Human Services Economic Paper 5: Myths and Biases Derailing Australian Human Service's Sustainability

Numerous myths have emerged over time in relation to how the Third or Nonprofit sector operates, what its resources needs are and what it contributes to the community. In turn, these myths drive the development and pursuit of unfounded biases in public policy and practice. These in turn serve to distort policy makers’, governments’ and sector actors’ perceptions and understandings of the sector’s operational challenges and contributions. These beliefs go largely unchallenged due primarily to the short-term focus on the sector and funded programs. As such, they permeate policy making, public opinion and political discourse. These biases rely on assumptions and misperceptions that have real world effects on the quality, timeliness and quantity of human services in Australia—in other words, on the sector’s sustainability. This paper highlights these myths, linking them to the biases they inform in policy targeted towards nonprofit human service organisations. The unintended consequences of these biases act to constrain and inject instability into the sector and, as we suggest, are the core drivers of many of the adverse conditions experienced. Thus, they are detrimental to the objectives of governments because they limit the sector’s ability to respond to need in society. Put another way, a line must be drawn between what is necessary to meet short-term need and the capacity required to generate high quality systematic change so that the Australian nonprofit human services sector can become sustainable and continue to impact the lives of vulnerable Australians positively.