Hanna Ebeling
The Federal budget has come under criticism for not updating Deductable Gift Recipient (DGR) status to include more charities.
The DGR acts as a bottleneck that disproportionately affects smaller, less established, community-scale organisations. However, most charities face a bigger, systemic issue that sees them fall through the cracks of the investment sector, according to the Australian Charities Report – 12th Edition. It revealed that small or extra small charities make up 60%[1] of all charities, yet account for just 1.4%[1] of the sector’s revenue.
“The funds are there, charity sector revenue outpaced the economy in 20251. The performance is there, with impact investing products increasing in value eight-fold[2] in the last five years. What isn’t in place is the adoption of the right funding and capability building model to derisk investment and meet grant conditions,” says impact lender, Sefa’s CEO, Hanna Ebeling.
“Community scale organisations are seen as “too small” or “too risky” for large investors on one hand, while on the other, they are held to government grant conditions they cannot meet,” Ms Ebeling adds.
Sefa says the solution is ‘Impact Stacking’ – an integrated approach that combines flexible impact-first finance, deep advisory & capability building, and sequenced capital across government, philanthropy and private sectors. This ensures organisations get the right funding at the right time.
It’s a model that works, with an average revenue growth of 20 per cent across the organisations Sefa works with.
Sefa believes that Impact Stacking has the power to transform impact investing and is committing to unlock $500m in capital by 2030 to prove it, adds Ms Ebeling:
“Impact Stacking opens community scale organisations to institutional investment in a way that hasn’t been done before. We’ve seen it work and now we need the investment community to get on board,” says Ms Ebeling.
“Too many impact organisations doing vital work on-the-ground can’t get the capital they need. Charities are under increasing financial pressures driven by higher demand as Australians struggle with the cost-of-living, as well as higher operating costs. In 2025, sector expenses rose by 8.5 per cent1. We need to find a solution for these vital services now.”
“We set up Sefa to prove that you can back purpose and performance together. The Commonwealth Government stepped in with $10 million, which we matched with another $10 million to start an evergreen fund connecting philanthropy and mainstream finance. Today we have provided a 16x return on the government’s original outlay. Our mission now is to change the way investment flows to all community-scale organisations to unlock their social impact and investment potential,” Ms Ebeling concludes.
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