News Archives - Page 16 of 32 - Community Council For Australia

The digital divide between charities

COVID19 spurred a burgeoning digital revolution. Many charities will build on this to better serve purpose. Others are being left behind. Ignoring the digital divide between charities should not be an option for our sector writes CCA CEO David Crosbie in Pro Bono News, 14 January 2021.

The digital divide between charities, Pro Bono News, 14 January 2021

“Soon the digital divide will not be between the haves and have nots, it will be between the know-hows and the non-know-hows.” – Howard Rheingold

At the start of a new year many charities allocate some time for planning, setting goals and priorities for the year ahead. Given what was in 2020, and the looming challenges of 2021, this process assumes even more importance this year.

The drive for charity forward planning, development and reform is not only internally driven. Charities are often pressed by governments, funders and others to review their organisational capacity including: their effectiveness in achieving their mission; their evaluation and performance feedback processes; governance structures; finance management, investment and procurement practices; staff selection, development, retention and training; communications and marketing programs; partnership building; investment and social enterprise activities; community engagement; advocacy and change strategies; etc.

Most charities do not have the time, expertise or resources required to engage in all these desirable forms of organisational enhancement. Given these limitations, how do charities choose what to invest in, how do they prioritise organisational development? The answer will always depend on the needs of each charity – what is critical in one may not be so critical in another.

One area that cuts across many aspects of organisational operations within a wide range of charities is the adoption and adaptation of digital technology. Over the past year, many charities have had to devote additional resources to building their technological capacity in response to COVID-19 impacts. But there is still considerable potential for most Australian charities to make better use of technology.

The Digital Technology in the Not-for-Profit Sector 2019 report from Infoxchange, Techsoup and Connecting Up outlined the challenges being faced by not-for-profit organisations in undertaking this journey:

Nearly two-thirds of organisations surveyed indicated they are less than satisfied with the way they use technology.
Only 56 per cent of small organisations (up to 20 staff) are making use of cloud technology.
Only 37 per cent of organisations reported their information systems allow them to understand the impact of their services and outcomes.
Key barriers to digital transformation include budget/funding, staff/volunteer capability and access to affordable and skilled technical resources.

The follow up 2020 Infoxchange survey of almost 500 charities and not for profits found that over two thirds of the organisations participating in the survey did not have the digital capacity they needed to be able to respond to the organisational challenges of COVID-19 including having staff work from home and transferring face to face services online.

The chief economist at the Bank of England Andy Haldane recently wrote:

“With the demand for their services set to remain high, while finances remain tight, there is a pressing need for organisations to find ways of continuing to do more with less. The COVID crisis has provided the blueprint for doing so: digital transformation… Most well-functioning markets rely on well-functioning infrastructures. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this meant things like public road and rail; in this century it means digital infrastructure. But the charitable sector often lacks the digital frameworks needed to unleash its full potential. In most countries, for example, there is no effective digital means of recording, much less rewarding, those engaged in voluntary activities. This constrains the supply of volunteers, especially among less well-off individuals, and limits the enormous value they are known to create.”

COVID-19 is one of the drivers of digital reform, the shift from face to face to online shopping and giving is another, as is the increasing need for flexibility in areas like health, education and training, workplace reform, etc.

Haldane and others have pointed out that over the last 12 months, the impact of COVID-19 has effectively highlighted the digital divide within the charities sector. There are some charities that have embraced change, built digital capacity, expanded their services and capacity. There are also thousands of charities in Australia that have found themselves unable to transform in ways that would enable them to keep serving their communities. Many of these charities have had to put some of their programs and services in hibernation.

CCA and the Charities Crisis Cabinet recognised the urgent need to address the digital divide in the charities sector and are supporting efforts by Infoxchange and others to build digital capacity, particularly for smaller less well-resourced charities. The push for a national charity and not-for-profit transformation fund is part of this work.

The NSW government has already acknowledged this issue in its recent budget, allocating $50 million to a fund for small and medium sized social support organisations to modernise including adoption of new technology. Unfortunately, many charities who most need access to this kind of funding operate outside the parameters of this fund.

As we enter another year where COVID-19 will have a major impact on charities, and forward planning has become more complex, it has never been more important to make the time for active reflection within charities about how to fulfill their mission more successfully and better serve their communities over the coming 12 months. Charities could do worse than begin this reflection by asking if they might be able to benefit through more effective use of technology in the way they go about their work.

Hopefully, over the coming 12 months, new resources will be made available to enable enhancements to digital capacity that will significantly improve the productivity and effectiveness of the charities sector in Australia. Ignoring the digital divide between charities should not be an option for our sector.

Read on Pro Bono News: the-digital-divide-between-charities

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Media Release: Cutting through the red tape strangling our charities!

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Media Release: Cutting through the red tape strangling our charities!

Rev Tim Costello, Chair of the Community Council for Australia has today commended the Federal government for committing to fix Australia’s antiquated fundraising regulations. ‘We are delighted that both the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and the Assistant Minister for Charities Zed Seselja have today agreed to prioritise cutting red tape for charities. Once implemented, the one stop registration changes to charitable fundraising regulations will mean increased transparency and less red tape for thousands of charities across Australia. Charities will be able to spend millions of dollars more serving their communities rather than completing duplicated sets of paperwork.’

According to David Crosbie, CEO of the CCA, ‘Now more than ever, many charities need to pivot to online fundraising, but multiple levels of government bureaucracy have been strangling charities by making them satisfy seven different sets of regulations requiring at least six weeks of pointless compliance work.’

All registered Australian charities engaged in online fundraising are legally required to satisfy every government in Australia. State and Territory government regulations demand completely different documentation. Examples of the compliance activity required for charities to fundraise online include advertising any intended fundraising campaign in a QLD newspaper, stipulating the amount to be raised in WA, providing auditor and bank account details, providing the names and addresses of all Board Directors and their signatures, providing a police check for some staff and Board Directors, certified proof of ID for staff and Board Directors, detailing how and when money raised will be spent, etc. etc.

