News

Submission on the Australian Secure Jobs Framework – Draft Framework

News, Submissions-post

Submission on the Secure Australian Jobs Framework - Draft Framework

Submission to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

The Community Council for Australia (CCA) supports the intentions of the government’s Secure Australian Jobs Framework (Procurement Framework). But while our sector strives to provide the best possible terms and conditions for its extraordinary staff and volunteers – who are the cornerstone of the value that our sector provides to Australian communities – far too many charities and not-for-profits (NFPs) continue to be hamstrung by the inability to match employment terms with funding certainty – negatively impacting jobs, services, innovation and productivity.

Government insisting on permanency in employment practices or mandating extra compliance requirements for organisations to be successful to obtain government service procurements, while perpetuating the use of short-term funding arrangement for our sector, also isn’t just inconvenient – it’s setting up charities to fail.

Charities want more security for our staff. It is not in the interests of employees or employers in the charities sector to exacerbate job insecurity.  The quality, work conditions and satisfaction of our workforce are key factors in building our sector’s organisational and productivity capability.

Not being able to offer permanent employment or the significant data gaps preventing our sector from better understanding the make-up and needs of our 1.6 million strong workforce are also key barriers to the retention of skilled and experienced staff.

By ‘paying what it takes’; committing to deductible gift recipient (DGR) reform; supporting a not-for-profit ‘centre of excellence’; and by further investing in our workforce’s capability needs before imposing additional requirements, the government can get behind and further back our sector’s highly impactful staff and volunteers that millions of Australians depend on, and which government turns to when communities are under pressure, when crises hit, or when systems fail. 

Summary of recommendations

  1. The government must ‘pay what it takes’ and commit to longer-term secure funding to support and enable more charities and not-for-profits to sustainably compete for government service procurements, and to prioritise the growing needs of our sector’s overburdened, but essential, impactful and highly valued workforce.
  1. The government can significantly amplify the impact and productivity of our sector’s workforce by implementing deductible gift recipient (DGR) reform, and by extending the appropriate incentives, concession and programs afforded to small businesses to similar sized charities and not-for-profits.
  1. The government must do more to support Australia’s charities and not-for-profits’ operational, governance, digital, legal and workforce capability needs before increasing regulatory and compliance burdens.
  1. The government can help address the significant data and research gaps, and support a sustainable workforce plan for our sector by funding a not-for-profit ‘centre of excellence’ and by reinstating the ABS Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account.

 CCA’s full submission:  CCA submission to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations – Secure Australian Jobs Framework – 21 Oct 26.pdf

Submission on the Australian Secure Jobs Framework – Draft Framework Read More »

When did activism become a dirty word?

News

When did activism become a dirty word?

CCA CEO David Crosbie writes in the Community Advocate.

Over the weekend, federal Liberal leader Angus Taylor told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane that he would protect Australia from “activists”. A Coalition government would “introduce a Bill which will override activist-driven legislation and lawfare that’s stopping projects”, he said, and put in place “laws to protect our national flag, our national day, and our memorials from activists.”

Mr Taylor is not alone in his condemnation of activism. Nationals leader Matt Canavan has said, “We will not let activists destroy Australia with their ideology that makes not one degree of difference.” In an address to the National Press Club in June, Pauline Hanson attacked “the activists in [the ABC’s] ranks”.

The message is clear: activists are a threat to Australia and our way of life.

I couldn’t disagree more. Australia needs activists, and right now it needs activists more than ever.

“Activist” is a label, not a description. People who work for change inside institutions are typically labelled lobbyists or advocates. People who push for change from the outside, through protest or direct action, are labelled activists. Often, though, the two groups are doing much the same thing – the difference is your point of view. The label “advocate” or “activist” typically says more about the person using it than the person doing the activity. For many politicians, the term “activist” just means someone whose cause you oppose.

By most measures, Senator Canavan and Senator Hanson are activists too. They see something they think is wrong, and they campaign loudly to change it. Canavan often dresses up in high-vis work gear like a miner (he is a former management consultant). Senator Hanson wore a hijab into Parliament. These are forms of advocacy and activism.

Activists built modern Australia. For most of human history, kings and emperors ruled by birthright, might made right, and people without power or wealth were oppressed or enslaved. Activists changed that. Many of the rights we now take for granted were won by people who were labelled troublemakers and worse in their day. There is a long list of social reform driven by activism, including:

  • the rights of women and First Nations people to vote and stand for Parliament
  • the eight-hour day
  • equal pay
  • land rights
  • environmental protection
  • marriage equality.

Many reforms that were once dismissed as radical are now mainstream.

