Mayoral Memo | The challenge of supporting Dubbo's wonderful not-for-profits

If you search on the Web site of the 'Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission' you will find 117 organisations in the Dubbo Regional Council Local Government Area (LGA) that are registered and report their information through to the Federal Government. An inspection of those shows a huge variety in size, capability and services. Some are formed as niche organisations by a small group of committed individuals to improve one specific area of our community. Others have much broader goals. There are some that have turnover in the order of tens of millions of dollars and receive large amounts of money from State and/or Federal Governments and others have turnover in the thousands and generate their money from very small activities.

One of the primary reasons for the existence of these organisations is to fill service gaps left by the public sector, and to a lesser extent by the private sector. Not-for-profits can foster a sense of community and collective action, empowering individuals to make a difference and generating outcomes by relying on volunteers, donations and philanthropy.

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There are too many examples to name them all but we have some examples such as Friends of Burrendong Arboretum; Stuart Town Action Group and Orana Arts registered in Wellington. In Dubbo we have Westhaven; Meals on Wheels; Orana Early Childhood Intervention and Tradies IN Sight. Not-for-profits provide some wonderful services in our community and add to the fabric of our society, but...these organisations are managed by a board and need to at least break even to continue to operate. The board is ultimately responsible for the organisation including its financial viability. Unfortunately when things are not travelling so well, many groups turn to council to help them out.

The Local Government Act has some very specific areas that a council is responsible for but councillors can also make decisions to provide additional services or support other organisations. The annual challenge for council is to keep a balanced budget while providing the highest level of services that are within the Act but also, potentially, providing some help to some other organisations to make our community better. That comes at a cost though and if a council spends too much money outside the remit of a council, there may be insufficient funds to deliver on core responsibilities.

There is an additional problem. There are some examples where a not-for-profit may be competing with private sector organisations - who are typically paying rates. It would be frustrating for Organisation ABC to see some of their rates money contributing to the running of Organisation XYZ which is a competitor!

These regular requests by a variety of organisations are always considered carefully by councillors focusing on the outcome of acting in the public interest.

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