GetUp ‘could struggle to cover $7m wage bill’

GetUp’s income from donations has slid to the point where the group could struggle to cover its wage bill, campaigners say.

The financial report’s confirmation of a $7.2m salary bill last year — for more than six GetUp ­execs, including national ­director Paul Oosting - has kicked off debate. Picture: AAP

GetUp’s income from public ­donations has slid to the point where the activist group could struggle to cover its $7.2m wage bill, some of its disillusioned campaigners say.

The left-leaning group’s “real-time” donations figures, which are updated online daily, indicate its earnings, averaged over a year, are currently in a range of $6m to $8.4m.

Longtime GetUp campaigners told The Australian that they ­accepted donations would be lower than the $12.4m received last year because it was not an election year.

But they linked an apparent dip in regular direct-debit contributions and other donations to internal concerns raised about GetUp’s high running costs, ­alleged lack of financial transparency and poor results from federal election campaign efforts last year.

The Australian reported on Monday that GetUp spent more than 70 per cent of the $12.4m in public donations raised last year on staff salaries, administration costs and travel, despite telling supporters in its online funding appeals that “every dollar” would be used to build a fairer Australia “with spending on billboards, hard-hitting ads and rallies”.

B a l a n c e s h e e t

According to GetUp’s 2019 ­audited financial report, the group spent $3.6m of its annual donations total on “campaign ­expenses” while outlaying $7.2m for salaries, $1.4m for administration, $806,000 for rent and $507,00 for travel.

GetUp says 89 per cent of its total spending last year was ­“related to campaigns”. These figures are drawn from its 2019 ­annual report, including the total salary bill for staff and other back room costs.

The financial report’s confirmation of a $7.2m salary bill last year — for more than six GetUp ­executives, including national ­director Paul Oosting, and about 50 other lower-level campaign staff — has kicked off debate among the group’s supporters about how donations are spent and whether $3.2m directed at frontline campaign expenses last year was an acceptable proportion of the $12.4m raised from donations.

According to GetUp’s own “real-time” donation figures, the group raised $20,327 over its most recent 24-hour fundraising ­period (equivalent to $7.4m annually), $116,110 over the previous week ($6.03m) and $704,105 over the previous month ($8.4m).

The $20,327 raised in 24 hours was a jump of about $8200 on the previous day, which GetUp insiders said could reflect rallying support among core backers following Monday’s report in The Australian about last year’s $7.2m salaries bill.

Mr Oosting told The Australian he disagreed with the assessment of some GetUp campaign insiders that donations were down compared with last year, with almost $1m a month needed to cover running costs.

“No, that’s not correct,” he said. “GetUp has robust corporate governance and financial controls that ensure we can campaign on the issues members care about now and in the future.”

Considerable soul searching has gone on inside GetUp since the May election about the results of campaign efforts against the Coalition, with Tony Abbott the only targeted MP to lose his seat.

The Australian has obtained correspondence from GetUp’s “Slack” internal communications system in which a Brisbane supporter complained to GetUp’s economic fairness campaigns ­director, Ed Miller, about a “lack of transparency”, “dysfunction” and voting cards that were “off-topic and irrelevant” to local voters last year. Disillusioned GetUp campaigners, some of whom have quit the group since the election, said they accepted Mr Miller had responded sympathetically to the complainant.

But they claimed his acknowledgment that a lot of volunteers and paid staff were “feeling a bit burnt and burned out” after strategic errors, and an over-reliance on polling had led to tactical mistakes and campaign efforts in the wrong places, was also borne out in a donations slide.

Protests from GetUp supporters about the resourcing of campaigns and their difficulties in obtaining information on how campaign money is spent have come from volunteers in Brisbane, Gosford, Wollongong and Canberra. GetUp uses various figures to describe its “membership” numbers, saying last year they were “a million-strong”, “1.45 million” or specifically “998,652”.

The group also quotes different figures in its annual report, saying there were 70,000 individual donors last year, with 15,417 “core” members making small regular contributions totalling $4.3m. GetUp’s company structure allows for only nine members on its board who control its operations, and three founding members. All others are supporters with no voting rights.

GetUp sources said the group’s campaign support base was closer to 9000, based on the number of volunteers for doorknocking and phone polling for the May election.

Mr Oosting has declined repeatedly to respond to questions about whether some concerns have been raised internally about spending. He has also declined to disclose salaries for GetUp executives including himself, or how they compared with others in the charity and not-for-profit sector.