GIVIT CEO says enhanced Charity Register is a ‘game-changer’ 

“This is going to be a game changer for people in the not-for-profit area,” said GIVIT CEO Sarah Tennant at the launch of the ACNC’s enhanced Charity Register on 1 March, speaking about the value of the enhancements for charities and the sector.

“As a national charity that relies on donors to support not only operations but also provides goods and services for the people in need across Australia, this is going to make a huge difference connecting us to charities and connecting us to donors," she said.

"So donors can give to causes through our website they are passionate about, and they can pledge offers of goods, services, time and money directly into our online warehouse...to support the charities in not having to actually store and manage unwanted donations, which you can imagine in times of disaster such as we're going through now is a really, really important function.

“So the new functionality makes it really easy for donors to find us and support not only our fantastic work but meet the needs that are identified by over 4,000 charities across the country. Like so many Australian charities, we rely really heavily on donors to support our operations but also provide those essential goods and services, and we do provide a lot of volunteers, particularly in times of disasters, to increase our capacity. So anything that is making it easier for donors to directly connect to us is a huge advantage.

“The GIVIT model also relies on the wonderful charities we support. They are our eyes and ears on the ground to identify that genuine need. We use the ACNC Register regularly as part of our due diligence when registering new charities and we can now search for specific charities at specific locations really easily through this functionality.

“As you can imagine right now in this disaster, we are helping communities across Queensland and New South Wales impacted by the flood. This functionality allows us to very quickly reach out to specific charities in specific areas and make sure people in need get exactly what they need when they need it most.

“So on behalf of GIVIT and the charity sector, a huge, huge thank you to ACNC for the work, for making our job to help support Australians in need even easier."

This is an abridged version of Sarah Tennant’s address. See the full event video and transcript here.