Australian not-for-profit organisations received $74.5 billion income

by: TFA Editor Monday, August 11th, 2008

Australia’s 40,976 registered not-for-profit organisations received $74.5 billion in 2006-07, according to figures released recently by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Registered not-for-profit organisations are those organisations registered with an ABN on the Australian Business Register.

The main findings of the ABS study are:

The main recipients of this income, according to the ABS release, were organisations undertaking education and research (22%), social services (16%) and culture and recreation (16%) activities.

The primary sources of income were funding from federal, state and local government (34%), income from services (29%), and donations, sponsorship and fundraising (9%).

At the end of June 2007 registered not-for-profit organisations employed more than 880,000 people, with more than half of these employed in social services (27%) and education and research (24%) organisations. In addition to paid employees there were more than 2.4 million volunteers in the not-for-profit sector during 2006-07.

Other findings include:

Organisations undertaking religious, culture and recreation activities accounted for over 40% of all registered not-for-profit organisations.

Over two-thirds (68%) of total government funding to not-for-profit organisations was received on a volume basis (for example, on a per student or a per client basis).

The ABS release also reported that in 2006-07, not-for-profit organisations incurred $68.3 billion in expenses. Against the $74.5 billion receipts, a surplus of $6.2 billion were chalked by not-for-profit organisations. #