help rather than cost | Track costs separately from the first transaction, including freight even when donated |
| Households assisted | Reach, in the only unit that matters to the people being helped | Count at delivery, not at nomination |
| Cost per unit delivered | Whether the chosen method is efficient compared with alternatives | Total cost divided by the unit you promised donors |
| Days of feeding funded | Actual benefit rather than object count, for a fodder appeal | Weight and feed value against stock numbers, using a feed budgeting tool |
| Volunteer return rate | Whether the campaign was survivable for the people who ran it | Count how many came back for a second round |
| Nomination willingness | Whether help was delivered in a way people could accept | Compare nominations between rounds, and ask liaison volunteers directly |
| Referral into ongoing support | Whether short-term relief connected to longer-term assistance | Record referrals to counselling and assistance services at follow-up |
| Acquittal completeness | Whether the campaign can account for itself | Proportion of funds with documented application at close |
A campaign that raises less money but leaves a community more willing to ask for help, and a group of volunteers willing to do it again, has done better work than one that raised twice as much and burned both. That is not a consolation prize. It is the measure that predicts what happens in the next drought.
Support that already exists
In brief
Considerably more assistance exists than most farming households are using, and low awareness is more often the barrier than low availability. Any appeal worth running should know this landscape, because connecting a household to ongoing support is frequently worth more than the fodder on the truck.
| Body | What it does |
|---|---|
| NSW DroughtHub | The New South Wales government entry point consolidating drought programs, financial and community support, and planning tools in one place |
| Rural Assistance Authority | Administers concessional loans, natural disaster assistance for primary producers, and farm debt mediation in New South Wales |
| Rural Financial Counselling Service | Free, independent financial counselling for primary producers in or at risk of hardship. Independent of lenders and of government agencies |
| Farm Household Allowance | Commonwealth income support for farming families in hardship, paired with planning support and an activity supplement for training or advice |
| Rural Aid | National charity providing fodder, domestic water, counselling, volunteer labour and financial assistance to primary producers |
| Local Land Services and state agriculture departments | Agronomic and biosecurity advice, feed and fodder guidance, stock management in dry times, and the current rules for moving fodder |
Program names, eligibility and amounts change, and several are reviewed annually. Treat this as a map of who does what, and take the detail from the organisation itself.
Where to donate now
In brief
This site does not collect donations and is not a charity. If you arrived here wanting to give to drought-affected farmers, established organisations accept donations directly, publish how funds are used, and can move money to where the need currently is. Giving to an organisation that is already operating is almost always more effective than starting something new.
How to choose where to give
- Check the purpose matches your intent. Fodder, water, mental health support, financial counselling and household relief are different things, funded differently.
- Check the status. Charity registration is public and searchable through the national regulator, as is whether donations are tax deductible.
- Look for published acquittals. Organisations that say what the money did are the ones worth repeat giving.
- Consider unrestricted gifts. Money tied to one item is satisfying to give and harder to deploy where it is most needed.
- Give through the dry middle. Donations arrive in waves that follow coverage, while need follows the season. Giving when attention has moved on is disproportionately useful.
Rural Aid, the state and national charities operating rural relief programs, and the government services listed above are the practical starting points. Searching the national charities register by cause and location will show which registered organisations are currently operating in a given area, along with their reporting.
If you were looking for a specific local appeal that previously used this web address, this site is not connected to it and cannot accept donations on its behalf. Community appeals are usually time-limited and close once their purpose is met. The organisations above are active and can direct a gift to current need.
Running a Drought-Relief Fundraiser in Australia: The Complete Field Guide
The whole sequence, in order, from the conversation that starts an appeal to the report that closes it. Written for people who have never done this before and will probably have to start next week.
1. Decide what you are actually doing
Appeals usually begin with a conversation rather than a plan, and the plan never quite catches up. The single most useful hour is spent at the start, answering four questions in writing: who this helps, where, what the money buys, and when it stops.
Each answer should be narrow enough to be uncomfortable. Farmers in our shire is better than farmers in drought. Feed for stock in the shire through to the end of winter is better still. Narrow purposes raise money more easily, because donors can picture the outcome, and they make every later decision simpler, because there is something to measure a proposal against.
The end point matters more than it appears. Appeals without a defined close drift, and drifting appeals accumulate unspent funds, lose volunteers and eventually create governance problems nobody intended. Decide what finished looks like while everyone is still enthusiastic.
2. Choose the vehicle before you choose the fundraiser
Someone has to hold the money, and that someone should exist before any money arrives. The three realistic options are to operate under an existing incorporated association, to use an established charity as the receiving body, or to incorporate.