Activism doesn’t always succeed, and it isn’t always welcome. Movements can form on every side of an issue. Some tactics alienate the public, and disruptive protest can hurt people who were never the target. But the answer to activism we disagree with is more informed debate and engagement, not laws designed to silence one side.

Activism has real benefits for individuals and communities. The many studies of activist movements show that it can:

  • drive reform: grassroots pressure delivers laws that politicians alone won’t
  • hold power to account: exposing corruption, corporate overreach and abuses of human rights
  • give a voice to the overlooked: refugees, workers, young people and others whom institutions ignore
  • shift attitudes: on issues like mental health, gender equality, discrimination and the environment
  • channel frustration peacefully: it offers a more constructive response to injustice than reactions grounded in desperation and violence
  • strengthen people and communities: research links working for social justice to greater life satisfaction, and it builds belonging and leadership.

For charities and not-for-profits, advocacy and activism do more than put a cause on the agenda. Acting together builds connections and makes organisations stronger, even when the change they’re seeking doesn’t come.

Charities have the right – and the responsibility – to be advocates. The High Court’s 2010 Aid/Watch decision and the Charities Act 2013 confirm that advocating for change can itself be a charitable purpose. Charities have a clear legal basis for the advocacy and activism that has driven so much of our national progress, providing they are not breaking the law. Given the rising divisive politics of selfishness, these core provisions that legitimise advocacy for charities in Australia may need to be protected over time.

Australia faces global disruption, climate change and a difficult economy where inequality is increasing. When political leaders promise to legislate against activists, charities and not-for-profits must not be intimidated into silence. The best protection for our right to advocate for our cause and our communities – both inside and outside of the political process – is to keep advocating.

If we’re going to achieve the kind of Australia we want to live in, we need more activists, not fewer.

Read in the Community Advocate at: https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/when-did-activism-become-a-dirty-word

When did activism become a dirty word? Read More »

AI and charities: it’s all about purpose

News

AI and charities: it's all about purpose

CCA CEO David Crosbie writes in the Community Advocate.

There’s been a lot of talk about AI this week, and some of it has been frightening. So, is AI good or bad? It depends. For charities, it depends above all on our purpose and our values.

Like it or not, AI is already in use in most of our organisations. Occasionally it came in by design. More often it slipped in quietly, the day someone asked a chatbot to draft a grant application or reply to a difficult email. We’re past debating whether to use AI, when to start, or whether we’re comfortable with it. The real questions are how we’ll use it, and which values we’ll bring with us when we do.

So far, the answer across our sector to how we’ll use it has mostly been for efficiency. The Institute of Community Directors Australia’s 43 examples of NFPs and charities using AI is a good snapshot. Organisations are saving time, streamlining work, expanding online services and making information easier to find. Some have built a bigger, better front door for clients and supporters. Others have made it easier for staff to find internal ways through their workflow.

Read those examples closely and a pattern emerges. Almost every successful use of AI starts with well-organised, searchable information.

That’s the first hard truth about AI: garbage in, garbage out. If your data is scattered, out of date or inconsistent, AI won’t fix it. It will spread the garbage faster and sound completely confident while doing it. For many charities, AI’s first lesson hasn’t been about technology at all. It’s been about getting data in order.

Sorting your data also means deciding who gets to see what. Nowhere does this matter more than with client records and sensitive staff and volunteer information. No one wants an AI agent that reads a colleague’s medical certificate and hands it to anyone who asks. Our clients trust us with some of the most private details of their lives. Once that trust is broken, no efficiency gain will win it back.

Get the data right and keep it safe, and you arrive at the question that really matters: does AI serve our mission?

This is where we part ways with business. Companies often adopt AI to increase revenue or cut costs. Charities and NFPs may benefit from doing both, but neither is the point. For us, AI is only worth having if it helps us fulfil our purpose.

Picture a Landcare volunteer who joined the organisation to plant trees and ended up buried in paperwork. At first, AI might simply offer relief: it means less admin and more time with dirt under the fingernails. It may take some effort to set up, but over time it pays off. The bigger benefits come later. With the right information, AI could help Landcare to work out which trees to plant, where and when, so every planting does more for the local environment. That isn’t just saving time. It’s advancing the mission.

Getting that kind of benefit takes a different kind of data. Good record keeping is not enough. We need impact data, a clear picture of what has worked and what hasn’t. Too often, our sector lacks good systems for capturing our impact. In that sense, AI holds up a mirror. It pushes us to be much clearer about what fulfilling our mission actually looks like.

And we don’t have long to work it out. If there’s one thing we can say with confidence, it’s that in five years the way we store, share and use information will look completely different. Today’s systems will be tomorrow’s legacy. AI will do far more than speed up information retrieval, just as computers ended up doing far more than replace the typing pool. The organisations that thrive will be the ones that start preparing now.

