Can you demonstrate to your funders and your stakeholders that you are delivery capable and ‘investment’ ready?
The funding landscape is changing
Traditional block grant funds and donations with a focus on receiving money and then acquitting funds as spent are fading away. In its place, funders are demanding more information in an increasingly competitive funding landscape:
- What impact did you make?
- Did you achieve your objectives?
- Are you sustainable?
- Do you have robust, transparent and professional governance?
- Are you a low risk and high impact funding choice?
- How do you align with, and contribute to, the sector value chain?
- What is your ESG performance & impact?
These are complex questions, and can prove challenging for many not-for-profit entities (NFPs). You are often dealing with the most marginalised groups and vulnerable people in society, and now you are being asked to collect information on them and report.
Improved reporting is critical to long-term sustainability
The Australian Charities and Investments Commission (ACNC) reports that there are over 56,000 registered charities in Australia alone. Across the country there are estimated to be as many as 600,000 NFPs of various types. All the ACNC-registered charities, as well as many of those broader NFP entities, all report on their performance or impact in some capacity.
The funding landscape in Australia is increasingly competitive. NFPs compete for scarce donations and philanthropic funds, whilst Governments are increasingly changing the grants landscape.
When done effectively, enhanced impact reporting will:
- Shine a light on your organisation and the great work it does
- Help you demonstrate to existing and potential funders that you are delivery capable and ‘investment ready’
- Provide funders with the confidence that you represent a low risk and high outcome funding choice
- Provide stakeholders with confidence that you have excellent management, robust governance and critically analyse your performance to continually improve.
Start your impact reporting journey at the beginning
It can be a daunting task committing to upgrading your impact reporting capability. The key is to identify with express clarity your strategic intent, objectives, and how your performance creates genuine impact/change in the community. Once that is clear, you will be able to track, monitor and report on your performance and effectively communicate your impact.
Our workflow assists NFPs on their impact reporting journey. It has been set up in a logical sequence that assumes you are just starting out on this journey. For those who are further along the pathway, you can join the performance journey workflow at the relevant point.
THE PERFORMANCE JOURNEY
The steps of our workflow, include:
The steps in our workflow have been designed to help NFPs more effectively measure and communicate their impact by:
- Distilling the strategic drivers that support their intended purpose
- Assessing the extent to which each of the key programs support an organisation’s strategic drivers
- Identifying which impact ‘levers’ influence community contribution
- Suggesting a methodology for how moving those impact levers could enhance the organisation’s impact
- Determining an effective framework for evaluating and communicating impact to internal and external stakeholders.
Need assistance?
Please contact Aletta Boshoff or our IFRS Advisory team to discuss how we can help you to measure and report your ESG impact.