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Analysing the Efficiency and Sustainability of Australian Charities

This post was originally published on The Data School blog between 2018 and July 2025, before our program was renamed to MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. References throughout this article to “The Data School” or “DS” all refer to what is now MIP’s Analytics Career Accelerator. The program, its people, and its commitment to launching outstanding analytics careers remain the same – just under a new name.

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I’m excited to share my first blog in the Dashboard Week project – a comprehensive analysis of charity organizations across Australia. This analysis focuses on the financial efficiency and sustainability of these charities, offering a new perspective on their operations and impact.

In this dashboard, I utilized a comprehensive dataset from the year 2017 to 2019, encompassing various Australian charities and focusing on their activities and locations. I have applied several financial metrics for thorough analysis:

  1. Sustainability Ratio: Total Revenue / Total Expenses.
  2. Self-sufficiency Ratio: (Revenue from Goods and Services + Revenue from Investments) / Total Revenue.
  3. Cost Per Dollar Raised: Employee Expenses / Total Revenue.
  4. ROI for Employee Expenses: Net Surplus/Deficit / Employee Expenses.
  5. Employee Expense Ratio: Employee Expenses / Total Expenses.

Based on these metrics, each charity is assigned a score that reflects its financial health and operational efficiency.

 

Conclusion

This project has been a revealing journey into the financial workings of Australian charities. The scoring system offers a clear, quantifiable way to understand each charity’s effectiveness and areas for improvement.

I encourage you to explore the dashboard and see how different charities perform.

 

 

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