I recently travelled to England with ACNC Assistant Commissioner - General Counsel, Natasha Sekulic, where we had the privilege of meeting with fellow charity regulators from Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Singapore. We were also joined by an observing representative from the United States. Our purpose was to discuss how we can strengthen and support the global charity sector as it faces emerging challenges.
A joint communique was issued, in which we agreed that working together is more important than ever as we face world challenges. These include evolving social environments with changing patterns of volunteering, climate change and more natural disasters, cost of living pressures driving higher demand for services and costs of running organisations, and the need to support populations through conflict not seen for a generation. We believe as these challenges grow, the essential role of charities in improving lives and bringing communities together has become even more important. Charities and the broader not-for-profit sector are at the coal face of all societal issues.
Our discussions over three days focused on four main areas.
On charity registration, we discussed ways to make processes more efficient and secure, while preventing abuse of charitable status through better data sharing (as much as our respective laws allow).
We talked about using digital technology to make our work more effective and support charities as they adapt to a digital world. In many ways, it seems Australia is leading in this area - although we heard about some things in the pipeline that we will be keen to learn from (I love this ‘leapfrog’ way of improving).
Building public trust and communicating well with charities was a lively area of information sharing. Great ideas for reaching out to charities and helping them do their work better, particularly by contacting those on governing bodies so they had timely and useful reminders about education resources. Plus, some creative ideas about further building awareness of each of our registers to inform people when they are making decisions about donating.
We reviewed global trends in non-compliance, including a discussion of recent domestic cases with international significance, which helped us identify issues in common. We understand that as charity regulators we have a role to play in supporting compliance with the Financial Action Task Force standards (to help combat global money laundering and terrorist financing). Significant amounts of money flow across international borders and we don’t want to see funding of the sector’s work misused as it delivers vital services to the world’s most vulnerable.
Overall, this trip was a professional highlight for me; I felt proud of what I could share about the ACNC’s work, and Natasha and I have come back energised with new ideas to discuss with staff, always looking to improve our core services (registering charities, making sure they report key information, promoting good governance and helping prevent the misuse of charity resources).
Our discussions in England reminded us of our shared responsibility to keep the charity sector resilient, responsive, and trusted. By exchanging knowledge, we strengthen our ability to navigate the regulatory challenges each of us face. Nothing beats face-to-face dialogue (the first since 2019) and I believe this meeting will strengthen our on-going, regular international collaboration, including our quarterly online meetings. It will help us, across many countries, support charities worldwide as they continue their crucial work.
Warm regards,
Sue Woodward AM
ACNC Commissioner