I’m no expert on AI. But the good news, as I see it, is that the most important steps depend more on good leadership than on technical knowledge:

  • Know your information. What do you hold, where does it live, and what additional information do you need?
  • Set limits and safeguards. Decide who can access what information and in what form, and make sure staff, volunteers and others know how to use it appropriately.
  • Ask the mission question. Where could AI help you do your core work better, not just faster or more cheaply?
  • Start small and learn. Pick one real problem, try AI on it, and be honest about the results.

We can choose to ignore AI, but it isn’t going away. None of this is simple. AI will be disruptive on many levels. It will test our shared values. Its costs may outweigh its benefits. It may create problems in our communities that we haven’t yet imagined.

The many challenges of AI reinforce the importance of actively questioning how we go about using it. Does AI help us do better, drive more change and provide more benefit for the people and causes we serve? Can we adopt it without compromising our core values? Can we use it to build stronger, more flourishing communities?

However we see the benefits, the costs, the threats and the limitations, the important test of AI in our sector is ultimately a test of purpose.

Read in the Community Advocate at: https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/ai-and-charities-its-all-about-purpose

AI and charities: it’s all about purpose Read More »

Submission to the ABS on the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA)

News, Submissions-post

Submission to the ABS on the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA)

The Community Council for Australia (CCA) supports the changes proposed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to the 2027 Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA) consultation draft. In particular, we support inclusion of the occupation of ‘221232 Fundraising Manager’ under the amended category ‘2212 Communications and Fundraising Professionals.’

The ABS is an important source of information on the charity and not-for-profit sector, and the changes will allow a more accurate depiction of the sector’s workforce. The CCA notes that there is scope to further improve the OSCA by including specialised occupations from the charity and not-for-profit sector, such as in philanthropy and grant-making, social impact, community development, advocacy, and volunteer management.

We also note that the charity and not-for-profit sector remains underserved by ABS datasets, and the addition of a new non-profit-related occupation does not address the pressing data needs of the sector.

According to the ABS Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account – when it was last measured, in  2012-13 – the not-for-profit sector added $54.8bn to the Australian economy. The sector employs 1.6 million people, according to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The ABS already measures workforce data across all industries – but does not generally link the data it publishes to organisations identified as charities and non-profit organisations. This leads to a significant epistemic weakness for the sector: it cannot argue its policy case on the same data available to other industries and sectors.

While the CCA strongly supports the inclusion of the Fundraising Manager occupation in the OSCA, with its focus on fundraising for the non-profit sector, it would be of considerable value if the ABS were able to provide more relevant data on the charity and non-profit sector. This could be done relatively straightforwardly, by:

  • Reinstating the Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account
  • Enabling published workforce data to identify the employing sector alongside occupation, including whether workers are employed by a charity or not-for-profit organisation, government or for-profit organisation
  • Including a consistent charity or non-profit indicator across relevant ABS workforce statistics, publications and datasets, enabling the sector to be identified and analysed and its contribution to employment and economic activity to be better understood.

CCA’s Full Submission:  Australian Bureau of Statistics, Consultation draft: Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA)

Submission to the ABS on the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA) Read More »

The Australia we fear isn’t the Australia we live in

News

The Australia we fear isn't the Australia we live in

CCA CEO David Crosbie, writes for the Community Advocate, 16 September:

 

I met a man named John this week. I was at his house to pick up a guitar he was repairing.

Australia, he told me, is heading up shit creek. He blamed Anthony Albanese and the politicians who’d let in too many migrants — the wrong kind, he said, people who don’t respect this country. Then came the list: crime, housing, the cost of food, petrol prices, and the fact that he sometimes doesn’t feel safe here anymore.

I didn’t need to ask which party he votes for.

So instead, I asked about his street.

What’s the neighbourhood like? Good, he said. Nice people, quiet. Much crime around here? Not really. Schools, healthcare, sports grounds? All fine. So it’s a good place to live? “I’m not going anywhere, mate.”

That night I looked up his suburb on the ABS census data. More than a quarter of his neighbours were born overseas. Women in the area were nearly twice as likely as men to hold a university degree — though most adults, about three in four, had no university qualification at all. John’s suburb, in other words, is an ordinary Australian suburb: mixed, unremarkable, and by his own account, a good place to live.

I guess if I’d asked him directly about the migrants down his street, he’d have said they were alright too. It’s the migrants he doesn’t know — the ones in the news, the ones in the argument, the ones who exist for him only as a category — who worry him.

That’s the gap that interests me: the space between what we believe about our country and what we actually experience of it. John’s despair was sweeping — crime, housing, safety, a nation “stuffed.” His account of the life he actually lives told a very different story. Both were sincere. Neither was a lie. So how does one person hold both at once?

