Not For Profit Blueprint: Expert Reference Group
Background
In October 2022, the Government announced it would develop a NFP (Not-for-Profit) Sector Development Blueprint. The Department of Social Services, alongside the Community Services Advisory Group, formed the Blueprint Expert Reference Group (BERG) to develop guidelines for the growth of charities and other NFP organisations. You can read more about the reference group here.
Our submission
EAA made this submission in conjunction with GAP, recommending three key concepts:
- The set of charities granted deductible gift recipient (DGR) status is too narrow and excludes high-impact cause areas, like the prevention of animal suffering and the reduction of catastrophic and existential risk. A side effect of DGR excluding causes that younger Australians are passionate about is that those demographics have less opportunity to join like-minded philanthropic communities.
- The Australian philanthropic community typically does not embrace impact evaluation or strive to improve its cost-effectiveness in evidence-based ways. Policies that encourage charities to engage with these concepts could help the sector achieve much more good overall.
- Policy development and policy advocacy are typically not seen as priorities for the philanthropic sector. The submission argues that charities have a lot of value to create in this space.