Thank you to the Charity Law Association of Australia and New Zealand for convening these important conversations, and for inviting me to contribute. I do so from the lands of the Ngunnawal and I acknowledge their elders past and emerging, and any First Nations people in the audience. [Acknowledgement of country]
In coming into this role, with portfolio responsibility for charities and the ACNC, I’ve often spoken of how I’m guided in this area by my ambition to capitalise on the sector’s track record of boosting social capital and strengthening community connection.
Why does the charity sector matter to our government? Beyond the programmatic function of service delivery, why have we set out from the outset with a commitment to be a partner to Australian charities?
That ambition I hold for the sector – that it can be the engine room of a more connected Australia – is of course one of those reasons.
Charities and community organisations are key to strengthening community and social connection. And this makes charities a vital resource for government.
Australia’s charities are a rich network of engaged expertise, and the charity register reflects the issues that matter to Australian society. For an attentive government, it plots the values of Australians and it tells us something about the problems and the services that well‑connected, well‑informed, and often expert, Australians want addressed.
That’s one reason why charities matter. Because tapping into this vast organic network will make our government, any government, better at working with and for Australian communities.
So the commitments we’ve made to the sector – to double giving so that charities have more resources, and to set out a blueprint for building capability – are ultimately self‑serving: because a stronger sector will make us a better government. Luckily enough, everyone in Australia stands to benefit from that outcome.
Global issues
Over the next 6 months, as I’m sure you are very much aware, 2 major planks of our government’s commitment to work with the sector will fall into place. In coming weeks and months, the Blueprint Expert Reference Group will lead the way for the next steps in the Charity Sector Blueprint process, and the Productivity Commission’s final report into philanthropy will be released for sector views.
These will be 2 structural pieces that we’ll build on long‑term, and in doing that we’ll be following the principles that have guided the reforms we’ve made already.
Both those pieces of work, with whatever recommendations they bring, already draw heavily on the collective wisdom of the sector.
Add to that the charity sector town hall meetings I’ve hosted to hear directly from as many organisations in as many parts of the country as possible, and I think it’s fair to say we have a strong sense of the opportunities and the obstacles that have the strongest claim on our policy and legislative resources.
But a true partnership involves collaborative decision making, so as we plan our response to the Productivity Commission’s report and the blueprint, we’ll be expecting the sector’s input.
But I want to turn to the global frame that is the theme for these 2 days.
In our attitude to charities and the policies that regulate them and enable them, we should be choosing openness. Openness to advocacy and openness to new ideas.
I’ve written in the past about the merits of economic openness. Trade benefits both parties – a healthy balance of import and export keeps an economy vital and capable of change.
As we develop our policy toolkit for doubling giving, building social capital and strengthening community, the global market of ideas has plenty to offer.
Our first import will be the community foundations model, which has proven itself in Canada. And we are refining settings which we hope will lead to Australia’s approach to charitable advocacy becoming a best practice example to export back to the rest of the world.
The chance to set the standard on charitable advocacy should inspire us.
The Productivity Commission’s Future Foundations for Giving draft report prefigured a finding that is unlikely to change – and that was the finding that our Deductible Gift Recipient settings are no longer fit for purpose.
The Commissioners described the development of DGR categories as ad hoc. It has been a gradual, arbitrary process, reflecting isolated decisions at discrete points in time over the 110 years since tax deductible donations were first introduced.
With no overarching policy rationale, the architecture makes little sense to donors, and confounds charities left outside the winners’ tent.
The Productivity Commission’s final report will soon be public, and we anticipate that early conversations will be about which recommendations should be a priority as the first steps on the path to doubling giving.
Increasingly, modern volunteers and donors support charities that work for change. And when we consider the ways that charities can change society for the better, advocacy is one of the strongest levers. As a government, we understand that advocacy is an efficient and effective choice for charities that exist to change the community for the better.
One of my first priorities in taking responsibility for charities in government was to reassure the sector that gag clauses would no longer be allowed in government contracts. In Opposition, Labor joined the sector to oppose a series of challenges to the charity sector’s right and ability to advocate for their purpose. In government, we continue to celebrate the important role of non‑government voices in policy development and public discourse.