For most community appeals the first is correct. A local service club, sporting club or association already has an account, a treasurer who has done this before, insurance and, where required, a fundraising authority. Incorporating from scratch takes time the season does not allow, and a new entity has none of the credibility of an existing one.
Whichever route is taken, document the arrangement. The entity holding the funds is accountable for them, and both sides should understand that before the first donation rather than during an audit.
3. Check the fundraising rules early
Soliciting money or goods from the public for a charitable purpose is regulated in every state, with different thresholds, forms and conditions. In New South Wales an appeal expecting to go past the legislated threshold in a financial year needs an authority to fundraise from NSW Fair Trading, and charities registered with the national regulator can rely on a deemed authority pathway instead of applying separately.
Two practical notes. First, an online appeal reaches donors in every state, which can bring more than one scheme into play, and national fundraising principles are gradually reducing but not eliminating this complexity. Second, deductible gift recipient status is a separate matter, granted by the tax office, and no appeal should describe gifts as tax deductible without confirming it.
4. Set up money handling before you need it
A dedicated account, two signatories, a receipting method, and a written rule about who can authorise a payment. This takes an afternoon and removes the most common source of later conflict.
Keep purchase records from the first transaction rather than assembling them at the end. Record freight, fuel and incidental costs even when they are donated, because that information is what lets you compare the efficiency of one method against another and answer donor questions honestly. Separating the person who controls the money from the person who selects recipients is a basic control and costs nothing in a volunteer group.
5. Appoint six roles and a deputy for each
Campaign lead, community liaison, treasurer, storyteller, logistics coordinator and nominations officer. In a small group one person will hold two, which is fine; what is not fine is a role nobody has been named to, because those are the ones that silently go undone.
Name a deputy for each. Burnout is close to universal in these campaigns, concentrated precisely among the people least willing to step back, and a deputy named at the start is the difference between a pause and a collapse.
6. Write the recipient rules before nominations open
Area, basis of need, who may nominate, who decides, how conflicts are declared and how privacy is handled. Once names are on a list these rules become almost impossible to write, because every version will look like it was drafted to produce a particular answer.
Third-party nomination is worth building in deliberately. The households in the greatest difficulty are consistently the least likely to nominate themselves, and an appeal that relies on self-nomination systematically misses them.
7. Buy well, and ask the fodder questions
For a goods appeal, purchasing is where most of the value is won or lost. Buying closer to the destination usually beats a cheaper load from far away once freight and feed value are counted, and it reduces biosecurity risk at the same time.
If you are buying fodder, three questions are not optional: where was it grown, can you provide a commodity vendor declaration, and are there declared weeds in that district. In New South Wales a vendor declaration or proof of purchase should travel with the feed, and hay or straw from areas with certain declared weeds, including parthenium weed and branched broomrape, must not be moved into clean areas at all. Check the rules for both the origin and the destination before the load is on a truck.
Where the appeal is buying at any scale, a feed test is cheap relative to the purchase and will change what you buy. Bales are not a standard unit of either weight or nutrition.
8. Deliver in a way people can accept
Confirm access, unloading and timing with the recipient rather than arriving with a convoy and a camera. Deliver without an audience where that is what the household wants, let people decline publicity without having to explain, and tell the campaign story through volunteers rather than recipients.
This is not sentimentality. Appeals that handle it badly see nominations fall away in subsequent rounds, and in a small community that effect lasts for years. Handing over the origin details and the vendor declaration with the load is part of the same courtesy: it treats the recipient as a manager of their own property rather than as a beneficiary.
9. Follow up, then close properly
A short call a fortnight after delivery tells you whether the help landed, what is still needed and whether the household is connected to the longer-term support that exists. It is the most frequently skipped step and the one that produces most of the learning.
Then close. Report to donors what their money did, in specific terms and with real numbers. Acquit the funds against the stated purpose. Decide what happens to any residue, ideally by passing it to a body that can apply it to the same purpose, and say publicly that the appeal has finished. Closing deliberately is a mark of a well-run campaign, and it is what makes the next one possible.
10. Hand the knowledge on
Write down what you learned while it is fresh: what the real costs were, which suppliers were good, what the access problems were at each property, what you would do differently. Drought is cyclical, and the next campaign will almost certainly be run by different people. A two-page handover note is worth more to them than any amount of goodwill.
A note on numbers
This guide avoids quoting fundraising thresholds, grant amounts, fodder prices, freight rates and agistment rates. Those figures differ by state, season and district, they are revised regularly, and a number repeated out of context is how a plan gets justified badly. Where a figure is decision critical, take it from the issuing authority or from a current quote, note the date you checked, and check it again before the next campaign.
