About the Not-For-Profit Sector

A strong, vibrant and innovative not-for-profit sector is essential to achieving a productive and inclusive Australia. The sector plays a central role in enriching communities through its social, cultural and environmental contribution and in providing support to the most vulnerable in our community. The sector is large and diverse and made up of organisations that are neither commercial nor government.

There are an estimated 600,000 organisations in the sector with 440,000 of these being small unincorporated organisations such as neighbourhood groups and 59,000 being ‘economically significant’ (i.e. employ staff or access tax concessions). These ‘economically significant’ NFPs employ over 850,000 staff, which is around 8 per cent of employment in Australia, and contribute just under $43 billion to Australia’s GDP. On average over 4.6 million Australians volunteer each year with NFPs, and the wage equivalent value of this effort is around $14.6 billion.

Source: Productivity Commission Research Report: Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector