Australian Charities 2016 Annual Financial Statements

Over 48,500 registered charities submitted their 2016 Annual Information Statement to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) as of December 2017. The dataset contains financial and operational information lodged by charities for the 2016 financial year, collected by the national regulator.

Use Cases

• Analyze charity financial information across the sector to benchmark revenue and expenditure patterns.
• Compare operational activities and beneficiary demographics reported by charities of different sizes.
• Filter and sort registered charities by variables such as charitable purpose or state of operation.
• Study the distribution of charity sizes and governance structures using AIS-submitted data.

Strengths

• Contains data from over 48,500 registered charities, providing broad sector coverage.
• Published by the authoritative national regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.
• Data is updated weekly to reflect changes, including charity requests to withhold information.

Limitations

• Financial data for small charities may lack detail as they are not compelled to provide full financial reports.
• Information from charities that applied to have data withheld is excluded, creating potential gaps.
• The dataset is specific to the 2016 financial year and may not reflect current charity status.

Provenance

Source

Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC)

Collection Method

Mandatory annual submissions (Annual Information Statements) lodged by registered charities.

Time Range

2016 financial year, with submissions recorded as of 15 December 2017.

Freshness

Updated weekly, with a last update recorded in March 2026.

Geography

Australia