Champions for Charities: Exploring Inclusive Leadership in the Non-profit Sector in Australia

Abstract

In 2011, the Australian Government announced a range of measures to reform the non-profit sector in Australia, including the creation of the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profit Commission (ACNC).The nonprofit sector in Australia comprises more than 60,000 charities (ACNC 2014). According to the Productivity Commission (2010), Australia's non-profit sector is the sixth largest in the world, after the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Israel and the United States, and is larger than the nonprofit sector in the United Kingdom and many European countries. According to the ACNC Report for 2015 (ACNC 2016), non-profits had a total income of over $134 billion, representing 8.3% of Australia's gross domestic product (GDP); donations to the sector totalled $11.2 billion; charities employed more than 1.2 million people, representing 10% of Australia's workforce; and there were approximately three million volunteers involved in the sector.