I’m delighted to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming ProBonoEconos and Young Economists event on the so-called third sector of non-profit organisations and charities on the evening of Thursday 7 May at QUT:

2015 Qld Third Sector Economics Talks – Doing Good Well: Economics for Charities

Third sector organisations are increasingly being seen by governments as the best organisations to tackle social ills – a reflection of dis-satisfaction with big-government welfare-state policies. At the same time, however, cash-starved governments have cut funding to many non-profits in recent years, and non-profits are finding it hard to compete for philanthropic funding against an ever-growing number of other non-profits.

Given that economics is all about the best use of scarce resources, I think economists can make an important contribution to discussions on the future of non-profits, and hence I’d recommend this upcoming event. My fellow keynote speaker Peter Ball has had extensive experience in advising non-profits, and I’m very much looking forward to hearing about impact investment products, which I expect many small-to-medium non-profits would find rather exotic, but which, at the same time, may offer big opportunities.