Part of the answer is where each account comes from. Experience is built from direct contact — the neighbour who waves, the small talk about the weather, the quiet street. Perception is largely inherited. We absorb it from news bulletins with a well-documented bias toward threat and conflict, from political messaging engineered to make the abstract “other” feel dangerous, and from social media that rewards outrage over accuracy. None of it requires meeting a single person we’re supposedly worried about. That’s the point of it.

The migrant “problem” John described isn’t made of people he’s met. It’s made of a category, filled in by headlines, talkback radio and the occasional viral clip. His actual neighbours don’t fit the category, so they get quietly exempted from it, one street at a time, without him ever noticing the contradiction.

Research shows that contact with a group reduces hostility toward it — but the effect is stubbornly local. Knowing your Vietnamese neighbour doesn’t automatically soften your feelings about “migrants” as an abstraction, because the brain doesn’t file people that way. It keeps two ledgers: individuals in one, categories in the other. Unchallenged, they rarely reconcile.

Then there’s the negativity bias baked into how we learn about the world beyond our own street. A functioning school, a safe walk home, an unremarkable Wednesday — none of that is news. A crime, a scandal, a political failure is. Over time, the country we’re shown becomes systematically worse than the country most of us actually live in, because the machinery producing that picture is built to select for alarm.

Public anxiety about migration, crime or social decline is being manufactured substantially at the level of narrative, not experience. The loudest voices in the current debate are arguing about a country that largely exists only in the telling of it. That doesn’t mean the underlying problems aren’t real — housing, cost of living, safety all deserve to be taken seriously. But fear-based, blame-driven politics is not a solution.

John isn’t going anywhere. By his own account, he lives in a good, quiet, diverse suburb. The Australia he’s afraid of is somewhere else entirely — built less from streets he’s walked than from stories he’s been told.

For us, the challenge isn’t only about getting people into the same room. John already lives beside the people he fears in the abstract, and it hasn’t shifted his perception or his politics.

Doing good work in our communities is not enough on its own. If we want to close the gap between the Australia people fear and the one they actually live in, we need to get a lot better at telling the stories of our work, where we live in, and the Australia we all want to live in.

The Australia we fear isn’t the Australia we live in Read More »

Community groups have the power to get a better deal from government – and all Australians will benefit

News

Community groups have the power to get a better deal from government – and all Australians will benefit

CCA CEO David Crosbie writes in the Community Advocate.

Yesterday, at a meeting just outside Castlemaine in Victoria, 70 people came together to hear Community Council for Australia (CCA) chair Tim Costello make an important presentation about the value and power of communities.

These people came from many local groups and symbolised the vibrant heartland of community connection in the Castlemaine region. Those groups included a young writers group, Landcare groups, spinners and weavers, sporting groups, people who run libraries full of books and libraries full of seeds, festival groups, historical societies and history preservation groups, musical groups, art groups, Rotary, the CFA, church groups, local councils, Indigenous groups, environment protection groups, op shops, carers, community houses, and so many more.

Tim’s presentation was – as always – compelling, but the real purpose of this meeting involved sharing stories of how the many community groups – charities and NFPs – make a difference in their communities.

In sharing these stories, people made connections, identified common themes, and discussed the successes and frustrations of driving change in local communities – and collaborations began to emerge.

The significance of local networking events like this cannot be overstated.

However we measure public benefit or real wealth, it is these groups that enable value to be created and sustained within every community across Australia.

At an economic level we can look to the tangible benefit for communities of all the voluntary work these groups undertake. If we had to put a price on the thousands of volunteer hours local groups put into their communities across Australia, the direct benefit in hours worked would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, according to A Snapshot of Volunteering in Australia, published in 2023.

Beyond the direct costs of volunteer hours, activities like festivals, artistic performances and shows, tourism, environmental protection and sporting events all contribute to making regional life economically sustainable for many businesses.

Perhaps even more important is the role these groups play in dealing with disasters. While governments and councils invest heavily in building resilient physical infrastructure, the groups gathered in Castlemaine yesterday do something that is just as important with very limited investment. They build social infrastructure, networks of care and connection.

When fires or floods overtake a community, it is the social infrastructure created by local groups that enables people to respond, to share safety information and evacuation plans, to find and support those in need, to help shelter and care for those affected, and to bring people together with purpose during recovery.

This is not just theory. Every analysis of disasters across Australia, from the worst bushfires to the most destructive floods, has highlighted the critical role of volunteers, charities and NFPs. Local social infrastructure is at the heart of disaster planning, preparation, response and recovery. Communities with strong local social infrastructure and vibrant charities and NFPs fare better in disasters than those where the social infrastructure has been neglected or worn down (see sources, below).

