A central problem for charitable organisations is that they do not derive revenues from their core philanthropic activities. Consequently they cannot survive unless they can derive revenues from other sources. The three major sources of these revenues are: (a) Government grants; (b) commercial activities that cross-subsidise the philanthropic activities; and (c) private donations. In each of these fund-raising activities they compete with other organisations, but none more so than in seeking private donations. Consequently, this thesis is concerned with the competition for private donations among charities with similar aims. Fundraising efforts through government grant competition and commercial activities are not considered. The charities considered are located in Australia and Japan, a comparative analysis being an initial major purpose of the research. This was based upon the argument that the behaviour of charitable organisations will be influenced by local culture far more than profit making corporations facing global markets. There was, therefore, an interest in examining how different the forms of competitions might be in the countries. Charitable organisations compete for private donations in two ways. The first is by an efficient and effective service to the charitable organisations‘ recipients. Unfortunately for fundraising, such service is not usually directly observable by potential donors. The second form of competition is the public provision of information, services and marketing and promotion to potential donors, specifically with the aim of eliciting donations. Competition in this form, of course, requires fundraising expenditures on the part of charitable organisations.