We have played a trusted and pivotal role in fostering a more cohesive and informed community sector serving a wonderfully dynamic cohort of changemakers and purpose-driven individuals.

Established as a “social purpose business venture” in 2000 (before the term social Enterprise was commonly referred to), Karen Mahlab AM created a 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, 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 as one of Australias’ first BCorps for a decade.

For two decades for-purpose leaders found out all they needed to know about Australia’s social economy through Pro Bono Australia’s Media services and resources. A generation of people knew us as the “go to” source.

A major restructure was undertaken in 2023 to focus on building a strong revenue base and we shut down our Media service.

Our major focus is now on our high growth and engagement products including:.

We boast a large and loyal subscriber base of over 60,000 individuals working across the sector in Australia.

A bit more about our History

On 4 April 2023, Pro Bono Australia made the decision to close a number of our services. The decision was a difficult one. It came at a time when the financial challenges of providing a free news service were being experienced by Media companies around the globe.

As a social enterprise and one of Australia’s first BCorps we were never about making a profit or maximising profit, but we needed to be sustainable. We did everything we could to make this happen, including launching our paid subscriber model. However, despite our best efforts, News was no longer viable. This is a significant and ongoing issue for many media outlets in Australia and Globally.

In April 2023 we said farewell to: 

  • Our Pro Bono News and Good Business News Editions
  • Briefings with the Editor
  • Our Podcasts
  • Mentor the Treasurer
  • The Paid Subscription Model
  • Our Grants Page
  • The Source Guide
  • Our Impact 25 Awards

Some of our proudest achievements include: 

  • Surveys over time quoted on the floors of parliament, that influenced policy and government actions.
  • Publishing 18,000 news articles documenting everything that happened, every day, every week, all the way from 2001.
  • Hosting 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!
  • Hosting the Impact 25 Awards: over six years, 150 awardees, unearthing 2,182 grassroots activists, with 350,000 social media engagements each year – So much impact!
  • 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…
  • The publishing of Civil Voices, an research initiative catalysed with the Human Rights Law Centre in 2017
  • The many, many partnerships and collaborations we have forged every year that have existed in a spirit of collective action.
  • The beautiful ambition and hard work of our staff over time.

We celebrated this legacy in our final News edition on 4 April which you can read here.

Founder, Karen Mahlab AM

 

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

 

David Crosbie

CEO, Community Council for Australia

 

Armine Nalbandian

CEO, Centre for Social Impact

 

Jack Heath

CEO, Philanthropy Australia

 

David Spriggs

CEO, Infoxchange

 

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.”