Charities commission: my job is to keep them transparent, efficient

Before the establishment of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, it was difficult to find and verify the credentials of an Australian charity, let alone much detail about its operation. The charity market was opaque.

That changed five years ago under the leadership of the inaugural commissioner, Susan Pascoe. She and her team have done a great job establishing the register of Australian charities, all 55,497 of them, and setting out the ground rules for good practice.

As the new commissioner I ­intend to build on this foundation.

A key role of the commission is to provide information to help the public understand the work of the sector and to support its transparency and accountability.

The not-for-profit sector receives funding, including donations from members of the public, and tax concessions, grants and other support from Australian governments.

I intend to make sure that the information that charities supply to the commission is placed squarely into the public arena in a form that donors and taxpayers can use to judge the state of the market.

Not-for-profits have one thing in common. They are associations of people who come together for a common purpose. I have spent most of my adult life in such ­organisations. A common cause is a source of strength and a source of intensity sometimes unmatched in government and business.

Passion is a given in this sector.

Charities are a particular class of not-for-profit.

These are organisations of people who come together for a common charitable purpose, and for public benefit.

They have a special place in Australian society. They also carry a particular responsibility, a special status conferred by governments, on which they trade.

It is sometimes assumed, especially by charities, that the sector is about them: it is not. At its core, the sector is a market in charitable intentions.

Charities exist to help those in need and they gather resources to do so. Those resources consist of the time and money donated to charitable causes.

I believe the ACNC should assist donors to fulfil their charitable intentions. The commission can do this by helping the donor market drive the charity dollar to its most efficient and best uses.

There are many specific initiatives the commission will carry out in the next five years using its skills and resources.

It already gathers essential information about the performance of charities.

Five years of data for tens of thousands of charities is ripe for a deep dive to analyse weak spots and risks, as well as strengths, in charity performance.

At present, donors using the ACNC website can find a charity but have to search deeper for relevant information contained in an annual report or financial statement. It would help donors if some of this information were to the fore.

Charity performance is not the only criterion for choosing a charity or charitable cause but it does count.

For example, it is likely ­crucial to donors and taxpayers the amount of government funding received by a charity. This ­information should be available at the press of a button.

At present, donors using the ACNC website can find only a charity whose name they know, which is essential for verification, but not much else.

It would be good to see what other charities operate for the same cause. I want to have the ACNC develop and apply a taxonomy of charitable causes to the ACNC website.

Donors can search by their favourite cause any number of charities that may work for them. These searches should begin to reveal gaps or overcrowding in the ­market.

Charity merger and acquisitions may start to take place as a result of this new information. These changes will not be driven by the regulator but by donors making choices.

At present, the ACNC is constrained by law as to how much it can reveal about its decisions, for example, to revoke a registration. The ACNC should be able to publish reasons for revocation of registration and other important decisions, just as occurs for instance with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

Speaking of which, Charity Commission chief executive Helen Stephenson said at the Charity Law Association's annual conference last month: "Charities are neither our friends to be let off the hook, nor foes to be fought. We are their regulator …"

Quite so.