Nonprofit Simulation Lab

What happens when government funding falls?

Explore three years of simulated financial outcomes for 10,000 unique Australian charities.

What this is. An organisation-level financial microsimulation. Each of 10,000 distinct charities is followed for three projected years using its own recorded finances and financial changes seen in comparable charities from 2018 to 2024. It shows what happens to annual income and expenses when government revenue is reduced. It does not model leadership decisions, service delivery, cash exhaustion or closure, and it is not a forecast.

Choose a scenario
Main result
Cut explorer
Who is more exposed
Extra support
10,000 charities
Evidence and limits

This lab needs JavaScript to draw its charts. The plain-English report is available without it: read the report.

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Choose a scenario: slide the cut and watch the three years

Move the slider or jump to a simulated cut. Each square stands for 100 of the 10,000 charities: dark squares are in annual deficit with no cut, hatched orange squares are pushed into deficit by the cut. Your choices apply to every section below.

Cut to government funding

Funding pattern

What the cut, years and funding patterns mean

Only the cuts that were simulated are available, so there is nothing between the steps. The cut applies to a charity's government revenue, measured against that year's government revenue with no cut. It is the same percentage in every projected year and does not compound.

Years 1 to 3 are the three projected years after the 2024 starting accounts. Click a year's squares to use that year in the sections below.

Earlier funding pattern: how often charities start or stop receiving government revenue is taken from compatible historical examples ending between 2019 and 2021. 2024 funding pattern: uses more recent frequencies. Both keep the same older financial-transition examples. Neither is a forecast.

View as a table

Main result

Government-funding cut explorer

View the curve as a table

Who is more exposed?

Charities are grouped by where they started, using their recorded finances. The groups do not cover cause or geography, and registered addresses are not service locations, so neither is used. Every group is compared with the same charities when no cut is applied.

Compare charities by

What if extra support is added?

Extra grants are modelled as additional income after the cut. They do not restore the cut. Every comparison here uses a 15% cut to government funding and the projected year chosen above. The budget is a share of the loss a 15% cut causes in the starting year, so it is not a funding cut percentage.

Support budget (share of the starting-year loss from a 15% cut)

Include capped variants (advanced comparison)

Reading the comparison. A rule that avoids many annual deficits is not always the one that reduces the most deficit dollars. Support above a charity's same-year deficit is reported separately because its value, for example building a buffer, is not modelled. Grant timing, application success and recovery are not modelled, so these are accounting comparisons, not statements about services.

The 10,000 charities as dots

Each dot is one simulated charity from a single simulation (replication 42 of 5), so counts here can differ slightly from the five-simulation averages above. Dot positions are shuffled and fixed: the same position is the same simulated charity in every scenario. No names, ABNs or financial records are shown.

Evidence and limitations

The detail behind the numbers, kept short here and in full in the report.