For over a decade many reports and inquiries have highlighted the problems with fundraising regulations and the negative impact they have on the productivity of Australia’s 57,000 charities employing over 1.3 million staff and contributing over 8% of GDP. Most recently the Bushfire Royal Commission recommended establishing a one stop registration process for charitable fundraising and fundraising regulatory reform has been identified as a priority issue by Emergency Management Ministers.

Mr Crosbie said; ‘The current fundraising regulations are a classic example of feral bureaucracy costing millions of dollars each year and thousands of hours of charitable staff time in wasted compliance activity. There is an easy fix if all governments agreed to work with the information already collected by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission rather than duplicating and collecting their own.’

It is important to note that all registered charities in Australia are overseen by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) that has significant powers to investigate any complaint by anyone against any registered charity. The consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also has the power to investigate and act against any charity engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct.

Media – fundraising reform.pdf

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Politics and the power of collaboration

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Politics and the power of collaboration

As we look to 2021, the charities sector needs to focus more on collective action, increasing our capacity to serve our communities and push back against political bias and attempts to intimidate charities or silence criticism writes CCA CEO David Crosbie in Pro Bono News.

Politics and the power of collaboration, Pro Bono News, 10 December, 2020

Times seem to have changed in politics. The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian recently said: “Governments are there to prioritise. Whether we like it or not, we let governments prioritise, make decisions, put in policies.” She also pointed out that using tax-payer funds to provide grants for her political comrades was not illegal. Both these comments relate to a $250 million council grants scheme that enabled the premier, at her discretion, to grant money to councils supportive of her government. The premier continues to defend what most people understand is a pork barrelling scheme to increase support for targeted pro NSW government political groups in government held electorates.

The NSW premier is right, governments are required to prioritise government spending, but the prioritising is meant be grounded in the interests of the people governments serve, in this case the people of NSW, not the interests of political mates, personal friends, family, or donors who will offer support to keep the government in power. It is irrefutable that the government makes spending decisions, but when did it become acceptable that these decisions be driven by self-interest over community interest?

The federal government has also adopted and defended this politically driven decision-making with the $102.5 million for the Community Sport Infrastructure Program, $150 million for “regional” swimming pools (including Sydney’s North Shore), and the $272 million Regional Growth Fund, just to name three grant programs that clearly involved political favouritism.

These programs have been publicly criticised, but there have been very few consequences for those involved with the notable exception of the minister who oversaw the sports grants program, Bridget McKenzie, who was forced to resign over an undeclared conflict of interest through her membership of a gun club that received funding under the scheme. It is notable that it was this personal oversight, not the minister’s politically driven decision making, that was cited as the reason for her resignation.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that politically favoured decision making about policies and allocation of funding seems to be a more accepted aspect of government decision making. Most charities already know that being on-side with a government enhances the capacity to gain access to government decision makers, to be heard, to achieve policy changes and receive government funding.

This is not new, previous governments have practiced this kind of political favouritism in various ways, but it seems to be at a new level. The examples above and recent behaviour from the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission suggest political considerations are becoming a more prominent factor in government decision-making.

How else can you explain why the ACNC commissioner wrote to the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) suggesting it was in danger of breaching its charitable status as a result of an open letter published on the ACF website and co-signed by the ACF and thousands of health professionals? The open letter criticised the performance of the current Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor and suggested he should lose his current ministerial portfolio.

It is farcical to argue that this ACF Open Letter is about political candidature. There is no suggestion in the letter that Angus Taylor should resign from the parliament, lose his seat, or not be elected. The letter expresses the view that Angus Taylor is a poor minister for energy and emissions reduction and is not performing in that role.

The ACF regularly advocates for more effective energy and emissions reduction policies as part of its core mission and charitable purpose. The ACF may sometimes criticise the environmental policies of various politicians and candidates. Provided their focus is on their core charitable purpose, all charities are perfectly entitled by law to publicly highlight policy strengths and weaknesses with individual candidates across every area of charitable endeavour including education, health, justice, employment, housing, welfare or any other policies and issues. This is not about supporting or opposing a political candidate, it is about advancing the purpose of the charity. It is up to voters to decide if they want to vote for a particular candidate regardless of their policies.

All charities in Australia should understand they have the legal right to advocate for and against government policies related to their charitable purpose. In fact, Australian charities enjoy some of the best legal protections for charities to advocate for their charitable purpose anywhere in the world. This did not happen by accident. Many people across the charities sector and within government worked hard to ensure the Charities Act 2013 included strong protections for charitable advocacy, and that the anti-gag clauses legislation prevents all federal government departments imposing conditions in contracts that might silence advocacy.

The ACNC commissioner’s letter to the ACNC implies he either doesn’t understand the Charities Act that he is employed to administer or is choosing to ignore the act and seeking to protect a government minister from legitimate public scrutiny and criticism.

It is not surprising that we might see an increase in politically driven decision making given the hyper-partisan political environment and the truth-decay associated with the diffusion and politicisation of mainstream media, compounded by reduced scrutiny and transparency, superficial messaging and misinformation promoted through multiple online sources including social media.

Unfortunately, in the current political climate, it seems many charities feel intimidated by the increasingly overt pressure from governments. Some charities believe that if they are to survive, they have little choice but to accept the values the government are enacting, the rules they are setting, the reward systems they are creating. Perhaps this is now more prevalent?

Previously I might have argued that adopting a compliant approach might provide some short-term wins, but integrity and authenticity to charitable purpose have a way of winning out in the longer term. Now, as the level of bias and political favours grow, I am more circumspect.

What is clear is the danger of isolation and the strength of collective action. A charity on its own can be intimidated by government, but the combined power of the charities sector can be quite intimidating to government.

