THE City of Logan Charitable Trust has banked big on fundraising but held tight on handouts, according to its latest financial statement, about one year after a new board was tasked with reinvigorating the council-owned enterprise.
Despite bringing in almost $150,000 in their first financial year, the new board handed out just $10,000 in grants to local community groups.
But board chair John Gilmour said not to worry, with the new board focused on building a long-term funding base before it starts dishing out bigger and better amounts.
He said the board, which is volunteer-run, was even planning to bring back the mayor’s gala ball, which was once a key fundraiser that hasn’t run since 2018.
“We believe, having seen Melbourne, Gold Coast and Brisbane, that trusts for the community can be really successful and distribute millions of dollars to community charities,” Mr Gilmour said.
“Logan has got such great potential to progress that.”
In comparison, the previous board – which resigned in September last year after struggling to muster more than $1000 over the course of a year – handed out more than $177,000 in grants during the 2024 financial year.
Almost all of that grant funding was given by council.
Mr Gilmour said the new board was aiming to become independent and sustainable, taking no money directly from ratepayers.
“We don’t want to hit up the local community, the rate payer. Our focus of strategy has been to connect with corporates and with high-end individuals to see if we can get things moving.
“Our initial plan was to try and raise about $50,000 in the first six months. We managed to pull off about $75,000, which is great.
“At the same time, we have managed to only give a couple of small grants because we’re trying to build an asset base so we can really start to get granting going.”
Between donations, events, interest and sponsorships, the trust’s 2025 financial year income reached about $149,000 under the new board, which was only filled in January this year.
Between April and June 2025, the trust’s income surpassed $133,000.
In July last year, local councillors gave the then-directors three months to prove their ability after revelations of poor fundraising efforts and “bad spending habits”, otherwise it would face being “wound up”.
Instead, the board tendered their resignations. In September 2024, three interim directors, including Mr Gilmour, were appointed until a new board was chosen.
The current board members are Mr Gilmour, Matt Lang, Russell Postle, Sheridan Webcke, Stewart Fleming and Logan’s mayoress Ali Raven.
While fundraising under the new board has been higher than in previous years, so have expenses, with costs in the 2025 financial year (excluding grants handed out) triple the previous year’s.
Fundraising and secretarial expenses were the largest for 2025, costing about $28,000 and $22,000 respectively.
The year before, under the previous board, the combined value of these two expenses was $0.
In 2025, the trust finished the financial year at an almost $65,000 profit.
In 2024, it ended in a $151,000 deficit.
Mr Gilmour said the board hoped to hand out another grant before Christmas, and to resume the biannual grant applications process in 2026.
“We won’t be handing out $170,000 in the next year or so when we’re only bringing a small amount in. We want to actually build that resource and go up,” he said.
“We’re talking about trying to set up the basis of this for the next 20 or 30 years.
“In the end, the trust may be holding millions of dollars and it can distribute much bigger numbers to the community, which is the real intent.”
Image: (L-R) Trust board director Russell Postle, volunteer ambassador Mary-Jane Leahy, director Stewart Fleming, ambassador Lisa Lockland-Bell, director Ali Raven, ambassador Kylie Slater, ambassador Princess Eunia, ambassador Lyn Shadbolt, and board chair John Gilmour