And it’s not just in the economy or in responses to disasters that local connections demonstrate their value. Our health and wellbeing is grounded in social connection.

The enemy of good (mental) health is isolation. Australia is currently coming to terms with an epidemic of loneliness – one in six Australians experience severe loneliness, according to the Ending Loneliness Together taskforce.

A growing body of research is finding that one of the key predictors of positive health outcomes is personal connection, a reason to care, a reason to be valued, a reason to belong. Belonging is what local groups are all about.

Whether we take an economic perspective, a health and wellbeing perspective, or a climate adaptation and disaster management perspective, the social infrastructure that is fostered by local charities and NFPs is invaluable for Australia.

Unfortunately, the real value of local charities and NFPs is not reflected in the way governments treat this sector.

In fact, some recent measures from governments have made it more difficult to be a small volunteer-run charity or NFP. A good example of this is the self-assessed income tax exemption measure from the ATO, which requires every NFP, regardless of turnover, to step through a complicated process to provide an annual return. (See the Senate Economics References Committee report Not-for-profit Entities: Tax assessments.)

The CCA has long advocated the value of charities and NFPs and sought to achieve a better deal from governments. We have had some limited success. We are now taking a more grounded and engaged approach in this effort, drawing on the strength of local groups.

The CCA intends to run events and build networks to create the kind of Australia where the value of local charities and NFPs is better acknowledged and reflected in government policies and investment. By the time the 2028 election is upon us, we hope to have an active group of local community networks pushing for sustained investment in our sector.

This week in Castlemaine was just the beginning.

Read in the Community Advocate at: https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/community-groups-have-the-power-to-get-a-better-deal-from-government-and-all-australians-will-benefit

See also coverage from the forum by Nick Place from the Community Advocate:  https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/from-spinners-to-musicians-the-tiny-victorian-goldfields-groups-taking-on-the-world

Sources

Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements: Report (2020), chapter 22

Community Organisations, Volunteers, and the Road to Disaster Recovery, by Nikita Sharma and others (2025)

Community Recovery: Handbook 2, by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (2018)

Community groups have the power to get a better deal from government – and all Australians will benefit Read More »

The elephant in the funding room: You can’t build a strong, effective charity sector 12 months at a time

News

The elephant in the funding room: You can’t build a strong, effective charity sector 12 months at a time

CCA CEO David Crosbie writes in the Community Advocate.

Government funding is at the centre of Australia’s charity and not-for-profit sector – our number one source of income, our most important relationship. You’d think we’d talk about it constantly. We don’t. The silence isn’t accidental. It’s telling. I think there are three reasons this relationship doesn’t attract the scrutiny it deserves.

First, self-preservation. Charities and NFPs are reluctant to criticise the government departments that fund them, for fear of causing offence or jeopardising future grants. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, especially when that hand controls whether you can pay the staff next month.

Second, secrecy by design. Governments are not falling over themselves to make grant program details public, let alone enable them to be included in broader databases. Piecing together any real analysis of government funding of our sector takes serious skill, time and effort, and even then, what you find will be full of gaps and limitations.

Third, a research vacuum. There’s remarkably little sector-wide analysis of anything affecting charities and NFPs. We don’t have a deep bench of academic researchers focused on this area, and our peak bodies are stretched too thin to commission the complex studies that would actually shed light on it.

Put those three together, and it’s no mystery why our biggest funding relationship remains largely unaccountable.

But this week, I managed to see some actual figures about government contracting, and I found them compelling.

The figures came from an analysis of 351,891 Commonwealth grants notices (GrantConnect December 2019 to July 2026), 32,184 procurement contracts (AusTender), and 15,971 charities holding 169,313 measurable-term agreements. While this data set doesn’t capture state and territory grants or every other funding stream in our sector, it does cover a substantial share of grant- and tender-based Commonwealth funding – enough to draw a clear picture. Credit here to the team of volunteer actuaries who identified this data set and ran the initial analysis; CCA is grateful for their work.

One finding immediately jumped out at me. The median government agreement term across this data set is just 12 months. Nearly two-thirds of agreements – 64 per cent – run for 18 months or less. A small number of larger grants stretch longer, but they’re the exception, not the rule. The other critical factor here is that the length of contract hasn’t changed over the past six years.

Short-term funding like this isn’t just inconvenient – it’s setting our sector up to fail.

Consider the imbalance. Government regulates and credentials charities and NFPs. Government sets the dollar amounts and the terms of every agreement. Government writes the reporting and compliance rules. Government dictates minimum employment conditions for staff and credentialing requirements for volunteers. Government decides how much transparency and disclosure applies – to itself and to the charities it funds – and government designs the evaluation and review process on top of everything else.

