Improving on-time submission rates for charity Annual Information Statements: a randomised trial

The Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE) worked with the Australian Charities and Not‑for‑profits Commission (ACNC) to see if a simple reminder could help charities submit their yearly reports on time.

Every year, charities in Australia must submit an Annual Information Statement (AIS). Even though the ACNC sends regular reminders, many charities still miss the deadline. The goal is for at least 75 per cent of charities to submit on time.

To test a new approach, ACE and the ACNC ran a trial. They looked at 15,000 charities that had not submitted their AIS by 3 January 2025. Half of these charities got an extra reminder email sent directly to someone in charge. The other half didn’t get this extra reminder. The trial was registered in a pre-analysis plan and approved by an independent ethics committee.

Key findings

The results showed the extra email worked. The number of charities submitting on time went up from 56.4 per cent to 62 per cent – an increase of 5.6 percentage points.

Charities who got the extra reminder submitted their reports about 3 days earlier, on average.

This worked across all types of charities, including:

• small, medium and large charities
• volunteer-run groups
• incorporated associations
• religious organisations.

The trial shows that a simple extra reminder to someone responsible can make a big difference – and that testing ideas like this can help improve how rules and systems work.