Common misconceptions
In brief
Twelve beliefs that repeatedly send good campaigns in the wrong direction, set against what actually happens.
| What is assumed | What actually happens |
|---|---|
| Hay is always the best help | Hay is visible and easy to rally around. It is also heavy, variable in feed value and capable of carrying weed seed. Cash often buys better feed closer to the destination |
| Any hay will do | Fodder moves weed seed efficiently, and material from areas with certain declared weeds cannot lawfully be moved into clean areas at all |
| More bales means more help | Weight, feed value and wastage decide the outcome. Hay fed on bare ground can lose around a fifth of the bale before an animal eats it |
| You need a registered charity | Charity registration is voluntary. Most community appeals run under an existing association. What matters is who holds the money and who is accountable |
| Charity registration makes gifts deductible | Deductible gift recipient status is a separate endorsement from the tax office, and many registered charities do not hold it |
| Small appeals are unregulated | Thresholds exist, but conduct, receipting and record-keeping expectations apply to how you solicit and apply funds regardless of size |
| Farmers just need money | Financial counselling, household support and concessional finance already exist. Awareness is more often the barrier than availability |
| Drought ends when it rains | Recovery lags rain by seasons. Stock, pasture and cash flow rebuild slowly, and attention has usually moved on by then |
| Help the worst affected first | Without written criteria that judgement is unmakeable and indefensible. Define the basis before nominations open |
| Reach equals funds raised | Shares and views convert poorly. A smaller audience with a clear ask and a visible outcome outperforms a large one without |
| Volunteers are free | Volunteers are generally workers for work health and safety purposes. Insurance, briefing and duty of care apply around trucks, hay and night driving |
| Paperwork can wait | Records assembled afterwards are incomplete and unconvincing. Obligations attach from the first dollar, and acquittal is far easier built as you go |
Questions people ask
Do I need a licence to fundraise for farmers in NSW?
If you raise money from the public for a charitable purpose in New South Wales and you expect to go past the legislated threshold in a financial year, you need an authority to fundraise from NSW Fair Trading. Below that threshold you do not.
Charities registered with the ACNC can rely on a deemed authority pathway instead of applying separately. The threshold and the conditions are set by regulation and change, so confirm the current position with Fair Trading before you launch rather than after.
Does my fundraiser have to be a registered charity?
No. Registration with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is voluntary, and many successful community appeals have run without it, often through an existing incorporated association that already has banking and insurance in place.
Registration brings streamlined fundraising arrangements and public credibility, and it also brings ongoing reporting. The practical question is who holds the money and who is accountable for it, not what the group is called.
Are donations to my appeal tax deductible?
Only if the receiving entity is endorsed as a deductible gift recipient by the Australian Taxation Office. This is a separate endorsement from charity registration and from a fundraising authority, and plenty of registered charities are not endorsed.
Never describe donations as tax deductible unless the endorsement is in place. Donors will claim on that basis, and the correction is painful for everyone involved.
Is sending hay the best way to help a drought-affected farmer?
Sometimes, but not automatically. Hay is visible, emotionally powerful and easy to rally people around, which is why appeals default to it. It is also heavy, expensive to move, variable in feed value and capable of carrying weed seed onto a clean property.
Cash given to a farmer or to an established relief organisation often buys more appropriate feed closer to the destination, with less freight and less risk. The right answer depends on the situation, which is why it is worth asking rather than assuming.
Can donated hay spread weeds?
Yes, and this is the most commonly missed risk in community fodder appeals. Fodder is an effective vehicle for weed seed, and drought makes it worse because feed quality falls and loads travel much further than usual.
Hay and straw from areas with certain declared weeds, including parthenium weed and branched broomrape, must not be moved into clean areas at all. A single contaminated load can cost a property more over the following decade than the donated feed was ever worth.
What is a commodity vendor declaration?
It is a document from the supplier describing how a fodder crop was grown, what chemicals were applied, and the likelihood of weed contamination. In New South Wales a vendor declaration or proof of purchase should travel with the feed.
For an appeal buying fodder from unfamiliar districts it is the cheapest piece of due diligence available, and asking for one also tells you quickly whether a supplier is worth dealing with.
How long does one round bale feed a cow?
It depends on the weight and quality of the bale and on the size and condition of the animal, so the honest answer is that it is a calculation rather than a number. As an order of magnitude, a typical round bale weighs in the low hundreds of kilograms and a dry cow eats a few per cent of its body weight in dry matter each day.
Free feed budgeting tools published by state agriculture departments will give a defensible figure for a specific class of stock and a specific feed, and they take only a few minutes to use.