As we begin looking forward to 2021, the focus of the charities sector needs to be more about collective action, increasing our capacity to push back against the hyper-partisan political cronyism we can expect to increase the closer we get to a federal election.

Our collective successes in 2020 provide an invaluable lesson. Through the bushfires and the pandemic, we learnt that when we act together, we can achieve remarkable outcomes. The same applies in responding to bullying, bias and attempts to intimidate and silence criticism of governments by charities.

In 2021, collaboration will be critical to ensuring charities can effectively serve and strengthen our communities.

Read on Pro Bono News: politics-and-the-power-of-collaboration

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Charities as drivers of employment, productivity, and growth

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Charities as drivers of employment, productivity, and growth

Charities are more than the good work they do. Charities are drivers of productivity, economic and social change – and charities should be central to the drive to create increased employment across Australia. Why aren’t they asks CCA CEO David Crosbie in this contribution to Pro Bono News.

Charities as drivers of employment, productivity, and growth, Pro Bono News, 26 November 2020

As the creation of jobs becomes the central issue for governments, charities are unlikely to be at the policy table. This is both a failure and a challenge.

There is no argument about the importance of employment. Jobs are good. Whether we are talking at a political, economic, social or health level, we know employment benefits the individual, their families, their communities, and the broader economy.

Studies in Australia and overseas have found that increased employment reduces: death rates, suicide rates, chronic illness and ill health, substance abuse by the individual and their family including their children, poverty, and homelessness, and it positively impacts many other important life style factors.

Communities with higher levels of unemployment tend to have higher levels of social problems including crime and family breakdown. Economies with high unemployment rates tend to be less productive, less equal and less able to support those in need.

Most of us who have worked with marginalised people understand that employment can be the key that unlocks human potential. People tend to feel better about themselves if they have a job, particularly if they can contribute to supporting others and giving back within their communities.

It is important to note that not all jobs have the same level of benefit. The impact of jobs on the individual, their household and their community can vary enormously, often dependent on the circumstances of the individual and the nature of the job.

The provision of a well-paid permanent job to a single parent with no other means of support is generally likely to be more beneficial and life changing than the provision of a part-time temporary job to someone in a household that already has a high income level.

This kind of variability in the benefit of employment applies across communities. A community with above average household disposable income is unlikely to benefit from an increase in employment to the same degree that a poorer community might. Employment creation programs tend to have more impact if they are targeted at areas of high need. We also understand that increasing employment in programs that enhance workforce participation like childcare, disability support, affordable housing, etc. can have more impact.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking about investing where job creation will have the maximum benefit is not always the key principle informing government policy. Some state and territory governments have taken up the challenge with major new investments in social housing and other employment supporting packages. The federal government has targeted unemployed young people in its $4 billion JobMaker Hiring Credit for young people program.

What is clear is that if governments were primarily focused on boosting employment and maximising investment in job creation, creating more employment for people in charities would be one of the highest priorities for all governments. Unfortunately, that is not the approach of most governments.

One of the reasons for this lack of investment in charity job creation is that unlike most industry groups, the charities sector has not been marketed as an employment creation area, even though employment in the charities sector has almost doubled since 2007 rising from 740,000 to over 1.3 million employees in 2019.

Almost every major industry group from alcohol to agriculture, pharmaceuticals to mining, tourism to property development, have very well documented prospectus type documents promoting the flow-on benefits and increased value created through employment in their sector. For these industry groups, marketing their employment numbers and the benefits of that employment is a central part of their promotion and policy advocacy to government. They spend millions on collecting targeted data and ensuring that data is widely understood.

The mining industry is a good example. A CSIRO published report into attitudes to mining found that over 80 per cent of the 8,000 plus survey respondents believed mining creates jobs for Australians and that job creation was the major benefit of mining. According to the latest government data, mining employs less than 250,000 people in Australia.

The charities sector is a huge employer, over five times bigger than mining, mostly of women, and often in areas that further boost employment opportunity and job readiness. By almost every measure, the charities sector is a key driver of employment in Australia, not only in direct employment, but also in bridging the gaps between unemployed people and their communities and creating employment opportunities.

Yet if you were to ask the average Australian what the benefits of mining are versus charities, the research tells us that people believe mining creates jobs. In all my experience, the most common perception about charities is that they do good work for people and the environment. Many would mention the volunteers involved in charities, very few if any would mention the large numbers of employees across the sector.

A little over 12,000 charities employed more than 330,000 staff on JobKeeper this year. This is a remarkable figure when you consider the biggest employers in the charities sector, universities and hospitals, were largely excluded from the JobKeeper program.

Importantly, many of the 1.3 million jobs in the charities sector do so much more than a single job, they are part of benefiting communities, enabling people to realise their potential, creating real value for individuals, families and communities.

As charities we tend to focus on this work, the positive changes we achieve in people’s lives. Perhaps we have done so at our cost? We tend to be pigeonholed, labelled and filed within this one dimension; we are the doing good sector.

When we consider where Australia is now as a nation, the need to recover and rebuild from the impacts of COVID-19 and the bushfires, there are few things more important than boosting employment, creating jobs. But if charities are to play a bigger role in Australia’s recovery from COVID-19 and bushfires, we will need to shift the narrative about our sector.

Charities may lack the self-promotion resources of mining and other industry groups, but they have something much more powerful; a workforce of over a million staff, 3.5 million volunteers and many millions more who benefit through our work.

Charities are more than the work they do. Charities are drivers of productivity, economic and social change. Our challenge is to convince people charities are key drivers within our economy as well as our communities, that we can and should play a central role in the planning and implementation of the COVID-19 recovery. Most importantly, charities should be central to creating increased employment across Australia.

