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Charity and Not-for-Profit Organisations – ACNC report on integrity review

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) has released a report explaining the findings of their ‘Integrity of the Charity Register’ project which was undertaken last financial year.

The project was initiated by the ACNC in order to ensure the integrity of the Charity Register by reviewing the information it contained about Australia’s registered charities. They reviewed the accuracy of the information provided by each Charity or Not-for-profit organisations ensuring only charities that are entitled to be registered are on the Charity Register.

The project reviewed charities in three areas:

  1. Charities endorsed as Deductible Gift Recipients (DGRs): reviewing 2% of charities endorsed as DGRs annually to ensure they remain entitled to be registered.
  2. Charitable purposes and entitlement: reviewing a selection of charities with certain risk factors to ensure they are maintaining their charitable purposes and entitlement to registration.
  3. Charity details: reviewing charities to ensure they have provided all the information required to maintain registration.

The ACNC report found that of the 303 charities with DGR endorsement:

  • 53% resulted int he ACNC closing the review after providing guidance to a charity and, when necessary, requesting that the charity take action to rectify an issue.
  • 19% resulted in a charity having its registration revoked or being in the process of having it revoked. Of these, nearly two-thirds were “voluntary” revocations at the request of the charity.
  • 9% resulted in a charity having one of its registered subtypes revoked or being in process of having it revoked. Of these, nearly all were “voluntary” revocations at the request of the charity.
  • 15% resulted in the ACNC closing the reviews with no action required.
  • 1% have, at the time of writing, not yet been determined.

During the reviewing process, charities with minor registration issues, were provided with guidance from the ACNC who explained how to rectify the issue. The most common issues found were:

  • A charity had not provided its governing document.
  • A charity had not provided the details of all its Responsible People.

For those charities with more significant issues (that may require additional time to rectify) the ACNC has established an agreement with these charities which outlines the issues that need to be rectified and the actions that the charity needs to take to meet registration requirements. These agreements also include a timeframe for completing the required action.

To discuss your Charity or Not-for-Profit organisation and how it meets the Charity Register requirements further, contact us at Matovic Business Accountants on (07) 3557 5721 or email us at info@matovicaccounting.com.au.

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