The challenges, hope and disruption facing Australia’s Not-for-Profit and Charity sector.

Charities and Not-for-Profit organisations are facing challenging times, Government funding is being reduced, or is difficult to secure, philanthropic and public donations are costly to raise and time consuming to obtain, the average Cost To Raise a Dollar (CTRD) for Australian based organisations is between .19c – .41c, meaning less actually gets to where it is needed.

 

Charities, Not-for-Profits and For-Purpose or Social Enterprise organisations are critical in Australia, they are responsible for delivering some of the most important social services, positively impacting areas like environment, culture, diversity, education, youth, housing, health and community services.

Its fair to say that these organisations are full of hope and are driven by passionate people who care and want to make a positive impact in their communities. Its also fair to say some boards, executive teams and organisations are not equipped with some of the crucial business skills needed and some struggle to make ends meet with funding a constant challenge.

There are many organisations that do deliver amazing services, usually at low cost and have been established for decades in some cases. But that’s just part of the story, without change, without innovation and disruption many people in need will go wanting. Every day I’m hearing from NFP that they are only servicing a small portion of the actual need that exists, the issues which need addressing are not receiving the funding required to solve the problems, or make a significant impact where they can see a hopeful solution. NFP need to scale, and scale fast.

With the rise of Social Enterprise and the piloting of mechanisms like Social Impact Bonds there is hope, there is an alternative to the old and traditional Charity or NFP approach.

But where do organisations start?

We come in contact with organisations everyday that have established high quality impact programs and services over long periods of time, this we class as their core business. They have IP, knowledge and experience in these areas. And we wonder, why have they not commercialised and taken advantage of the value they possess? We think its because they just need to be shown, informed and presented with case studies where adopting an innovative or different approach can deliver significant and positive financial and social outcomes.

When best practice or innovation is demonstrated it can lead to an improvement and new way of doing business.

Using Benevolent Society (Est 1813) as an example. Goodstart was founded by a partnership of four of Australia’s leading community sector organisations – TheBenevolent Society, Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Social Ventures Australia – who wanted to address one of the key sources of many societal problems – poor early childhood experiences. Operating as a social enterprise, their vision is for all Australia’s children to have the best possible start in life. Goodstart’s founding members believe that if every child has access to quality early learning, it has the potential to transform Australia. Every day, 13,500 Goodstart staff support over 60,000 families and the 71,500 children that attend 643 childcare centres nation-wide.

Benevolent Society was also one of the first organisations to trial a Social Benefit Bond. More than 20,000 children in NSW are in Out-of-Home Care. The number of NSW children in foster or kinship care has more than doubled in a decade. Research shows children in foster care experience significantly poorer mental health and educational outcomes than children who had never been in care. In October 2013, The Benevolent Society, in partnership with Westpac Banking Corporation and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, launched a $10 million Social Benefit Bond. – See more here.

Organisations can be more financially sustainable and deliver greater impact by adopting innovative thinking.

How can your Charity, NFP, For-Purpose or Social Enterprise organisation set itself up to be more financially sustainable, be scalable and enabled to deliver more impact than you thought possible.? Seek out professional and expert support and guidance from an organisation that cares as much as you do, an organisation that brings skills and expertise that you may be missing.

One10 understands, we offer expert consultancy services for Charities, Not-for-Profits and Social Enterprise seeking a sustainable revenue stream, ventures seeking to raise investment, and anyone in between looking to commercialise their venture, programs or services.

Our team can help you get where you want to go. We’ll sit down with you and talk through what you’re needs are and then conduct our own analysis. We’ll come back to you with a full scope of works and a project based fee so there are no surprises at the end.

We offer a comprehensive range of very specific services developed with Charities, NFP and For-Purpose organisations in mind;

  • Strategic Direction Workshops

  • Board and Executive Advisory Services

  • Commercialisation Support

  • Investment Readiness

  • Business Model Development

  • Social Lean Canvas

  • Pathways to sustainable revenue

  • Impact / Social Benefit Bonds

  • Innovation and Disruption Workshops

  • Partnerships

  • Social Media Marketing – Design, Development and Implementation

  • Digital, IT and Website services

  • Branding, Marketing and Storytelling

  • Video production

  • Grant readiness

  • Grant and Tender Writing, Proposals and Applications

And of course there may be other areas you need support, we can help there too, just ask.

If any of the above resonates with your organisation then we invite you to contact the One10 team info@oneten.com.auto book a time for us to present how we can assist you.