We are spread across continents and operate completely virtually. We love that we’ve built a team that can be and work anywhere in the world.
Our community is a network of senior decision makers and community sector leaders, many of whom have been with us as readers and participants in Pro Bono Australia's activities over decades. Some have been with us since our inception in 1999! See more on our audience here
For those who have known us for decades we look very different now than we did a few years ago. Yes. Times change. But ethics, a commitment to quality, and values do not, so we remain as committed to delivering as high a quality of information and service in our Salary Survey and Jobs Board as we ever have.
For over two and a half decades Pro Bono Australia has been a preeminent voice for Australia' s Social Economy, publishing media, jobs and resources for the common good.
So much history…..
Established as a “social purpose business venture” in 2000 (before the term social Enterprise was commonly referred to), we created an information hub that gave voice to the emergence of many new movements now thriving in the social economy: collective impact, impact investing, social enterprise, philanthropy, corporate and virtual volunteering, corporate social responsibility, shared value, impact measurement and more delivering information, products and services annually to millions of Australians working in the Not for Profit and for Purpose sectors. We were one of Australia' s first BCorporations.
A generation of people knew us as the “go to” source for, well, everything to do with Not for Profit and Purpose: News, Jobs, and many resources.
Karen Mahlab, our Founder described running Pro Bono Australia as like riding a horse: the two reins being Impact and Income. To move the horse ahead you need to manage both whilst keeping the horse riding straight and at speed. A difficult task which we’ve managed for many years.
We survived as a social business by developing ethical commercial products and services to support our many free resources such as Pro Bono News which was the Australia's preeminent sector News Service over the decades.
We created the Impact 25 Awards and fought for the right of the sector to speak for itself.
We were instrumental in voicing the sector's push to establish the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission; our surveys quoted on the floor of Federal Parliament.
We published 18,000 news articles documenting everything that happened, every day, every week, all the way from 2001 to 2023.
We hosted hundreds of webinars, exploring topics throughout the for-purpose world, with too many phenomenal speakers to count. We had 2,877 attendees in 2022 alone.
Hosted the https://probonoaustralia.wixsite.com/impact25-probonoaust: over six years, 150 awardees, unearthing 2,182 grassroots activists, with 350,000 social media engagements each year. The Impact 25 Awards recognised the inspirational people in Australia's social sector that do amazing and often unrecognised work.
Our podcasts: “How can I help?”, “Leading Generous Teams” and our series of 28 “Not for Podcast” episodes which covered broad issues such as homelessness, the NDIS, social enterprise, gambling
We published Civil Voices, a research initiative catalysed with the Human Rights Law Centre in 2017. 1462 respondents took part (30% were CEOs). The report detailed the growing fears across the NGO sector concerning their right to advocate in the public policy domains of most concern to them, and more broadly about their changing role in the democratic process.
See more here: For what we achieved and for how our past achievements have been remembered. Hear statements from the responsible Minister for Charities (2023 - ) Andrew Leigh and Sue Woodward, The ACNC Commissioner (2024 -).
To contact us email admin@probonoaustralia.com.au
Hear what sector leaders had to say about the changes at Pro Bono Australia.
Andrew Leigh
Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury
Sue Woodward AM
Commissioner, ACNC
Read these love letters from our readers…
“Thank you for the 22 years that you have invested to support the NGO sector. Your time, energy and finances have been enormous. Your decision leaves a big hole which I can only hope will be filled by others who understand the critical role that you played.”
“Your emails have provided scope and voice to many stories which I and others would not have otherwise known… The closure of your service continues the limitations of free media unfortunately these days and I will certainly feel the loss. Thank you for all the years of hard work and fantastic material.”
“Pro Bono has provided a comprehensive and invaluable service over all these years. It is a disgrace that it is not adequately funded to provide its services to the NFP sector but also to the avid readers drawn from the government and business sectors. Best wishes to all of you.”
“Pro Bono News has been such a great informative resource, I actually file every edition I’ve received since beginning in the NFP sector into an email folder. I’ve referenced this news countless times with colleagues and external stakeholders. It will be sadly missed.”
“I think I can speak for all of us who have gained wisdom and sourced vital information that’s supported our work, our heartfelt thanks to you all. Warmest wishes from a grateful but deeply saddened reader.”
“Your news service has been valued by our organisation greatly as it helped us keep up to date with the broader operating and strategic environment for NFPs.”
“I wanted to say a big thank you for this service that you’ve provided to the sector over many years. While I’ve been aware of your work to some extent over the past 17 years of being in the environment space, I only really discovered your news service and the benefits of this in the last year or two since starting a new NGO. The service you provided has enabled me to see our organisation as part of a much broader sector, to observe shared challenges and opportunities, and to learn from others in the NFP space who I would otherwise never connect with… I recognise this will have been a very challenging decision and time for you, but I hope you are incredibly proud of what you’ve achieved, and I am certainly very grateful to have found you and learnt so much from your stories and curation… Thank you again for all you’ve provided to us learners and leaders in the sectors. I really do appreciate it.”
“So very sorry to hear this news – I’ve relied on the Pro Bono News to report things I’d otherwise never hear about, both good and bad. I wish you all well, but do feel it’s a very big loss to the sector.”
“I was very sad to read about the decision to close the PB News service. I’ve been reading the emails for years and they have always helped me to feel connected to the broader community sector, particularly as a sole operator in a regional area. Thank you for this wonderful service.”
“I was really sad to read that Pro Bono will be saying goodbye to the news service. I’m a former journalist myself and know it’s such a tough time for the industry. We’ll definitely miss these updates – it’s been unparalleled in terms of the quality and relevance of news and information.”