About this organisation
Summary of activities
Goodstart is Australia’s largest provider of early learning and care. As a not-for-profit social enterprise, we exist purely to improve the lives of Australia’s children and their families, particularly the most vulnerable. More: https://goodstart.org.au/About-us Our purpose is to ensure children have the learning, development and wellbeing outcomes they need for school and life. Over the past year, Goodstart has continued to embed evidence-informed practice to enhance child outcomes, advocated for improved access to quality early learning for all Australia’s children, and increased investment in professional development, quality and social inclusion initiatives and programs.
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Group membership
This charity is part of a group: Goodstart Early Learning_ACNC Group. Other members of the group include:
Goodstart Early Years Limited Goodstart Early Learning Ltd Big Fat Smile Group Ltd
Outcomes
Outcomes are self-reported by charities
Programs and activities
Name: Intensive Individual Support Plan
Classification: Child welfare (Human services > Family services > Child welfare)
Beneficiaries:- Early childhood - aged under 6
Name: Inclusive Practices Program
Classification: Child development (Human services > Family services > Child welfare > Child development)
Beneficiaries:- Early childhood - aged under 6
Name: Early Learning Fund
Classification: Early childhood education (Education > Primary and secondary education > Early childhood education)
Beneficiaries:- Early childhood - aged under 6
Name: Intensive and Targeted Support (Practice Inclusion Support Helpdesk, Allied Health, Social Inclusion
Classification: Child welfare (Human services > Family services > Child welfare)
Beneficiaries:- Early childhood - aged under 6
Name: First Nations Community of Practice
Classification: Social inclusion (Human rights > Diversity and intergroup relations > Social inclusion)
Beneficiaries:- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- Adults - aged 25 to under 65
- Early childhood - aged under 6
- Families
- Youth - 15 to under 25
Name: Professional Supervision
Classification: Social inclusion (Human rights > Diversity and intergroup relations > Social inclusion)
Beneficiaries:- Early childhood - aged under 6
Finances
What is this?
This graph shows how much revenue (money in) and expenses (money out) the charity has had each year over the last few years. Charities have many sources of revenue, such as donations, government grants, and services they sell to the public. Similarly, expenses are everything that allows the charity to run, from paying staff to rent.
What should I be looking for?
First off, this graph gives a general indication of how big the charity is - charities range in size from tiny (budgets of less than $100,000) to enormous (budgets more than $100 million). You're also looking for variability - if the charity's revenue and expenses are jumping up and down from year to year, make sure there's a good reason for it.
Unlike companies, charities and not-for-profits aren't on a mission to make money. However, if they spend more than they receive, eventually they will go into too much debt and run into trouble. As a very general rule, you want revenue to be slightly above expenses. If expenses is reliably above revenue, the charity is losing money. If revenue is much larger than expenses, it means the charity might not be using its resources effectively. It isn't always that simple, however, and there's a lot of reasons a charity might not follow this pattern. They might be saving up for a big purchase or campaign, or they might have made a big one-off payment. If you're worried, always look at the annual and financial reports to understand why the charity is making the decisions it is.
What is this?
If a charity receives more money than it spends, that's a surplus (in business, it would be called profit). If it spends more than it receives, that's a deficit. This chart shows surpluses and deficits for the charity over the last few years.
What should I be looking for?
Unlike companies, charities and not-for-profits aren't on a mission to make money. However, if they spend more than they receive, eventually they will go into too much debt and run into trouble. As a very general rule, you want a charity to make a small surplus on average. A deficit means that charity lost money that year, which may indicate poor financial management or just a series of bad circumstances. If the charity always has a huge surplus, it means the charity might not be using its resources effectively. It isn't always that simple, however, and there's a lot of reasons a charity might not follow this pattern. They might be saving up for a big purchase or campaign, or they might have made a big one-off payment. If you're worried, always look at the annual and financial reports to understand why the charity is making the decisions it is.
What is this?
This chart compares the amount the charity receives from various sources, including donations (i.e. money given by the general public or philanthropy), goods and services, government grants, and other sources.
What should I be looking for?
Donations are an important source of revenue for some charities. Others rely more heavily on government funding, or on revenue from other sources. This is an indication of how much they need donors to accomplish their mission. Note that there is no 'good' or 'bad' amount of donations for a charity to have. It might be interesting to look at values over time - are they going up or down? A charity that gets less donations every year may be in trouble.
What is this?
Assets are things that the charity owns that are worth something. This could be anything from a car to investments. Similarly, liabilities are debts or obligations that the charity owes to someone else, like a loan or an agreement to pay for something.
What should I be looking for?
Firstly, in general a charity should have more assets than liabilities. If it doesn't, it implies that the charity might not be able to pay its debts, and you should look very closely at the charity's annual and financial reports to make sure they are taking steps to remedy this. Current assets should generally be above current liabilities - that means the charity can easily pay off the debts that are coming due soon. Beyond that, look for a large stockpile of assets. While a charity should have enough assets to keep it afloat in hard times (a 'buffer') if that stockpile gets too large the charity could be using that money more effectively. As always, if you have concerns check the annual and financial reports.
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