And the charity or NFP? It carries all the risks associated with actually delivering the program on the ground – and the even larger risk that the funding for the program may or may not be cut within 12 months.

Then there’s the additional power play used by too many governments: there is no requirement, anywhere, for government or its agencies to give notice before ending or renewing an agreement. Charities can learn that funding for a program is ending days before the contract expires. In some cases, the notification arrives after the contract has already ended.

Employment regulations are a good example of this power imbalance. The same government that provides a median grant of only 12 months has told charities and NFPs that any staff who have received two employment contracts must be made permanent to continue their employment – even if the charity has less than 12 months of funding for their positions. This ignores the reality that regardless of whether a staff member is permanent or contracted or casual, when there’s no money to pay them, there’s no money to pay them.

Every week, thousands of charity workers wake up wondering whether they’ll still have a job next month – not because their organisations want a revolving door of temporary staff, but because the federal government and other funders keep handing them the same broken deal: short-term contracts, over and over, with no end in sight.

I know there are places within the Commonwealth government where people are working to empower charities to achieve shared policy goals, but these places continue to be exceptional. And they tend to come and go quite quickly.

Charities and NFPs can’t build capacity or effectiveness, invest in staff and technology, establish quality infrastructure, or embed programs in communities while so many are locked into uncertain 12-month funding cycles.

No sector grows on a foundation that resets every year.

And no sector grows without understanding and addressing critical areas like the terms of funding agreements, their income generation, and who is employed in the sector and on what basis.

We can work more effectively in our collective advocacy to drive reform, over time, especially if we can get basic data sets and accountabilities in place. The Community Council for Australia and others are working to build a stronger evidence base. But the figures I’ve seen this week reinforce to me just how much work we have to do if we’re going to shift the way governments treat our sector.

Read in the Community Advocate at: https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/the-elephant-in-the-funding-room

The elephant in the funding room: You can’t build a strong, effective charity sector 12 months at a time Read More »

Media Release: New campaign to put a face on Australia’s $239 billion charity sector

News, Uncategorized

Media Release: New campaign to put a face on Australia's $239 billion charity

Community Council for Australia launches #AusWeWant / #ImagineAustralia, calling on charities and not-for-profits to tell their own stories

Australia’s charities and not-for-profits employ more people than retail, turn over more than the construction industry, and hold over $500 billion in assets — yet the sector remains one of the least understood parts of the national economy. From today, the Community Council for Australia (CCA) is asking the public to help change that, launching a national storytelling campaign designed to show, community by community, what the sector actually does.

The campaign, #AusWeWant / #ImagineAustralia, will invite charities and not-for-profit organisations across the country to share stories and photos illustrating the difference they make — either by submitting them directly to CCA or by posting on social media and tagging the organisation.

CCA CEO David Crosbie said the campaign responds to a data and awareness gap that is holding the sector back, despite its scale.

“Charities are 11 per cent of our workforce. They turn over more than $239 billion a year — 8 per cent of our GDP — and hold over $500 billion in assets. They employ more people than retail, and are bigger than the construction industry, and yet we know so little about them,” Mr Crosbie said.

According to CCA, the sector employs 1.6 million people and spends $128 billion a year on staffing alone, supported by 3.9 million volunteers. Workforce numbers have grown 40 per cent since 2017, but Mr Crosbie said there is still no national workforce plan and only limited data on who these employees are, their conditions, qualifications or diversity.

The funding relationship with government is similarly under-documented. Almost half of all charity income — more than $100 billion — comes from government, but Mr Crosbie said there is no clear picture of contract lengths, reporting burdens, organisational autonomy, or whether funding covers the full cost of delivering services.

“We can’t say, with evidence, what value the sector contributes back to communities across Australia. We know it does good, but what does that mean in human, environmental and economic impact?” he said.

Mr Crosbie said the absence of data leaves the sector unable to model the impact of policy changes in the way other major industries can.

“Other comparable major industries like primary producers, construction, tourism, and so on can model the impact of a policy change before it lands. There is no modelling in the charities and not-for-profit sector because there isn’t the data to inform the modelling.”

Access to capital is another gap. Unlike small businesses, which can borrow against future revenue, charities are largely locked out of finance that would let them smooth out short-term government funding cycles and invest in their own capacity, Mr Crosbie said. Combined with funding cycles that rarely run beyond one or two years, the result is a sector permanently managing cash flow rather than building for the future.

Mr Crosbie also pointed to a cultural barrier within the sector itself: charities exist to serve their cause rather than their own organisation, and that instinct runs deep enough that collective advocacy for the sector’s sustainability can feel self-serving. As a result, it receives little money, time or priority.

