Third Sector (Not for Profit) Organisations

List of the top 200 Third Sector organisations by revenue in 2008.

The Third Sector is usually a good hunting ground for women seeking directorships.  It offers personal satisfaction and rewards as well as valuable experience and networks to up and coming directors. Most ASX directors have at least one Third Sector Board in their portfolio. Women on Boards recommends you consider carefully the sort of Third Sector directorship you wish to target to ensure it fits with the time you have available, your interests and expectations and the opportunities it offers.

The Third Sector is growing rapidly in Australia as the following information taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics website indicates. The statistics are current as at the end of June 2007.

• 40,976 not-for-profit organisations in Australia
• 8,743 (21.3%) were religious organisations & 8,214 (20%) were culture and recreation organisations
• 884,476 people were employed, more than 50% in social services, education and research organisations
• 360,850 people (40.8% ) permanent full-time employees
• 296,554 people  (33.5%) permanent part-time employees
• 227,072 people (25.7%) casual employees
• 2,434,815 volunteers

The industry value added by these organisations was $35.1b for the 2006-07 financial year and capital expenditure was $8.5b for the same period. During the 2006-07 financial year, not-for-profit organisations received $74.5b in income.

The main source of income for these organisations was funding from federal, state and local government, which accounted for just over a third (34.1% or $25.4b) of total income. This funding was primarily received by Education and research (32.4% or $8.2b) and Social services (26.5% or $6.7b) organisations. Over two-thirds (68.1% or $17.3b) of total government funding to not-for-profit organisations was volume based funding (for example, granted on a per student or a per client basis).

Third sector organisations to consider for directorships include:

• Organisations with which you may already be volunteering.
• Clubs you support or are a member of (eg, sport, arts)
• Charities
• Religious bodies  
• Institutional foundations
• Olympic sporting bodies (28)
• Cultural bodies (arts, music etc)
• Medical research foundations/ institutes 
• Education – child care, schools, university councils
• Outsourced Government services – job networks
• Membership bodies
  • Credit unions
  • Some health funds
  • Medical colleges
  • Accounting, law, engineers … and their disciplinary bodies
  • Industry associations - AICD, AIM
  • Trade unions