Not for Profit Update

July 5, 2017

The NDIS promises to revolutionise disability services and give people with disability more choice and control.
The scheme comes off the back of years of discussion about the need for a major reform of disability services in Australia that better reflects the needs of people with disability.
By March 2013 the NDIS legislation was passed and the NDIS Act 2013 was created, along with the scheme and the National Disability Insurance Agency. After three years of pilots, the NDIS began its national rollout on 1 July 2016.

High profile chief executive officer for Mission Australia Catherine Yeomans has announced she will step down at the end of the year.
Yeomans, who joined Mission Australia in July 2011 and was appointed CEO in February 2014, said she had decided to step back from her full-time city based role, in order to spend more time with her family.
Mission Australia chairman Ken Dean paid tribute to Yeomans for her significant achievements in transforming the organisation over the past few years to better achieve its objectives to reduce homelessness and strengthen communities, through providing extensive family and community support programs and drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs.

The 2016 Census has revealed that Australians are still engaged and committed to volunteering activities, as well as highlighting that Australians are becoming older, more ethnically diverse and less religious.
Australia’s population is now 23.4 million people, with 3.6 million people aged 15 years and over, or 19 per cent of the population, engaged in voluntary work through an organisation or group.
This is a 1.2 per cent increase from the 2011 Census results when 17.8 per cent of people responded that they were engaged in voluntary work.

Australia’s first non-government organisation to focus solely on climate change has shut its doors after more than a decade of climate advocacy work, passing the baton on to the Australia Institute.
The Climate Institute, which was founded in 2005, closed on Friday due to a lack of funding.
Any remaining funds and intellectual property are set to be transferred to the Australia Institute, to “help carry forward the Australia Institute’s climate change-related research and advocacy”.

Mission Australia has responded to the release of the NSW Budget, describing it as a missed opportunity for a strong response to homelessness and the housing affordability crisis.
“NSW is in a strong financial position with an unprecedented surplus. This presents a prime opportunity to invest in vital state infrastructure including social and affordable housing,” said Mission Australia CEO Catherine Yeomans.
“While NSW can boast a balance sheet that is the “envy of the western world”, we call on the government to make a commitment to meaningful additional investment in affordable housing, to ensure that those people most in need can share in the benefits,” she said.