“None of this is fixed by another roundtable or another set of recommendations that go nowhere,” he said. “It starts with data: a proper workforce plan, transparency on government contracting terms, and a genuine effort to measure the value charities create. It continues with access to capital — even modest lines of credit — so organisations aren’t rebuilding themselves from scratch every funding cycle. And it requires charities to accept that investing time and money in the sector’s own advocacy isn’t a distraction from the mission. It’s what makes the mission possible.”

Research from the Community Compass, cited by CCA, found many Australians do not have a clear picture of what the charity and not-for-profit sector is, the contribution it makes, or even how to engage with charities and community groups in their own neighbourhood.

“If we don’t tell our story and engage people with our value, no one else will,” Mr Crosbie said.

#AusWeWant / #ImagineAustralia is intended to close part of that gap by putting a human face on the sector’s impact. The campaign is built around the aspiration of a just, fair, safe, inclusive, equal-opportunity, creative, confident, optimistic, authentic, united, kind, generous and compassionate Australia — the future Mr Crosbie said the sector works toward every day — and invites the public to help make it tangible.

CCA is encouraging charities and not-for-profits to get involved, either by sharing stories and photos with CCA’s Communications and Media Manager, Rebecca Connell, via auswewant@communitycouncil.com.au, or by posting directly to social media and tagging CCA.

Find CCA on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook

 

Media Release: New campaign to put a face on Australia’s $239 billion charity sector Read More »

Disability savings directed straight to defence in a mixed Budget

News

Disability savings directed straight to defence in a mixed Budget

CCA CEO David Crosbie reviews the 2026-27 Federal Budget writing in the Community Advocate

There are few surprises in the federal Budget. The flagged reforms are welcome, although tentatively made, and there are some good investments in new and existing programs, but it’s disappointing that the savings measures are dominated by disability.

While governments and ministers may profess support for an issue or a cause, the real test is whether they prioritise that issue or cause enough to allocate taxpayer funds to addressing it. And when governments have to find savings, as all governments do, where do they take the money from?

We knew the government was going to make cuts to the NDIS. The media has been awash with examples of fraudulent exploitations of the disability insurance scheme by a very small minority of providers, along with dire projections of cost blowouts. This has lent support to the government’s wish to introduce restrictions and caps to the scheme.

Unless the states and territories are suddenly willing to reinstate some of the disability expenditure they removed when the NDIS came into being, many people with a disability are facing a reduction in services as a result of this Budget.

Half the Budget’s $63.8 billion in savings is coming from projected NDIS expenditure reductions ($36.2 billion). Of course the NDIS could be more efficient and effective, but $36 billion is a lot of money.

Defence alone eats up a lot of these savings – $53 billion for drones, underwater and other programs, and an additional 380 departmental roles and 320 for the Australian Submarine Agency.

It’s hard to argue against the reforming measures in this Budget, including the capping of capital gains discounts and negative gearing on investment properties. The savings from these measures will take many years to flow through to the Budget, and those currently enjoying these tax perks will continue to do so, but at least this budget has made a start in addressing the inequity in the housing market between investors and those seeking somewhere to live.

Another overdue equity measure is a minimum tax on the distributions of trusts. Trusts should not be established as vehicles to avoid tax.

There are many good measures in the Budget, some of which benefit charities and NFPs and the communities they serve. There are too many individual program boosts to cover all of them but well done to those who gained additional resources to apply to their mission.

The Community Council for Australia has been involved in the push for better migrant skills recognition, which has gained some funding in this budget. This measure sits alongside moves to streamline red tape and approval processes for business to boost productivity. There is no mention of streamlining charity compliance requirements to boost our productivity.

There are also improvements in access to social housing for young people, and there is some additional strengthening of the child support payment system. Medical research gets a boost.

International development is facing another round of reprioritisation with cuts to some programs – the United Nations Development Programme, the Global Partnership for Education, UNAIDS and the Pandemic Fund – but a boost to more regional programs.

“There are many good measures in the budget, some of which benefit charities and NFPs and the communities they serve.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Tuesday night, “We’re investing an extra $1.2 billion to close the gap, doubling the number of jobs created as part of the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program, improving housing quality, and expanding our support for grocery stores in remote First Nations communities.”

For me, the investment governments make to support Indigenous Australians is always a focus at budget time. We need to both increase our efforts to address disadvantage and be more strategically targeted. I welcome the measures that meet these criteria, although much more is needed to address the shocking rates of Indigenous incarceration and the removal of Indigenous children in Australia.

One reform that has again been overlooked is the need to raise the rate of our social service safety net. We know from experience during COVID that raising the rate is a very effective way to reduce cost-of-living pressures while also providing increased opportunities for those requiring basic income support.