But the sector tells us there’s more to do and we are listening. Last week I joined the Stronger Charities Alliance, with representatives from Oxfam, Baptist Care, ACFID, St Vincent de Paul Society and ACOSS, at an event to launch a draft Bill the Alliance has developed to future proof the role of Australian charity advocacy. In accepting a copy of the Bill, I made a promise to consider what part it could play in the government’s work to double giving and in our response to the Productivity Commission’s final report.
In past years advocacy has been under threat around the world. I’d like to think one of the things Australia might export is an expectation that charities use their resources aperture to participate in important discussions, and a tolerance of that even when it’s uncomfortable.
Charitable advocacy gives a voice to both the venerable and vulnerable, it capitalises on that vast complex network of insight and experience I alluded to at the start. Developing a system that gives exemplary support to charitable advocacy would be something to be proud of. The diversity of our charity sector means we are an ideal R&D workshop to refine best practice for other nations to absorb.
I think it’s right to think outwardly in this way, because when we do that we save ourselves from the trap of designing and refining our charitable settings as if we were unique and in a vacuum. We should be eager to learn from those who are solving, or have solved, the problems we face. And sometimes the smartest thing we can do is import ideas that have worked elsewhere.
It’s often been noted that Australia lacks the giving culture of a country like the United States, where philanthropy operates at a scale well beyond our own modest goal for 2030 (which would see us draw level with New Zealand). But perhaps we need to be more mindful of what kind of giving culture is the best fit for our national character. And perhaps the better ambition would be to replicate Canada’s successes with the community foundations model. It feels more democratic, more egalitarian, and it matches the government’s ambition for charities and for philanthropy, that we do better by organisations that bring communities together.
Our ambition for Australian community foundations is that they will recreate the success and impact of the Canadian model.
‘In over 200 communities, community foundations strengthen community well‑being. They do so by consulting with and engaging regularly with community members and key stakeholders, incorporating a diverse set of perspectives to inform locally driven decisions, and championing solutions for issues that matter most to their community through community knowledge and data, relationship building, fund development, impact investing and grantmaking.’ [Canadian Community Foundations website]
Community foundations are giving structures that are community owned and managed, and that make grants to support specific needs of their local community. The model has flourished in Canada partly as a result of changes to the tax system. With the recent passage of our own bill to create a new DGR category for community foundations, we’ve set up the same launchpad for this democratising and socially engaging vehicle for giving.
The Productivity Commission singled out Community Foundations for the way they can build social capital. It noted:
Community foundations generate social capital through the local donor networks they develop. Their community led decision making allows local understanding to guide the allocation of funds, which can give smaller charities access to funding and grants with less effort and expense.
We’re not looking for one silver bullet to double giving and boost social capital, but if we were, community foundations at a meaningful scale might be it.
Community foundations:
- are typically place‑based, supporting local organisations and draw on local donor knowledge and experience
- bring people together and can foster a giving culture
In addition, donors often volunteer to manage the community foundation, including community engagement and stewardship of funds, which can build donor’s knowledge and civic engagement.
We’re already seeing the potential for characteristically Australian community foundations. The Productivity Commission’s draft report had this example:
The Melbourne Women’s Fund, a sub‑fund within the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation (which is Australia’s oldest and largest community foundation), is an example of a giving circle that builds social capital through its funders. It pools members’ resources (primarily through membership fees) and brings together members to decide how to distribute its grants with a focus on charities assisting vulnerable women and families in Melbourne (Christine Darcas, sub. 154).
And in the context of disaster response, a community foundation’s members typically have up to date, first‑hand knowledge of what’s happening on the ground in their community.
In their submission to the Productivity Commission, Foundations SA recounted how it had been able to lead a targeted initiative after severe flooding of the Murray River in 2022. The Foundation talked directly to people on the ground, including community groups and local councils, and were able to identify that mental health and wellbeing were not being well supported. The locals ‘had this really stressful period watching the water rise over weeks and weeks, and they’d been isolated from school and work and all their social activities’ (Foundation SA, trans., p. 271). Local networks and local knowledge allowed Foundation SA to tap into conversations and needs that government and other disaster response organisations didn’t have access to.
We know this happens across the charity sector and we want to support more of it. That’s why the new community foundations DGR category has been one of our first priorities.
I hope that you, like me, are excited by what comes next from the community foundations of Australia, and from all our charities that are shaping the pathway to double giving.
Charities connect us to a big world. That can bring challenges but it will also help us solve problems. We need to be open to both to keep evolving.