Pilfering with purpose

Posted on 10 Feb 2025

By Greg Thom, journalist, Institute of Community Directors Australia

The targeting of a Geelong food relief charity by brazen thieves who cleaned out the organisation's freezer shocked the community but should come as no surprise.

The incident, which left volunteers at Feed Me Geelong devastated, is just the latest in a series of acts preying on for purpose organisations struggling to meet increasing demand amid the cost-of-living crisis across the nation.

They range from petty theft at op shops and scammers impersonating charities to cases of multimillion dollar fraud and embezzlement by senior leaders at charitable organisations.

Over the past few months alone, heartless crooks have:

broken into and robbed the office of a Melbourne charity established to aid asylum seekers twice in 48 hours

used a metal bar to repeatedly break into and steal items from a charity donation bin outside a Traralgon op shop that supports people with disability

made off with donated Christmas toys intended for underprivileged kids as well as a disability support bus from a charity in south-west Sydney

forced open the door of a Food Bank site in Bunbury, Western Australia and stole electronic equipment and a car, forcing volunteers to cancel their scheduled fortnightly food delivery for disadvantaged families

The courts have also seen a procession of high-profile cases in which NFPs, and charities have been targeted from within, including the case of the manager of a Vinnies store in Mount Gambier who stole $15,000 from the charity to spend on drugs.

“They’re (criminals) not thinking about whether it’s a charity. They are just thinking about how easy it is to get what they need.”

Feed Me Geelong founder and CEO Lana Purcell.

A central question asked repeatedly following such acts is how anyone could justify targeting organisations such as charities and not-for-profits that are trying to help people in the community.

Lana Purcell, the founder and CEO of Feed Me Geelong has a simple answer: they don’t care.

“Personally, I am not surprised because I think the mindset when robbing a charity is probably ‘We [charity] didn’t pay for it’ so there’s no value in it for us.'”

Purcell is speaking from experience. The food relief charity has been robbed three times in four years.

Rather than being driven by desperation because of cost-of-living pressures, Purcell said drug and alcohol addiction and youth crime were most likely the reasons behind charity crime.

“I don’t think that we are being hit by people out of desperation because our whole organisation exists for people that don’t have money,” she said.

“People who are desperately needing food to feed their family, use us as we are meant to be used.

“I know the mindset of the drug and alcohol addicted and the recurring crime from juveniles in the community. They don’t care who it is.

“They’re not thinking about whether it’s a charity. They are just thinking about how easy it is to get what they need.”

Purcell said criminals believed charities were easy targets because of their perceived lack of security such as an absence of CCTV cameras and locks.

“They could also be coming from the mindset of ‘We can do this [commit charity crime], but the community will help them afterwards, so they’re not going to miss it too much.'”

When it came to her own organisation, Purcell said the crooks had been proven right.

She said the local community had rallied to support Feed Me, donating food to replace what was stolen.

Local businesses have also come to the charity’s aid, carrying out fundraising drives and contributing $2000 to upgrade security.

“The support from the community has been amazing. We’ve come out of this better than we were before.”