Read on Pro Bono News: https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2020/11/charities-as-drivers-of-emp…

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Open Letter to All Australian Politicians

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Open Letter to All Australian Politicians

Wednesday November 18, 2020

Dear Members and Senators,

CCA would like to acknowledge the support that politicians from all sides and at all levels have shown the charities sector throughout the course of 2020. The active engagement of charities in policy decisions about COVID-19 responses and the way that our concerns have been listened to has been critical for the sector through these unprecedented times.

2020 has demonstrated to all of us how vitally important it is to remain connected and to support our communities. On December 1^st we have an opportunity to lend our voices to help amplify the collective spirit of generosity we have seen time and time again this year, by supporting the Australian GivingTuesday campaign.

The role of charities in Australia’s economic and social fabric has never been more vital. Charities are at the heart of every community, employing over 1.3 million people and contributing over 8% of GDP. After a year of natural disasters, a global pandemic and economic uncertainty, it is clear that charities have never been more critical, from supporting the most vulnerable in our community to helping our natural environment to recover, to providing essential health services and helping people into employment.

On Tuesday December 1^st 2020, thousands of Australian charities, volunteers and supporters will take the opportunity to get behind GivingTuesday, a global day of generosity that inspires giving and collaboration. Charities and communities will celebrate in any number of ways, from donor thank you events, to fundraising campaigns, to sharing giving stories. Most importantly, GivingTuesday will be an opportunity to recognise the spirit of generosity and immense value that people, volunteers, and supporters from the charities sector bring to our communities every day of the year.

CCA has partnered with OurCommunity (the driving force behind GivingTuesday in Australia) to offer politicians across Australia an opportunity to show their support for their favourite charities in two ways this GivingTuesday:

#MyGivingStory campaign: Everyone has a story to tell about a time they acted generously or witnessed an act of generosity. The #MyGivingStory campaign will bring these stories to the forefront of public awareness, encourage conversation and celebrate acts of generosity (people giving time, talent, financial support or voice). You can demonstrate your support for the important work of charities and community organisations in both your electorate and across Australia by posting a story or video on social media. Use the #MyGivingStory and #GivingTuesdayAus hashtags to talk about your favourite giving story and the organisation it relates to, with a call out for others to support GivingTuesday in Australia.
Charities Open Day: On or around GivingTuesday is the perfect opportunity to pay a visit to a charity or community organisation in your electorate in a kind of informal ‘Charities Open Day’. CCA is encouraging charities across Australia to open their doors for local members to see first-hand the incredible work of our charities sector. This could be physically (in line with COVID-safe guidelines) or virtually.

In a year of so much uncertainty, GivingTuesday provides an opportunity to celebrate the power of generosity – a fundamental value, so vital to building the flourishing communities we all desire. We hope you will lend your voice to help elevate GivingTuesday in Australia by posting for the #MyGivingStory campaign and engaging with your local charities. For more information and a guide to the #MyGivingStory campaign see www.givingtuesday.org.au .

Please feel free to contact sarahg@communitycouncil.com.au or davidc@communitycouncil.com.au (0419624420) for more information about GivingTuesday, or to explore ways in which you might be more involved in this important event.

Yours sincerely,

Rev Tim Costello AO

Chair, Community Council for Australia

Co-Chair, Charities Crisis Cabinet

Ambassador, GivingTuesday Australia

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Waiting for reform?

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Waiting for reform?

Reform does not come to those who wait. We must get better at promoting our value. Giving Tuesday 2020 (1 December) could be a day when charities not only did good work, but also became their own best advocates writes CCA CEO, David Crosbie.

Waiting for reform? Pro Bono News, 12 November 2020

There has been a lot of discussion in recent times about the state of the charities sector; how it is coping with all the impacts of COVID-19, the uncertainty about future priorities for governments and communities, the potential to build back better and improve the environment in which charities operate and the need to increase the capacity of charities to serve their communities and fulfill their public-benefit purpose.

Within these discussions there are many issues that we know had not been adequately addressed prior to COVID-19 and now require urgent attention. These issues include: better research into the nature and scope of activities across the charities sector; support for more outcome-focused measures of success; addressing emerging workforce issues for sector leadership, service delivery staff and volunteers; the need to improve adoption and adaptation of emerging technology; over-reliance on short-term and short-sighted government tendering and contracting processes; the lack of an appropriate accounting framework for calculating risk and the real costs of service delivery across programs and services; limited meaningful consultation or engagement from policy makers with charities; a lack of access to investment capital and debt funding to underwrite effective programs and services; and the need to improve understanding of the charity sector through stronger engagement with communities, business, governments and philanthropists.

A recent discussion with Robert Fitzgerald AM reminded me that all these issues and more were extensively canvassed by the Productivity Commission over 10 years ago in their “Contribution of the Not-for-profit Sector” report. While the establishment of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission has made a positive difference since that report, in almost every other area the recommendations of the Fitzgerald PC report are as current as they were in January 2010 when the report was released.

The fact that a 10-year-old report remains one of the best starting points for discussion about what the key issues are for the charities sector suggests we may need to take a different approach to sector reform.

While there has been recent success for the charities sector in working with governments across Australia to put in place critical measures like the lower threshold JobKeeper arrangements and a more flexible approach to contractual obligations, these are time limited gains. There are many examples to suggest that charities have generally not been overly effective at advocating critical sector reforms to government: fundraising reform, short-term government contracting, and very limited policy and program consultation are just three examples of failed advocacy. The case for change has been made time and time again, but still we wait for long overdue reforms.

As charities move through and beyond the impacts of COVID-19, it is increasingly clear that positive change is not likely to happen unless we are more effective at ensuring our work is valued, unless we can provide a more positive narrative about the cost-benefits of investing in the sector.

Most charity workers understand that the key to making a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, communities, governments, business, and philanthropists is active engagement.

Increased engagement with charities can happen in many ways, but it almost invariably requires charities making decisions to do things a little differently.

