2020-05-12 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                    12 MAY 2020


To date there has not been any support provided to not-for-profit organisations from the
Commonwealth and Queensland Governments, apart from financial support to retain staffing
through the JobKeeper program if the organisation has eligible paid employees. While some
community organisations have been able to go into hibernation there are many organisations that
still have ongoing expenses and service or facility obligations. In the current environment these
organisations are struggling to fund these requirements.

2.   Operational Impacts on Community Organisations

Across the past three months not-for-profit organisations have experienced wide-ranging impacts
on their ability to function including:
    Immediate closure of all community facilities and cessation of community activities due to
      Commonwealth and Queensland Government COVID-19 directives regarding home
      confinement, non-gathering and social distancing. This includes community organisations
      across all spheres: community services, sport and recreation, arts and culture and social.
    Cancellation or postponement of upcoming community, sporting and cultural events.
    Loss of volunteers particularly for essential community support work due to many volunteers
      being in older age groups or high-risk health categories for COVID-19.
    Difficulty of volunteer-led community organisations being able to quickly transform
      operational models to relevant alternate models.
    Increased demand for some community organisation delivered services particularly in the
      social welfare and emergency relief spheres however their capacity to deliver has
      diminished.
    Loss of key human resources for paid staff employed by community organisations such as
      administration officers, coaches, operation managers, and canteen / bar and other related
      support workers in NFP’s.
    Remaining staff and volunteers overwhelmed by workloads and responsibility.
    Inability to access or afford necessary personal protective equipment to continue operating
      such as sanitiser, disinfectant, gloves and masks.
    Higher incidence of vandalism of community facilities due to the premises being vacant.

3.   Financial Impacts on Community Organisations

As well as operational impacts, all organisations are highly constrained in their ability to raise
revenue following:
   Cessation of all general operational revenue streams including canteen/bar sales,
     membership fees, venue hire, retail sales.
   Cessation or postponement of organisation led fundraising activities such as events.
   Cancellation of external fundraising opportunities such as sausage sizzles, event stalls,
     raffles.
   Widespread cancellation of sponsorship arrangements.
   Limited ability for other service clubs and fundraising organisations such as Lions, Rotary or
     Zonta to fundraise to support community initiatives.

While revenue has significantly decreased or evaporated, many organisations have had ongoing,
and in some cases increased, expense obligations or losses including:
    Ongoing building, facility or ground maintenance expenses;
    Ongoing non-discretional expenses such as utilities, waste collection and insurance;
    Employee costs where organisations have paid staff;
    Requests for membership fee reimbursement from participants under personal financial
      stress. This stress is exacerbated when, in some cases, the organisation only retains a small
      percentage of the actual participant fee as a significant proportion (sometimes 100%) is
      retained by the state or national governing body, who are not providing reimbursements at
      this time;


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