Why do campaigns say feeders matter as much as bales?
Because hay rolled out on the ground is trampled, soiled and wasted, and the loss can reach around a fifth of the bale. Feeding infrastructure converts donated feed into fed animals rather than into mud.
An appeal that funds feeders, water infrastructure or freight alongside fodder frequently delivers more usable nutrition per dollar than one that funds bales alone.
How should an appeal choose which farmers receive help?
Write the criteria and the conflict of interest rule before nominations open. In a small community the people running the appeal will know many of the people nominated, and decisions made without written criteria will be read as favouritism no matter how fair they actually were.
Nomination by a third party, a defined area, a stated need test and a documented decision by more than one person are the usual safeguards. They protect the volunteers as much as the applicants.
What support already exists for drought-affected farmers?
A substantial amount, and low awareness is often a bigger barrier than low availability. In New South Wales the DroughtHub consolidates programs, the Rural Assistance Authority administers concessional loans and farm debt mediation, the Rural Financial Counselling Service provides free independent advice, and Farm Household Allowance supports farming families in hardship.
National charities such as Rural Aid provide fodder, water, counselling and volunteer labour. Connecting a household to these is frequently worth more than the contents of a truck.
How do you measure whether a fundraiser worked?
The total raised is the easiest number to report and the least informative. More telling measures are the proportion of funds that reached the stated purpose, the number of households helped, the cost of delivering each unit of help, how many volunteers returned for a second round, and whether recipients were willing to ask for help again.
A campaign that raises less but leaves a community more willing to ask for help has done better work, because that is what determines what happens in the next drought.
When should a community appeal stop?
At a defined point, decided in advance. Appeals that drift lose volunteers, accumulate unacquitted funds and eventually create governance problems that nobody set out to create.
Close formally, report what the money did, and hand any residual funds to a body that can use them for the same purpose. Stopping deliberately is a sign of a well-run campaign, not a failed one.
Glossary
ACNCAustralian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, the national charity regulator. Registration is voluntary and brings reporting obligations alongside streamlined fundraising arrangements.
AcquittalAccounting for how raised funds were applied against the stated purpose, usually at the close of an appeal.
AgistmentPlacing livestock on another property for a fee, normally priced per head per week. A common alternative to buying in feed during dry seasons.
Authority to fundraiseRegulatory permission to solicit money or goods from the public for a charitable purpose, issued by the state regulator and carrying conditions.
Commodity vendor declarationA supplier document describing growing conditions, chemical treatments and weed contamination risk for a fodder crop.
Declared weedA plant subject to legal control measures, which can include prohibitions on moving fodder from affected areas.
Deemed authorityAn arrangement under which a charity registered with the national regulator is taken to hold a state fundraising authority without applying separately.
DGRDeductible gift recipient. Tax office endorsement that makes donations tax deductible for the donor, separate from charity registration.
Dry matterFeed weight excluding water content. The basis on which rations are budgeted, because moisture varies widely between feeds.
Farm Household AllowanceCommonwealth income support for farming families in financial hardship, paired with planning support and an activity supplement.
Feed budgetA calculation of how much feed a given class of stock needs over a given period, used to decide what to buy and whether to reduce numbers.
FodderHarvested feed for livestock, including hay, silage and straw. The usual object of a goods-based drought appeal.
General biosecurity dutyThe obligation on anyone dealing with biosecurity matter to know the risks and manage them so far as is reasonably practicable. It applies to appeals as well as to farmers.
Hay runA convoy delivering donated fodder to farms in a drought-affected district, usually organised by a community group.
In-kind donationA gift of goods or services rather than money. Valuable when it matches a stated need and a storage problem when it does not.
Local Land ServicesNew South Wales regional bodies providing agricultural, biosecurity and natural resource advice to landholders.
Rural Assistance AuthorityNew South Wales body administering concessional loans, disaster assistance for primary producers and farm debt mediation.
Rural Financial Counselling ServiceFree, independent financial counselling for primary producers in or at risk of hardship, independent of lenders and government agencies.
Unrestricted fundsDonations not tied to a specific item, which can be directed to wherever need is greatest. Harder to raise and far easier to deploy.
WastageFeed lost before an animal eats it, through trampling and spoilage. Can reach around a fifth of a bale fed out on bare ground.
Before you launch
Work through the field guide in order. Confirm the fundraising rules with your state regulator before you launch, not after. Ask the three fodder questions before anything goes on a truck. Decide the end point while everyone is still enthusiastic.
Figures that change are covered in dated articles rather than on this page.
Latest articles
Dated coverage of the detail that changes: thresholds, program amounts, fodder prices and seasonal conditions.
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