At CCA we are increasingly aware that in comparison with more self-interested industries and advocacy bodies, charities are not always their own best advocates. In some ways, there is a level of humility that can limit the time and energy charities invest in what some might term self-promotion.

This more self-effacing approach can be costly, particularly as competition for government and other resources increases.

It seems clear that building back better post COVID-19 will not happen if all we do across our sector is present our case and passively wait to be offered opportunities. We need to make our own opportunities and demonstrate our value through direct engagement with all kinds of people across many communities, including governments and decision-makers.

Giving Tuesday is one example of an opportunity for charities to put into practice thousands of tailored engagement strategies to increase understanding about the work of charities, the people who work and volunteer within charities, and the benefits provided to the communities we serve. Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to build stronger community support and understanding of the contribution of charities.

In an ideal world, on Tuesday 1 December, tens of thousands of Australian charities would throw open their doors and invite politicians, businesspeople, government officials, philanthropists, and people from their community to engage with them and become part of supporting the invaluable work charities are undertaking.

The twitter sphere would be exploding with thousands of staff from charities publicly explaining in tweets and letters and articles and photos why they choose to work in their charity and what they hope for the future.

Thousands of volunteers would be explaining why they choose to give their time and energy, many pledging to continue their contributions.

Philanthropists would be renewing their commitment to charities with pledges to support increased capacity in areas they see as important.

Politicians and government officials would be agreeing to meet with charities, opening new dialogues to inform their approaches to regulations, funding, program and policy development.

Giving Tuesday could be a day when charities not only did good work, but also became their own best advocates.

In the 10 years since the Productivity Commission report into the sector, we have learned that politely making our case and awaiting an appropriate response is probably not the best way to realise our aspirations for a stronger charities sector. If we are to achieve positive sector reform, we will need to focus more of our energy on being valued, on engagement.

I hope that thousands of charities will join in promoting our sector and building our support on Giving Tuesday.

Increased engagement will not transform our sector overnight, but unless we more actively promote our value, why would we expect things to change for the better?

As a side note, I am looking forward to my virtual breakfast with Fitzgerald, Susan Pascoe, Sue Woodward and Myles McGregor-Lowndes on Friday 27 November – reflecting on 10 years since Fitzgerald oversaw the publication of the report into the not-for-profit sector. It will be interesting to see how much progress we all think we have made.

Read on Pro Bono News: waiting-for-reform

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Charity workers – the heart of Australia’s future

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Charity workers - the heart of Australia's future

At a time when we know some charity workers are struggling, it’s more important than ever to acknowledge how critical charity workers are to our future, writes CCA CEO David Crosbie.

Charity workers – the heart of Australia’s future, Pro Bono News, 29 October 2020

Many charity workers are currently doing it tough. Over 300,000 have been on JobKeeper. The future for the sector is generally uncertain, as it is for many areas across our communities. And while charities are not unique in facing unprecedented challenges, the level of uncertainty about what our communities are going to look like, about our jobs and our futures clearly has an impact on all of us in one way or another.

In Pro Bono News this week, the issue of staff burnout was highlighted – preliminary analysis from the RESET 2020 National Impact+Need September Survey reveals that staff wellbeing and mental health are major challenges for many charities and not for profits.

On Monday, the Charities Crisis Cabinet spent longer discussing the issue of staff and leadership wellbeing than any other agenda item.

While not wanting to over generalise or imply that all charity workers are struggling to cope, it is important to acknowledge that dealing with so many unknowns is going to have a negative impact on many charity workers and many of the organisations they work in.

It is also important to note that some charities are doing even better during COVID-19 than previously. Almost invariably, the reason these charities are doing better is that they are now more able to fulfill their charitable purpose than previously. Often these improved outcomes appear to be a result of innovative adaptations and pivoting of services to better reflect the needs of the communities they serve.

The importance of recognising the role of charity workers was strongly reinforced this week by the release of an important study from the Ethics Centre. The economic and social benefits of ethics to Australiadrew on the expertise of Deloitte Access Economics to identify the cost of unethical decision-making and the benefits of implementing a stronger ethical framework across our institutions and communities. The headline findings were that:

“Turning around the loss of trust in government, corporations and institutions could deliver Australians significant economic and social dividends… An increase in ethical behaviour could raise Australians’ average income by $1,800 a year, lifting GDP by $45 billion… An increase in a company’s performance based on ethical perceptions can increase return on assets by about 7 per cent.”

This report provides an interesting perspective, especially for those of us working in charities. Trust is a critical commodity in all charities. Most charities build community trust in multiple ways, often by bringing different people together in a shared commitment to benefit their communities. The idea that trust will deliver an economic dividend is not new, but to have it so strongly endorsed is important.

It is also interesting that the report was grounded in the concept of applying a relatively narrow economic cost-benefit approach to ethical behaviour. Most of us do not behave ethically because we think it will make us wealthier. While I claim no expertise, it seems to me the benefits of ethical behaviour to the individual are primarily about our own sense of self, personal confidence, and wellbeing. In simple terms, our personal integrity is one of the few resources we can build that will stay with us on our deathbed and beyond when all material and physical assets become insignificant. The benefits of ethical behaviour extend well outside of what we can measure in economic terms, even if we can demonstrate ethical behaviour has an economic benefit.

One of the major recommendations within the report relates to emphasising the sense of purpose within organisations.

“Leaders and organisations should encourage employees to think about how they gain meaning from their work, what their individual purpose is and how this fits within an organisation’s purpose, values, principles and goals. This improves employee engagement and helps to develop an ethical culture where norms are upheld and the purpose and values of an organisation are lived.”

