Three reasons why InLife is a not-for-profit

A good friend told me they heard a respected figure in the disability sector sing our praises at a public forum. That was nice!

But a question from the audience stumped him: “Why are they not-for-profit?”

The simple answer is ‘quality’.

We set out to create the highest quality disability support agency we could. A key part of that is being a not-for-profit. Here are three reasons why:

1. Less tax means higher wages

As a not-for-profit, we’re exempt from payroll tax. In Victoria, payroll tax is 4.85% of wages. We pay that back to our team instead, helping to make our overall pay rates above the industry Award.

We’re also exempt from FBT, so our employees can get up to $17,000 ($15,900 + $2,650) untaxed income per year. In most cases, this can increase their take-home pay by another 10%.

The sector is government-funded, so why recycle tax dollars back to Canberra and Spring Street? Instead, we invest our tax savings directly into wages, so we can attract and retain a great team.

2. Our culture focuses on quality instead of profit

I spent most of my career in the private sector, so I know what it means to chase profits and growth. And yes, we do want to grow — it makes us more sustainable, and increases our impact.

But the key is how we spend our discretionary time. When you’re for-profit, you’re more likely to put that extra effort into growing the business and bottom line. Being not-for-profit helps us put our clients first.

It starts with our social mission, then influences the team we attract, the decisions of the leadership team and board, and quickly becomes part of our culture. It’s little things, like extra effort to match team members to specific needs, working after hours to backfill shifts, and helping to troubleshoot issues in clients’ lives. We’re stronger and put our clients first more often because we’re not-for-profit.

3. We collaborate for a shared purpose

More often than not, conversations about using our service become much easier when people find out we’re not-for-profit.

Why? Imagine you need personal care every day, for showering, dressing, getting in and out of bed, and so forth.

Then imagine you’ve decided it’s time to change your support provider.

That’s a really big deal. They’ll bring new people, new ways of working and maybe new rules into your home and personal routine. Heck, most of us find it hard enough to change our brand of toilet paper!

In choosing a new provider, I’ve seen people become very wary about for-profit companies. They’re worried that profit and growth might come before their own needs — quite rightly, too.

But when they understand we’re not-for-profit, the conversation turns much more easily to how we can help meet their specific needs. It helps build the trust that is crucial in working together to design and deliver the best quality service we can.

And when we do work together, this is the kind of feedback we get:

“I finally feel supported by a service provider and can see now what real service providers actually do. Completely different from what I'm used to.”

Don’t get me wrong, being not-for-profit is not all wine and roses. More red tape! More reporting and governance! My favourite things…

But it’s absolutely the right choice when quality is our number one priority.