Following is part of an article which leads to a lot of questions.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/charities-cant-cope-with-increasing-demands-says-report-20141012-114w2d.html

Charities are pessimistic they will be able to meet an expected growth in demand over the next 12 months, a new report reveals.

PricewaterhouseCoopers found 84 per cent of more than 300 chief executives it surveyed in the not-for-profit sector doubted they would have the necessary resources.

PwC partner Mark Reading said despite a 60 per cent increase in government funding over the past six years to $41 billion a year, 40 per cent of the sector believes social outcomes have deteriorated.

"These results make clear that the way government is currently funding charities isn't working," Mr Reading said. "Funding is currently awarded on an ad-hoc basis with no clear rationale."
"The PwC report said the not-for-profit sector is the fastest growing part of the Australian economy, having grown at almost twice the rate of the mining sector in the last six years.

In 2012-13, its turnover was more than $100 billion."

1st Question (more than 300 CE's) this implies there are more than 300 NFP charities, how many are there? I only know of about 10 or so.

2nd Quote "to $41 billion a year" to me this says charities in Australia get this much money each year, Who is getting it and what are they doing with it?

3rd Quote "In 2012-13, its turnover was more than $100 billion." Love to see the account books where this is going.

4th What are the salaries of these 300+ CE's? Bet no one can find out.

Philip S,

Charities in Australia are under the control of The Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) an arm of ASIC. There is indeed hundred of registered charities in Australia. For example every Sub-branch of the RSL is a registered charity. Chartres apply to the government for grants and have to put their case. You want to know how every cent is spent? Why. Do you ask the Army how they spend every cent. Account books, salaries, why do you want to know? Is it a casual interest, or an ideological beef you have, obviously the questions are loaded to some degree.

When anyone associates a charity with the likes of an RSL, with their ALL ABOUT PROFIT pokies, meals, grog, etc, I just find it hard to believe we offer any subsidy to them at all.

As far as I'm concerned, if we stopped the scam that is churches raising money, tax free, only to spend it on assets, or legal defense of it's rock spiders, then perhaps the tax payer funding could be better distributed to GENUINE needy charities.

As for CEO's, yes well, they don't work for nothing, do they.

If you ask me, the whole charity industry needs to be closely looked at.

Butch, not all charities receive government grants, far from it, most rely on fund raising and donations. That is true about the RSL, don't confuse the RSL Sub branches, which normally have only a few members i.e returned servicemen with RSL Clubs which hold the liqueur and gaming licences and can have thousands of members, the majority termed associate members. If you want to check up on charities then all non for profit organisations would also deserve a closer look. You raise the question of churches, the Catholic Church, asset wise, is the richest organisation in the world. One in the news lately in Australia, has been The Hillsong Church, one could suspect it is run more to financially benefit a few, and uses religion as a means to that end. Jesus trudged the roads with dirty feet and sandals, some of his modern day disciples prefer the 'Ferrari' to the sandals.

So the penny has dropped !
What you are seeing are the early symptoms of the "new economy".
If you want to find out why charities are having a hard time I suggest this reading;
The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg.
Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin.
Many others which can be found with a little research, but those will fill in the blanks.
For how to run the future go to the Transition Town web site;

http://www.transitionnetwork.org/

As I have said it adnausium everything will become local. Including charity.
The large charities will disappear and even suburbs will become village like.
Energy is becoming expensive and society will have to change to cope with that.
The current low oil prices are temporary because it is at or below the well head price of the latest wells.

Australia in particular is in a very difficult position.
We import 95% of our fuel, soon to be 100%.
There is no guarantee of supply.
The government should force the oil companies to keep two or three refineries operating.
We would at least then have about 25% of our own fuel.

It is an economy operating in an environment as I describe above, that will have
difficulty keeping unemployment below 15% to 25%.
In that case you can see why charities will struggle.
It should be expected that government pensions and other entitlements will start to wither on the vine.

I gave up giving to Charities after Tracy. There were millions raised. I gave a quarter of a weeks wage as a donation. Then half the money "just disappeared" the other half went to Auditors & Lawyers looking for the first half.

Just recently, in the Brisbane floods, very little of the money was distributed. Yes there were Photo Opportunities to raise more money. I believe the excuse was that most of the money went into a future fund for disasters. "AY!" how does that work. Red Cross I think.

I spent two years in the Army in Malaysia. Every Company had a small village to look after & we did a fine job. When the Poms pulled out we were assigned an new village. We were to the Village, spoke to the Head Man & did an assessment of their needs. When we came back with two truck loads of equipment for the village (Rice seed, Lumber, String to repair their fishing nets, etc.) the Head Man got very upset. You see we were supposed to give him "Money" which he kept half & then gave the other half to his family to split up. That's the way it's done, we were told. He didn't want the equipment we had brought with us.

We left with what we had brought. The Head man complained to the Australian High Commissioner that we had refused to give his Village Aid.

The Australian High Commissioner turned up in a rage. so we took him to the Village & let the Head Man explain the procedure with the Aid. The AHC left without even an apology to us.
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