At a time when we know some charity workers are struggling, this recommendation is highlighting the benefits of acknowledging charity workers are purpose driven, and work in purpose-driven organisations. While this is a given for most of us, it is not always promoted, reinforced, or supported within organisations. On a day-to-day basis, internal issues, role delineation disputes, relationship tensions, frustrations and uncertainty may lead to the purpose of the work being lost in the means, the who and how becoming so much more important than the why. This sense of the purpose not being important can be reinforced when the work of charities is devalued through the narrow economic lens of short-sighted policy makers.

Many charity leaders are aware of the need to push back against these barriers and ensure staff recognise the purpose and the value of their work. We know acknowledgement of value is one of the best antidotes we have to doubt and anxiety. Having some fun is another antidote leaders often explore to create recognition of value.

We are all under new pressures as the world shifts a little, in Australia and internationally. Our future has been changed. Some charity workers are facing levels of uncertainty never before experienced. Some are having to work in completely different ways.

Australia needs charities more now than ever before, to build trust, to enable recovery, to support connectedness, reinforce the importance of looking out for each other and support longer-term ethical decision-making. Charities will be better able to fulfill this vital role if we all take the time to acknowledge how critically important charity workers are to our future. An ethical, prosperous, fairer Australia all depends on charities and those who work every day to unite us in the service of our communities.

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Engagement and advocacy – ensuring our future

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Engagement and advocacy - ensuring our future

If we are to build back better, charities will need to play a much more prominent role in policy making for the communities they serve, writes CCA CEO David Crosbie in Pro Bono News.

Engagement and advocacy – ensuring our future, Pro Bono News, 15 October 2020

If there is one consistent criticism of government, it is about their capacity to translate policy announcements and funding commitments into actual programs and services. All too often we hear that the allocated funds have not been spent, that the program intention has not been achieved, that the vision outlined in the media announcement has not been realised in practice.

In many cases, these failures of implementation reflect a lack of engagement with the intended beneficiaries of programs, including charities and the many communities they serve. In some cases, it is about governments simply not having appropriate mechanisms for community engagement.

When it comes to this implementation challenge, one of the more interesting studies to arrive in my inbox in recent months was the Settlement Services International (SSI) study indicating that many multicultural communities in Western Sydney not only understood the importance of COVID-19 but were also implementing good preventative practices.

This finding flies in the face of the self-serving click bait media commentary suggesting any culture other than conservative Christian white Anglo Saxon may pose an increased risk to COVID-19 infection.

In fact, if we go back not so many months ago, it was the rich and entitled returning from their Aspen ski lodges who created some of the first COVID-19 hot-spots in Melbourne. And Karen from Brighton was not Safiya from St Albans.

SSI were so concerned about the potential for negative racial stereotyping around COVID-19 that they initiated their own data gathering project. As part of this study, they ran 25 community roundtables, consulted directly with over 45 community and sector leaders, and surveyed 810 people from diverse communities in Western Sydney, most of whom had received some information from SSI. The survey questions tested whether information about COVID-19 and supports offered by SSI and other community groups were reaching the intended audiences and having an impact on behaviour. The findings are not surprising, but unlike the ignorant racially biased commentary, these results have not gained widespread media attention:

100 per cent of the 810 survey respondents were aware of COVID-19
94 per cent engaged in three or more COVID-19 safe practices (e.g. social distancing, washing hands, etc)
87 per cent viewed COVID-19 as a major health threat
most identified their preferred form of communication about COVID-19 was through direct contact with community workers and community leaders, either in person or by phone
95 per cent said they were receiving adequate information
90 per cent reported the information provided was helpful and easy to understand.

These findings are remarkable, even given the sampling being biased towards people who had contact with SSI services. I wonder how many communities across Australia would be able to report 94 per cent of their population engaging in three or more COVID-19 preventative behaviours?

As SSI CEO Violet Roumeliotis said in discussing the results, “We have found, time and time again, that for a message to get through to people, they need to hear it from their communities, and that they want support through their own community networks. To achieve this requires working effectively through engagement with community leaders and groups. Instead of broad sweeping, poorly translated messages, what we really need is to engage with the community leaders that people already trust and look to, and invest in ways we can do better to ensure a safer, fairer environment for all.”

SSI is not alone in this practice of knowing and engaging with their communities. Charities of all shapes and sizes across our entire country actively engage with their communities every day.

With over 300,000 charity workers currently receiving JobKeeper, the charities sector is struggling, but in all the charities I talk to there remains a determination to continue to work with their communities, respond to their needs, help prevent problems and provide support. The work being done by charities is now critically important in many communities.

The SSI research clearly demonstrated that drawing on the expertise of charities is one of the best strategies to prevent a highly infectious and deadly disease spreading through culturally diverse communities. Governments may make important COVID-19 announcements and produce pamphlets promoting their messages, but if the goal is encouraging communities to adopt protective behaviours, investing in community engagement is a better way to go.

Commitment to engagement and serving communities is central to the role of charities, it builds social capital that can be as important a commodity as capital assets (especially at times of crisis), but it is not widely acknowledged or valued, particularly by governments.

How many of the recent budget announcements are the product of active consultation between government and charities about ways to strengthen communities, invest in new opportunities for employment and increase productivity?

It would be easy to blame governments for not developing relevant policies with charities, but the responsibility for lack of engagement needs to be shared. As charities, we can do more to advocate for our communities publicly and politically, to offer solutions grounded in our engagement with communities, and to push back against harmful government policies that will not achieve their intended benefit.

The first steps are about documenting our work, talking about what we are achieving, creating shared knowledge about our value. The second is the promotion of that value, pushing our stakeholders, our local members, other politicians and policy makers to be aware of the benefits we are providing our communities, and the potential for improvements. Just as SSI has done.

Our future post the pandemic will depend on our collective capacity to lead communities through change. This is not just a government responsibility and it is not something business generally prioritises. If we are to build back better, charities will need to play a much more prominent role in policy making for the communities they serve.

Charities going quietly about their work may well serve to perpetuate their exclusion from government policy making and reinforce the implementation gap between government policy and practice. Never has active engagement and informed advocacy been more important to our future.

