The ACNC is embarking on an exciting new initiative to improve our (and the public's) understanding of what a charity 'actually does'.

We are looking for a consultant who has demonstrated experience in eliciting and documenting IT business requirements for government agencies to help us achieve this vision.

1. The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the independent national regulator of charities.
2. Each year, charities are required to submit an Annual Information Statement (AIS), which is available in various formats:

• online (approximately 82 per cent of AIS submissions are online)
• excel spreadsheet (about 17 per cent of AIS submissions are completed via excel), and
• paper (around 1 per cent of submissions are via paper).

The AIS collects a range of information, including information on a charity’s activities.

1. The ACNC operates a free online Charity Register - this allows donors, government and members of the public to search for a charity and view details of that charity. Information from the AIS is used to populate the Charity Register.
2. The current data collected through the AIS does not provide the ACNC or the public (including donors) with sufficient understanding of what a charity ‘actually does’.
3. The ACNC is therefore embarking on a new initiative to improve our understanding of what a charity does (‘the work of a charity’) by changing the way we collect data. The ACNC envisions that charities will report based on each of their programs (currently, charities are only required to provide their main activities). Further information is available at Appendix A.
4. As part of this initiative, search functionality (for the Charity Register) will be improved. Donors will be able to search for a charity’s programs (based on a range of criteria), and will be able to identify like-for-like programs.