In the Treasurer’s address to Parliament, he talked about “backing the aspiration and innovation of small business”, a theme we often hear at Budget time.

I wonder if we’ll ever hear a federal treasurer delivering the Budget say instead, “The government is investing more in the sector that not only supports Australia’s economic growth and productivity, but also builds real resilience, strength and well-being in communities across Australia: the charities and NFP sector.”

We live in challenging times. Our environment is under pressure, the world order is shifting, technology is changing our lives. At Budget time we face the reality that governments don’t have all the answers, and they operate within a set of relatively narrow political and economic constraints.

This Budget again reminds me that if we want to achieve the kind of Australia we want to live in, we may need to become better advocates and do things differently.

Read on the Community Advocate:  https://www.communitydirectors.com.au/articles/disability-savings-directed-straight-to-defence-in-a-mixed-budget

 

Disability savings directed straight to defence in a mixed Budget Read More »

Silence now could cost you, and the communities you serve

News

Silence now could cost you, and the communities you serve

CCA CEO David Crosbie writes for The Community Advocate, 15 April 2026

One of the most important lessons from the Covid 19 pandemic was to ask for what is needed. This may seem obvious, but in the asymmetrical world of charities and not-for-profits, the reluctance to ask can be a major barrier.

As we begin to grapple with the ongoing impact of fuel shortages and higher prices, many charities and not-for-profits (NFPs) are facing tough decisions.

The fuel shortage will affect charities and NFPs in various ways, and each organisation will need to develop its own responses. We know that for most, budgets are going to be affected.

The Community Council for Australia (CCA) is aware that some of our members are already making cuts to services. Some charities are considering travel restrictions, adjusting their travel payments to staff, and reducing face to face engagement.

In many organisations, the response may require revisiting existing funding agreements and contracts.

Charities and NFPs tend to be reluctant to approach their funders with a problem. While most are used to asking on behalf of their communities, asking for themselves can seem self-serving or awkward.

The Productivity Commission last produced a detailed analysis of the sector in 2010, its Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector: Research Report. In a conversation with the lead commissioner on this report, Robert Fitzgerald, I once asked him what was a finding that he thought was worth noting but had largely been overlooked or downplayed. He suggested I look at Appendix E, where there was a survey about perceptions of the relationship between government officials and leaders from NFPs. The key finding of the survey was that only around one third of NFP leaders felt they had a very good relationship with their relevant government officials, yet over two thirds of government officials felt they had a very good relationship with NFPs.

The obvious explanation of this significant perception disparity is that charities and NFPs avoid expressing their honest views to government officials in case it negatively affects their opportunity to receive funding. And this makes sense. Why jeopardise potential funding by expressing a negative view of government processes or activities?

During the covid 19 pandemic, many charities and NFPs had to pivot face-to-face activities to online and restructure the way they delivered their services to their communities.

One of the things that stood out for CCA during this period was the willingness of funders to allow real flexibility in budget expenditure. This flexibility enabled funding provided for specific programs or services to be re-purposed and used to better meet the needs of both the organisation and the community during the pandemic.

Interestingly, this higher level of flexibility was provided by all levels of government as well as most philanthropists.

The one requirement that needed to be met for this flexibility to be applied was that the charity or NFP had to ask, and many did. Charities and NFPs felt comfortable raising issues with their funders because there was a sense that we were all dealing with a major crisis together.

Now Australia and the world are facing another challenging set of circumstances that’s likely to have a significant and sustained impact across our sector. It may not be at pandemic levels of disruption, but the capacity of many charities and NFPs will be tested.

Now is the time to consider asking funders for what is needed. There are different ways to ask, including becoming part of a collective request, as has happened with emergency relief organisations that have received a 15 per cent boost in funding during the current months.

Peak bodies such as CCA have been asking for additional flexibility and support for charities’ travel costs. We have adopted a more collective approach based on adapting to meet the changing context, managing the impact of increasing fuel expenses, and ensuring the principle of pay what it takes.

CCA is aware that individual charities have sought both additional funding and flexibility to divert and re-purpose funding from government departments with various levels of success.

What each organisation needs and the nature of its funding and its relationship with funders will determine how best to seek additional flexibility and support.

There is an impressive line-up of vested business interests seeking various forms of compensation and special dispensation in response to the fuel shortage.

Asking may test a relationship, it may be uncomfortable, it may create the risk of being denied. But if the need is real, not asking is unlikely to be a better course of action.

So ask.

Read in The Community Advocate: silence-now-could-cost-you-and-the-communities-you-serve

Silence now could cost you, and the communities you serve Read More »