The public is being challenged to become activists and use their creativity in aid of a cause they care passionately about, with a chance to win a share of a cash prize at the end of it.

The Shake the Cage Cup has been launched to force politicians from Australia’s major parties to start having a conversation with the public about reviewing the tax concessions given to religious institutions on their non-charitable work – a move which could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues.

The competition is designed to bring some much needed transparency to the Australian NFP sector and help a heap of luck NFPs along the way both in the short and long-term.

The competition allows anyone to submit a video to highlight an issue they care about that is in need of better resourcing.

Entries will be judged by a panel of top judges including Desh Amila, Dr Meredith Doig, Ross Harding, Fiona Patten MP, Dr David Zyngier and Asher Wolf.

The winners will share in a $15,000 prize pool, and there are a heap of additional prizes and perks for all involved (including everything from tickets to the sold-out Strawberry Fields Festival, pop up shows and events in late November along with some other fun bits and pieces).

All entries will also be made available to the relevant not-for-profits for use in their own fundraising and engagement efforts, whilst funds being raised through the competition will be 100 per cent distributed amongst the not-for-profits nominated in a People’s Choice Awards.

The key focus of the initiative is to start a conversation about loopholes in Australian Charities legislation that see corporations like Sanitarium (the producers of Weet-Bix and Up & Go) turn approximately $500 million annually and not pay a cent of company income tax because they are owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church and classified as a charity.

Between corporate operations and the purchasing of land as a store of wealth (the Catholic Church alone has an estimate $9 billion worth of land in Victoria alone) there is an incredible amount of exploitation of these loopholes happening and little transparency.

Further complicating things, the major political parties in Australia are too afraid and self-interested to do anything about this given what is seen to be a political minefield.

In the case of The Liberal Party, the Australian Christian Lobby exert a powerful influence over policy and decision making – something which saw Simon Birmingham pushed out as the Minister for Education and Training – given accepting Gonski reforms was going to be less beneficial to Catholic and Private schools that state schools.

In the case of The Labor Party, the biggest barrier to their inaction is the pressure exerted by the CPSU (Community and Public Sector Union) which has traditionally had a strong Catholic influence.

With both major parties appeasing minority influence and proving ineffective at addressing the loopholes, the competition is designed to educate the public and pressure the major parties to review their position at the risk of losing votes to smaller parties in the upcoming State and Federal elections.

To shake things up less than two weeks out from November 15, the competition has launched Shake Bix.

Unless there are changes to legislation, competition Creator and Coordinator Daniel Bluzer-Fry is promising to launch the brand in 2019 with the following focal points:

1. 100 per cent of the Shake-Bix’s profits will be distributed to Australian (and potentially New Zealand) not-for-profits.
2. Shake-Bix will be 100 per cent transparent about all finances and follow even stronger reporting standards than those demanded of the large corporations that compete with the likes of Sanitarium in the breakfast foods space (e.g Kellogg’s, Kraft etc).
3. Shake-Bix will have category leading production methods with a focus on ethical and sustainable supply chain.
4. The Shake the Cage Cup is going to give every Australian that purchases a Shaker Pass before 15.11.18 an option to invest in Shake-Bix and receive a capped return for helping getting the brand up and running before all the proceeds go to Not-For-Profits (it will be a true brand of the Australian people)

The competition has also invited Sanitarium CEO Kevin Jackson and EGM Todd Saunders to get in touch ASAP claiming ‘this is just the warm up round’ for what shapes to be a big week.