1. Australia
2. About us

Variety provides grants to individuals and organisations for a great number of items such as special wheelchairs, vocal output speech devices, prosthetic limbs, special play equipment and liberty swings.

We give grants to hospitals, we provide Sunshine Coaches to special schools and organisations so that kids can get out and about in the sunshine and experience life and we also provide children special experiences such as parties and adventure camps to give them opportunities that able bodied kids may take for granted.

Variety raises funds from a number of sources, from corporate partnership, to events, to donations - and to date we have delivered more than $180 million to help Australia’s sick, disadvantaged and children with special needs.

Variety employs 52 full time staff around the country who are supported by over 5,000 volunteers and committees running various events, functions, outings with children, investigation of appeals applications and more. Variety keeps administration costs at below 10 per cent and our gross to net margin continues to lead every other major children’s charity in the country.

The Variety Club was founded in Australia in 1975 with Paul Hogan as the first Chief Barker (Chairman) and is now represented in all states and territories of Australia, helping tens of thousands of children every year. Our name has since changed to Variety, the Children’s Charity although we are still fondly remembered in the community as the Variety Club.

Our work is serious although, Variety never forgets the importance of having fun! Our supporters, our sponsors, our volunteers and of course the special children that we help, would all testify that Variety succeeds in the mission to bringing smiles to faces of a great number of special kids and those that are helping them.

Click here to read the 2010 Variety Australia Annual Review.