Australian development and humanitarian Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) (hereafter, development NGOs) deliver aid in more than 95 countries globally. They receive public donations (not including government funding) from all parts of Australia totalling over A$1 billion. They partner with an ever-increasing range of stakeholders: government, private sector, international organisations, schools, community groups and churches. NGOs are a central means through which Australians give to, and learn about, less affluent communities. Yet efforts to date to learn systematically about development NGOs as a sector have been limited.

This report, the first-ever Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) State of the Sector Report, sheds new light on Australia’s development NGOs. It is based on an unprecedented data gathering effort, enabled by the NGOs’ own transparency. The report focuses foremost on development NGOs that are members of ACFID, drawing on ACFID’s ongoing data collation. Where possible, however, the report also includes information from other NGOs, making use of data from the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). This affords a picture of the broader community of development NGOs and a sense of where ACFID members fit as a subset of this larger
group.