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The new imperative

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The new imperative

The launch of Imperative21 signals a substantial movement seeking to reframe the purpose of business around benefitting our communities. It’s time for charities to look beyond government and consider where potential alliances might be formed with business, writes CCA CEO David Crosbie in Pro Bono News.

The new imperative, Pro Bono News, 1 October 2020

Free markets must be balanced by democratically accountable, transparent governments and strong civil societies, if we are to build a just and sustainable future. Business must step up to make this possible. Our economies, and with it our firms, will suffer enormously if we don’t address the problems that we face.” – Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson.

The emerging trend for business to actively seek a “social license” offers significant potential for charities to help drive positive change in our communities. Working with business will become more important for many charities, especially as governments around the world increasingly enact the wishes of short-term vested economic interests.

In a world of obscene inequality, increasingly selfish and nationalistic leaders unable to coalesce around critical global public interests like climate change and loss of critical habitat, it is difficult to argue that our governments and the economic systems they maintain are serving the majority of the people. This perspective has been reinforced by a health pandemic, economic shocks, climate change impacts and racial injustice all highlighting structural inequalities and failures that many governments are struggling to address.

On 14 September a new global campaign was launched. It began with images flashed on to the iconic Nasdaq Time Square electronic billboard proclaiming:

Extractive to regenerative
Minimum wage to living wage
Neglect to respect
Winner takes all to shared prosperity
People and planet disrespected to people and planet respected
The imperatives for economic system change to shared wellbeing on a healthy planet

The final tagline was: “Nasdaq is proud to support the reset – Imperative21.”

Nasdaq is a stock exchange based in Times Square New York, the second largest stock exchange by market capitalization of shares traded in the world. Nasdaq is business driven. It seems incongruous at best for an organisation like Nasdaq to be supporting a major campaign grounded in acknowledging major failures in our current political and economic systems. But this is only the beginning.

Imperative21 – the group Nasdaq belongs to – is a business-led network that:

equips leaders to accelerate their transition to stakeholder (as opposed to shareholder) capitalism;
shifts the cultural narrative about the role of business and finance in society; and
realigns incentives and facilitates a supportive public policy environment.

Imperative21 represents 70,000 companies, 20 million employees, $6.6 trillion in revenue, and $15 trillion in assets under management. Originally convened by the Ford Foundation, Imperative21 has facilitated a co-creation process with 250 global allies to identify three principles for the economic system we need:

Recognises the interdependence of healthy people, planet, and economies; reimagines the relationships between the private sector, government, and civil society; and ensures that everyone has access to free and fair markets.
Removes structural inequality; ensures leadership and ownership are more representative and investment more accessible; uses technology to advance democratic ideals and human rights; and promotes greater voice, power and opportunity for those currently marginalised.
Measures success based on credible common metrics of value creation for all stakeholders; creates incentives that reward business and investments creating social and environmental value; and enhances standards of fiduciary duty.

The campaign was launched on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Milton Friedman’s often cited article about the primary purpose of business being to maximise shareholder returns. Imperative21 rejects the notion of business serving shareholder interests, arguing that this approach has not only exacerbated multiple levels of inequality (including gender), but also failed to address fundamental issues across our communities such as climate change, racial discrimination, health pandemics, community building and worker entitlements. Imperative21 is a substantial movement seeking to reset business fundamentals.

In Australia we have recently seen the power of shareholder action to bring corporate companies to account for bad behaviour. Imperative21 is about a broader reframing of the purpose of business around benefitting our communities. It is a whole new level of social license and corporate responsibility. It builds on some important work in the establishment of B Corps – including Pro Bono Australia – companies committed to delivering benefits to all their stakeholders including their communities. The Imperative21 principles are consistent with the recommendations outlined by impact investment leaders at their recent Global Impact Summit where they called for an impact led COVID-19 recovery.

As governments seem ever more indifferent to social policy reform agendas, businesses are talking about creating increased social and environmental value. And herein lies the opportunity for charities. Many Australian businesses are well ahead of government in relation to climate change and energy, just as many businesses were well ahead of government in protecting their staff and their customers when COVID-19 emerged in Australia.

Government revenue is still the biggest source of income for charities and that is unlikely to change in the medium term. Working with governments will continue to be critical for many charities. But when we think about driving policy reform, seeking to make sustained changes that will benefit our communities, now more than ever we need to look beyond government and consider where potential alliances might be formed with business.

Purpose, opportunity, hope and change are what most charities specialise in. As business increasingly focus on their own role and their contribution to communities, the least we can do is offer our expertise.

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Now or never – Time to fix fundraising

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Now or never - Time to fix fundraising

As charities impacted by COVID-19 desperately pivot to online fundraising to replace income lost from their usual face-to-face activities, it is critical that we fix fundraising regulations, writes CC CEO David Crosbie, including a draft set of regulatory principles supported by the Charities Crisis Cabinet.

Now or never – Time to fix fundraising, Pro Bono News, 17 September 2020

The dog’s breakfast of fundraising regulations and requirements has been a running sore for charities in Australia trying to legitimately raise money through donations. A misplaced sense of state and territory sovereignty has ensured fundraising regulations in Australia are now an obsolete absurdity, a dysfunctional farce, an exercise in self-absorbed bureaucratic fantasy that is largely ignored by the majority of Australian fundraising charities and the communities they serve.

During the last Senate inquiry into this issue almost two years ago, an incredulous Senator Eric Abetz asked NSW Consumer Affairs officials if a small local bird watching charity in northern Tasmania had a “donate here” link on their website, would they have to comply with the myriad of different state and territory regulations and administrative requirements regarding fundraising licenses, including in New South Wales?

The answer was yes.

The campaign to fix fundraising regulations in Australia has been ongoing for many years. Unfortunately, it has not made much headway, but with COVID-19 highlighting regulatory failure and the need for reform, a faint glimmer of light has appeared in the gloom.

