Australian Charities Report
2015
australiancharities.acnc.gov.au
Ross Gillott
ACNC Research manager
Matt Crichton
ACNC Education
Produced by:
 Centre for Social Impact
 Social Policy Research Centre
Support from:
 ACNC
 ACNC Advisory Board
 WACOSS
We’re providing a range of ways to engage
 Main report (140 pages) plus
 2-page “Snapshot”
 14-page “Summary”
 Sub-reports Smaller Charities, Aged Care
 Interactive website
 australiancharities.acnc.gov.au
 Explore the data and filter by size, state,
sector and more . . . .
Explore the data . . .
The 2015 Report: What’s new?
The 2015 report is the most comprehensive record to date of the
Australian charity sector.
Building on 2013 and 2014, for the first time the 2015 report includes:
1. size and shape of the whole of the charity sector more than 51,000 individual charities included
2. a closer look at indicators of sustainability
3. estimates of change (in financial data) from 2014 to 2015
Comprehensive dataset
We built a view of the whole of the charity sector at the end of the
2015 “financial year” – 50,908 records/51,679 charities
 Criteria: registered at 2015 year-end
(and did not meet double-default criteria, were not ORIC*)
 Best/most recent data for each charity
(from 2015, 2014, 2013 Annual Information Statement and ACNC Registry;
added entity type and DGR status data from Australian Business Register)
 Modelling to estimate financial data for 25% of charities
 Why missing? exempt eg Basic Religious Charities; have not submitted a 2015 or
2014 Annual Information Statement; or had large errors/outliers
 Two-dimensional model, ~60 segments, high confidence
*Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Charities; n = 833
1. The Big Picture
• Whole of the sector (for the first time)
• A SIGNIFICANT sector
• Diversity!
The headlines . . .
Key findings: location
Number of charities in each state follows similar pattern to Australia’s
population
Charities spread across:
 Metro – 67%
 Regional – 30%
 Rural – 3%
Charities per 1,000 people
16
Based in jurisdiction (per 1,000 people)
14
15.0
Operated in jurisdiction (per 1,000 people)
12
11.8
10
8
8.8
6
5.1
4
2
0
2.8 2.3
2.7 2.2 2.7
2.4
2.3
2.0
1.6
QLD
NSW
VIC
WA
SA
2.5
TAS
2.9
ACT
2.0
NT
Key findings: Charity size
Most charities are small but the largest 10% of charities received 90% of
income
3.7 0.3
XS (<$50k)
13.1
37.1
S ($50k-<$250k)
M ($250k-<$1m)
15.7
L ($1m-<$10m)
XL ($10m-<$100m)
30.2
XXL (>$100m)
Key findings: Income
The charity sector is economically significant
 $134.5 billion combined total income
 Income derived from:
 Income and revenue – 50.3%
 Government grants – 41.4%
 Donations and bequests – 8.3%
 Sources of income vary by charity size
Key findings: Income by sector
Key findings: Donations
Australians donated $11.2 billion
 Donations and requests make-up small proportion of total
income, but
 One quarter of charities rely on donations for 50% or
more of their income
 Donations grew by 2.4%
between 2014-2015
Key findings: People
Charities employ 1.2 million Australians
 Second only to the retail industry
 Larger charities have more staff
 Charities involved in education, aged care and social services
have most staff
3 million volunteers involved in Australian charities
 80% of charities engage at least one volunteer
 Almost one in two charities run solely by volunteers
2. Sustainability
• Financial health important to sustain activities and achieve purpose
• Currently no one measure of assessment
• Complex picture – need to understand context, including:
•
•
•
•
Nature of organisation
Funding environment
Accounting policies
Strategy
• We look at:
• Financial performance (surplus/deficit)
• Financial position (assets and liabilities)
• Sustainability framework (combined ratios)
2. Sustainability
Performance:
• Nationally charities had an average surplus of 8.7% of total income
• Across all main activity sectors, around 60-65% charities reported a surplus
Net current assets – expenditure:
• Measure of how long current assets would cover expenditure
• 18% of charities nationally had assets which would cover more than 1 year
spending
• 68% of charities have less than 6 months of expenditure
3. Change
• 2014 to 2015; only comparing charities in both datasets
• Approx. 30,000 charities (potential for survivor bias)
• A modest net increase of 7,368 employees (0.7%)
• Growth primarily in part-time and casual employees
• By activity areas:
• Increased staff numbers greatest in primary and secondary
education and aged care
• Decreased staff numbers greatest in higher education
3. Change
• Modest growth, varied by charity size
• Income 2.0% (but negligible given CPI)
• Total asset growth 5.5%, highest for health charities (8.7%)
40%
30%
36%
36%
Income grew by more than 10%
28%
20%
10%
Income was within 10%
Income fell by more than 10%
0%
Australia
Key messages
 Reporting on the whole of the charity sector - more
than 51,000 charities
 Indicators of sustainability
 Estimates of change from one year to the next
 Valuable dataset and increasing in value over time
australiancharities.acnc.gov.au