Source 1
Government
Grants and service contracts · agencies
When your service is something a government has already decided it wants delivered, you can evidence delivery, and you can carry the working capital between milestone payments. It fits poorly when your work is advocacy against current policy, when demand is genuinely new, or when you cannot absorb a payment delay.
How it is built
- Map the buyer, not the grant — the department, the program area, the official responsible for the outcome.
- Cost at full cost. SVA puts indirect costs at 26–47% of total, averaging 33%; that is the number to bring to the negotiation.
- Diarise the end date at signing and start the renewal conversation at two-thirds of term.
How it goes wrong
- Cross-subsidy nobody has quantified — a contract at 85% of cost is a donation from your donors to the state.
- Indexation that lags the SCHADS increase, eroding margin every year of the term.
- Cliff-edge concentration: one agreement at 40% of income with no replacement pipeline.
Source 2
Trusts and foundations
Giving funds and community foundations · funders
When you have a discrete, fundable proposition with a beginning and an end: a pilot, a capability build, an evaluation, a capital item. It fits poorly as core operating cover — few trusts will fund your electricity bill indefinitely.
How it is built
- Find the funders whose deed actually matches you; a deed limited to a geography or sub-purpose is a hard limit.
- Ask before you apply. Fifteen minutes with the grants manager prevents most rejections.
- Re-test your DGR position — the community charity category has widened and the ministerial declaration step is gone.
How it goes wrong
- The pilot treadmill: a run of two-year grants for new things, and no funder for the thing that worked.
- Restricted income recognised as revenue while the obligation sits in a future year.
- The relationship held by one person, who then leaves.
Source 3
Corporate partners
Sponsorship, workplace giving, gifts in kind · brands
When you have something a business genuinely values — a workforce it wants to reach, a credible presence where it operates, expertise it cannot buy. It fits poorly when the only offer is a logo on a newsletter.
How it is built
- Start with who already knows you: board members' employers, suppliers, local businesses.
- Build tiers with a real cost and a real deliverable, and cost your own delivery time into them.
- Switch on workplace giving before chasing a naming sponsor — it is cheaper and it renews silently.
How it goes wrong
- Reputational coupling. Agree at board level which industries are out of scope, and write a morals clause.
- The sponsorship that is really a donation — get the GST and deductibility characterisation right at contracting.
- Single-champion risk: the executive who owns it moves on and the partnership evaporates.
Source 4
Individual giving
Donors, appeals, major gifts · donors
When your cause is legible to a stranger in one sentence and you can fund an acquisition investment that will not pay back for 18–36 months. It fits poorly when the work is technical or systemic, or when the organisation needs cash this quarter.
How it is built
- Fix the data before you spend on acquisition — one CRM, deduplicated, with consent status and giving history.
- Convert one-off donors to regular giving. Lifetime value, not first gift, is the number that matters.
- Build major gifts as a distinct discipline, usually carried by the CEO and board rather than the fundraiser.
How it goes wrong
- Acquisition without retention — a treadmill that consumes reserves.
- Unmeasured cost. Events are the usual offender: gross proceeds reach the board, net contribution often does not.
- Fundraising licensing still differs by state and territory; check your registrations if you solicit nationally.
Source 5
Gifts in wills
Bequests and estates · estates
When you have supporters of long standing — members, volunteers, service alumni, regular donors of five years or more — and an organisation credibly permanent enough to be named in a will.
How it is built
- Ask. The largest determinant of bequest income is whether the organisation ever mentions it.
- Publish your legal name, ABN and suggested wording for a residuary and a pecuniary gift.
- Keep a register of intenders and steward them as a distinct group.
How it goes wrong
- Never starting. The lead time is a decade, so every year of delay removes a year of income at the far end.
- Budgeting a lumpy line as though it were smooth.
- Spending the windfall on operating cost, so a $400,000 gift funds one year of deficit and leaves nothing behind.
Source 6
Earned income
Fees, trading, social enterprise · customers
When you have an asset that is under-used — a kitchen, a hall, a fleet, a curriculum, a reputation — or expertise others already ask you for. It fits poorly when the enterprise has no relationship to the mission or needs capital you do not have.
How it is built
- Start from an asset you already own and already pay for.
- Write a business case with a break-even, not a budget: capital required, months to break-even, who runs it.
- Price at full cost plus margin, and separate the accounts from day one.
How it goes wrong
- The charitable side project — run at half attention, never reaches scale, never quite closes.
- Under-pricing that reads as generosity and functions as a subsidy from your donors to your customers.
- Capital starvation: launched without working capital, it fails in month nine for reasons unrelated to demand.
Source 7
Capital and reserves
Investment, reserves, borrowings · markets
Always — but the sequencing is the point. An organisation with no reserves cannot build individual giving or earned income, because both require spending ahead of income. Reserves are the precondition for diversification, not its reward.
How it is built
- Set a reserves policy with a separate target for liquidity, resilience and opportunity.
- Budget a surplus. Reserves come from planned surpluses; nothing else produces them reliably.
- Direct windfalls to reserves by default, with a board resolution required to do otherwise.
How it goes wrong
- Reserves held for no stated purpose — which invites both the funder who asks why you need a grant and the board that spends them.
- Restricted funds counted as reserves. Unspent grant money is a liability to a funder, not a buffer.
- No facility and no runway: the organisation discovers it cannot borrow at the moment it needs to.
