Out of Self Interest Corporations Urged to Up Support for Universities. (May 4, 2009)

 Michael Chaney, Chairman of the National Australia Bank, Woodside Petroleum and Gresham Partners Holdings is also Chancellor of the University of Western Australia. Speaking after the opening yesterday of the new $50 million home for the University of Western Australia's business school he told his audience: "The fact is, governments have demonstrated over the last decade or two that they can't afford the sort of universities we want to see. If you want to be that sort of (top) university, you have to attract private support. It's really at times like these that you need to increase rather than decrease corporate philanthropy."

And when interviewed by The Australian he said, referring to the Global Financial Crisis: "Obviously it's harder [to garner philanthropic support] because people are feeling less well off and perhaps less inclined to contribute, but I think that gives universities an opportunity to argue the case for private support. It's really at times like these that you need to increase rather than decrease corporate philanthropy. Companies progressively have moved to a position where they're contributing a percentage of their profit before tax to community causes. The benchmark is about 1per cent of profit before tax. Obviously as profits fall, the amount they contribute will fall if they stick to that sort of ratio but, in fact, most of the companies that are moving towards those sort of benchmarks are still well short of the 1 per cent, so there's still quite a bit of scope to go up."

Of the $50 million used to set up the UWA business school, $25 million was contributed by the private sector.  Woodside chief Don Voelte whose company donated $5 Million ( as did BHP Billiton) said: "Our intention was to ensure there is a great business school in Western Australia to train young people so they can come to work for us. It's just a good education thing that leads to future business leaders."

Wesfarmers who chipped in for $1 million was represented by their managing director Richard Goyder: "We get a lot of good people from the university and it's really important that as a West Australian based company, we continue to get excellent people."

According to The Australian One-third of the private donations went to the new building, while the remainder will be used to enhance the business faculty by establishing new chairs, visiting professors, international lecturers and other resources.

It's to be hoped that if support from the private sector increases in those areas which it sees of direct utility, funding from the public sector will rise to support those areas in the sciences and humanities so necessary for the well being of the nation.