In order to ensure your community radio station is financially sustainable, it's important to consider diversifying your station's revenue stream. This means that if one of the station's sources of income were to dry up, there were others to draw from. Creative Partnerships Australia has developed this handy overview of the types of revenue your station could consider exploring, from sponsorship to crowdfunding, to individual donations, philanthropy, government grants, generating your own revenue & more! 

Each Australian state and territory has its own, different rules relating to fundraising. If you are planning to undertake fundraising activities, or are already doing so, you need to understand these laws and the implications for your fundraising. 

A Guide to Fundraising Laws in Australia 

Justice Connect's Not-for-profit Law has put together this guide to help you understand the laws around fundraising, including identifying and complying with the relative laws. 

ACNC - Charity Fundraising Resources 

If your station is registered as a charity, then it is important to understand charity regulations. The responsible persons of a charity are, collectively, responsible for the way a charity conducts its fundraising. The ACNC sees the oversight of fundraising activities as an important aspect of good charity governance. The materials on the above link will help the responsible persons of charities manage their fundraising activities and know what issues they should look out for. This includes knowing your obligations as well as getting specific state-based advice. 

Requirements to fundraise in each state and territory 

Maybe, depending on the state(s) you operate in (multiple if you operate in more than one state) and fundraising activities. Click through to get information by state, as compiled by NFP Law.  

According to the Australian Government, a deductible gift recipient (DGR) is an entity or fund that can receive tax deductible gifts. Unless your organisation is endorsed as a DGR, donors cannot claim their donation against their tax. DGR status for your community broadcasting organisation is a great incentive to encourage your community to support your organisation by making donations. 

A Deductible Gift Recipient is an organisation with a ‘special tax status’. If your organisation is endorsed by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) as a DGR, people who make gifts or donations to your organisation are able to ‘deduct’ those gifts for their own income tax purposes and your organisation can receive funds from certain grant makers and philanthropic bodies, which are only able to give money to organisations that have DGR status. 

Crowdfunding can be defined as is the practice of funding a project by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. 

Generally, this occurs via a crowdfunding platform (for example Pozible, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Patreon) and if people want to support you, they can donate money to help you achieve your goal. It is common that project owners offer creative incentives or rewards to donors based on the amount that they donate.  

We hear of lots of stations doing great community engagement in their local communities that also act as fundraising events. Some examples of this we’ve come across: 

Make sure you check your station’s public liability insurance and any other legal matters, such as working with children’s check.