What this blog is

Welcome to the ChangePath blog, here to bring together interesting articles, ideas, and discussions about charity in Australia. This is a conversational blog, not a news service or series of media releases (you can find those in our media section). Rather, it will have a series of opinion pieces on a wide range of topics. While we will always endeavour to fact-check our articles and provide sources where possible, caveat lector [act_tooltip title=”(1)” content=”I was going to say caveat emptor but you’re not really buying anything, so caveat lector it is.”] The opinions expressed are those of the authors, not of ChangePath itself (unless we say otherwise). Hopefully this will keep it lively and entertaining.

Why start a blog?

  1. To share our thinking on Australian not-for-profits and to help people to understand the benefits and pitfalls of assessing charity.
  2. To create something interesting and valuable that encourages people to visit.
  3. To give you, the visitor, the ability to add to the ChangePath discussion.

On language

At ChangePath, you will find us using ‘not-for-profit’ and ‘charity’ somewhat interchangably. This is, technically, incorrect – charities are a subset of not-for-profits, but not all not-for-profits are charities. However, this distinction is one the general public aren’t generally aware of, so we’re quite lax about it as well. If we’re referring specifically to something relevant to charities but not other not-for-profits, we’ll flag it in the sentence.

Comments and moderation

As implied by that last point, comments will be enabled on the site. This is swimming against the tide of the internet at this point, but I’m of the opinion that there’s more to gain from hearing your opinion than there is to lose from opening the internet floodgates.

This does not, however, mean I’m naïve about the way the internet works. The comments on this site will be strictly and unapologetically moderated. All of the normal things (no racism, no sexism, no bullying, no general awfulness, etc) apply, plus a general overall requirement for broadly-defined civility. Of course, you’re entitled to disagree with the content of a post as much as you like, but if you don’t do it in a civil manner your comment won’t go anywhere. This is Australia, we don’t have a right to free speech [act_tooltip title='(2)’ content=’Well, kinda. See this article.’].