In the last month, the federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and others have raised the issue of fundraising regulations with state treasurers and asked that they be addressed. The result so far has been a tentative in-principle agreement from regulators that any charity registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission will be deemed to be authorised to fundraise.

Unfortunately this in-principle agreement means nothing much has changed. In the discussion paper released by regulators last month they make it very clear that: “While deemed authorisation based on ACNC registration is the primary goal, individual jurisdictions may retain some flexibility to manage who is authorised to fundraise in the jurisdiction, such as applying additional conditions for deemed authorisation… Regardless of whether a fundraiser holds a deemed authority or a local authority, the obligations under local regulatory regimes could still apply… Furthermore, local regulators would not be restricted from establishing their process and procedures for dealing with deemed authority holders.”

So an ACNC registered charity may be deemed authorised to fundraise across borders, but every jurisdiction can (and most do) impose its own requirements before a charity can actually be authorised!

It seems if you are registered with the ACNC you are authorised, but you are not authorised unless you have complied with individual jurisdictional requirements which remain quite onerous and time consuming particularly in the case of Queensland, NSW and Western Australia.

The Charities Crisis Cabinet have come up with a better fix. Charities are registered and regulated by the ACNC, and fundraising is also regulated by Australian Consumer Law which prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct. There are also privacy laws, the Telecommunications Code and local by-laws about collections. In practice, no other authority is needed.

History tells us that these regulations are quite sufficient to pursue the scammers, those who mislead, engage in deceptive conduct or misuse publicly raised money. And that is without the various voluntary codes many charities comply with.

For those who insist that more is needed (for no apparent reason), the Charities Crisis Cabinet has developed a draft set of regulatory principles. These fundraising principles are primarily directed at states and territories considering repealing their existing mishmash of inconsequential regulations. Remembering that the shared goal here is to ensure ethical and appropriate behaviour by all involved in fundraising, the Charities Crisis Cabinet believe these draft fundraising principles represent a form of model guidelines that could replace all the existing regulations, superseding the no longer fit for purpose regulations individual jurisdictions impose.

Draft Australian Fundraising Principles

As a charity registered with the ACNC, we pledge to take all reasonable steps to ensure our fundraising is lawful, truthful and transparent at all times. To do this, we will adhere to the following fundraising principles of ethical fundraising practice. These principles are designed to provide a national standard of fundraising, when the current confusing, expensive and ineffective state-based system is replaced.
Underpinned by the Australian Consumer Law, Privacy Law and the ACNC, but with states retaining their oversight and enforcement powers, we believe these principles will lead to stronger fundraising and better regulation. These principles are designed to complement existing self-regulatory fundraising codes, and do not require any additional compliance to meet them.

When fundraising, we will always try to explain the purpose of our charity, and the purpose to which the funds raised will be applied, where that is reasonably possible.
We will not mislead or deceive or use false or inaccurate information when fundraising.
We will not place undue or unreasonable pressure on a person when fundraising, or act unconscionably in any way to obtain a donation.
When fundraising, we will take all reasonable measures to never exploit the trust, lack of knowledge, lack of capacity, apparent need for care and support, or vulnerable circumstances of any donor.
We will ensure that our fundraisers are always clearly, and individually, identifiable by the public.
We will take responsibility for the standards, practices and conduct of all our fundraising activities, regardless of who conducts them (us, or a third party on our behalf), or how they are delivered.
We will apply all reasonable due diligence when engaging third parties to assist, support or deliver fundraising activities on our behalf.
When we use paid fundraisers we will tell the public this before they donate.
Where we use third parties, we will ensure this information includes the name of the company, and how we pay them.
We will ensure that fundraisers employed, or directly engaged by us, only work within the designated hours of operation as permitted by relevant national, state/territory or local laws, or by a properly constituted self-regulatory body if no such laws exist.
We will only contact the public to seek support where we have the proper and lawful authority to do so, where this is required.
We will ensure personal information we collect, use and manage is done so in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
We will take all reasonable measures to protect the health and well-being of fundraisers employed or directly engaged by us, and members of the public, during the course of our fundraising activities.
We will operate a complaints process that allows for the proper investigation and redress of fundraising complaints by the public and encourage anyone with any concerns about fundraising activity conducted in our name to contact us.

If every jurisdiction adopted these principles and dispensed with all their existing regulations, it would free up millions of dollars of administrative time in charities across Australia that could be much better directed to serving their communities. It would also increase compliance because obtaining a national fundraising license would become a seamless process with much less red tape, provide better assurances for the public – especially those vulnerable to exploitation, and promote the opportunity to fundraise without fearing regulatory breaches from over-zealous state regulators concerned about font sizes, document provenance, proof of ID, street addresses, police checks, length of handles on collection boxes, and so on.

Now more than ever, as charities impacted by COVID-19 desperately pivot to online fundraising to try and replace some of the income from their usual face-to-face activities, it is critical that we fix fundraising regulations.

The combined regulatory power of the ACNC, Australian Consumer Law and a set of Australia-wide principles that every jurisdiction could endorse and adopt, would better regulate charitable fundraising without the current confusing mess of outdated failed regulation.

Charities are hurting. Communities need more assistance. If jurisdictional regulators continue insisting that every Australian charity involved in online fundraising has to comply with all the existing fundraising regulations across every jurisdiction in Australia we will continue to be wasting millions of dollars in pointless compliance activity and actively discourage fundraising.

Is this what these regulators consider to be their role? Is this the intended purpose of their regulations? Surely it is now time to change, and if not now, when?

If you or your organisation would like to add its voice to the calls to fix fundraising, you can make a submission or even just write a letter of support for the reforms outlined above to charitablereforms@customerservice.nsw.gov.au by the close of business Friday 18 September. Details here.

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