| Last Updated: | 28 March 2024 |
| Purpose: | Outlines Mary MacKillop Today’s approach to managing non-development activities. |
| Additional Authority: | ACFID |
| Scope: | Any Representative of Mary MacKillop Today. |
| Responsible Party: | International Programs and Quality Director |
Mary MacKillop Today is committed to ensuring that we accurately represent our activities through the separation of development activities from non-development activities in our operations and to ensuring that funds and other resources designated for the purpose of aid and development will be used only for those purposes.
Given our mission, Mary MacKillop Today is committed to supporting the most vulnerable and marginalised in communities. At times this may require a compassionate response that whilst supporting the inherent dignity of people, may not in the long term change their situation or contribute to alleviating poverty. The assistance provided reduces the burden of poverty and gives short term relief.
Therefore, Mary MacKillop Today does undertake some non-development activities including welfare and community support. Mary MacKillop Today does not undertake any faith-based activities or activities designed to promote a particular religious adherence as outlined below. Mary MacKillop Today does not support activities that promote a particular political party or candidate.
There are activities supported by Mary MacKillop Today where people are given direct assistance and these fall under the category of welfare. Mary MacKillop Today currently supports some welfare projects. These projects are supported on the basis that at times short term relief is necessary in order to keep people alive.
Mary MacKillop Today’s community support projects are those projects where often the most vulnerable in communities are being supported and cared for, but they do not meet all the criteria for development (i.e. they are not self-sustaining). Mary MacKillop Today understands that these projects will not bring about long-term change, so they are not considered development programs and are not funded out of tax deductible funds.
Mary MacKillop Today achieves this commitment by:
- Making the separation of development and non-development clear in all fundraising, program documentation and other activities, in public communication and in all reporting including expenditure reports and annual reports.
- Providing donors with the choice of contributing to development activities in fundraising solicitations that include references to both development and non-development activities.
- Documenting the separation in fundraising, programs and other activities, in public communication and in reporting.
- Reviewing all communications materials to ensure this separation is clear prior to publication
- Ensuring funds raised for non-development activities are tracked, managed, reported and accounted for separately to those raised for development and humanitarian components.
- Ensuring the separation of development and non-development activities in our programs
- Appraising all project design documents to determine whether they include non-aid and development components and including potential risk areas in the project risk analysis
- Monitoring policy implementation through regular project site visits and by advertising Mary MacKillop Today’s Feedback and Complaints Policy (2.3) to ensure primary stakeholders have an avenue to report a breach of the Non-Development policy
- Extending the separation of development and non-development activities to partners
- Ensuring this separation of funds and activities is clear in our annual signed program agreement with partners and country offices and providing partners with a copy of this policy
- Undertaking partnercapacity assessments which identify whether the partner is engaged in non-development activities, and if so, how it is able to manage and account for them separately to aid and development activity
- Partnership agreements include a clause on clear separation (through policy and guidelines) between aid and development and non-aid and development objectives and activities.
- Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with partners to reinforce the definitions of development and non-development activity and the need for a separation between development and non-development activity.
Representative:
Any person acting on behalf or under the name of Mary MacKillop Today including Board Members, volunteers, contractors, consultants, partners and staff
