Philanthropy in Focus: 2025 Outlook on Policy, Impact & Sector Shifts

Nicole is a Director with a broad commercial practice including technology law, not-for-profit and charity law, tax, general commercial and corporate advisory.

Her experience includes advising clients on software development and licensing arrangements (including mobile app development), privacy compliance and data, complex structuring matters involving corporate governance issues and tax implications and mergers and restructures.

She has extensive experience acting for clients in relation to matters specific to not-for-profits and charity law, including structuring of charities and obtaining endorsements for public benevolent institutions and health promotion charities, governance and constitution reviews, assisting incorporated associations and letters patent entities in transferring to companies limited by guarantee, establishing and operating public and private ancillary funds, school structuring and accreditation, establishing public funds (including scholarship funds, school buildings funds etc), fundraising compliance, stamp duty concessions and ACNC and ATO compliance.

Nicole is passionate about helping her clients identify and resolve problems and devise strategies to enable them to achieve their desired outcomes.

Nicole holds a Bachelor of Law (Hons) and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Queensland and a Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne.

Sue Woodward AM commenced as Commissioner of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) on December 12, 2022. Previously she was Chief Adviser for Not-for-profit Law with the charity Justice Connect.

Sue was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in 2021 for “significant service to the not-for-profit sector, fundraising and the law.”

Sue played an instrumental role in the formation of the ACNC, serving as the inaugural Director of Policy and Education during the early years of the Commission.

She has been involved with a number of leadership bodies including: the Victorian Government Volunteer Strategy Taskforce, the Victorian Government’s Social Services Regulator Taskforce and the National Strategy for Volunteering Council.

In pursuit of a stronger, more resilient sector, Sue also contributed to the governance of organisations in the sector, most recently sitting on the boards of the Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS), the Human Rights Law Centre and the Australian Communities Foundation, and previously SANE Australia.

As an academic at Melbourne Law School, she made a seminal contribution to reform of the regulation for the charity and not-for-profit sector with her 2004 research report: ‘A Better Framework: reforming the not-for-profit regulation’. Justice Connect’s Not-for-Profit Law service was established in 2008 based on her research recommendations.

Sue is also a staunch supporter of reducing unnecessary regulatory obligations on the sector. She has worked with an alliance of peak bodies and federal and state governments to make modernised and harmonised fundraising laws a priority.

Emeritus Professor Myles McGregor-Lowndes OAM is the former Director of The Australian Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies (ACPNS). He has written extensively about nonprofit tax and regulation, nonprofit legal entities, and government grants. He is a founding member of the ATO Charities Consultative Committee and the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission Advisory Board. In June 2003, Myles was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) “For service to the community by providing education and support in legal, financial and administrative matters to nonprofit organisations.”. In 2023, he was reappointed to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission Advisory Board.

Before co-founding JBWere Philanthropic Services in 2001, John spent 16 years as a financial analyst and manager in the firm’s Resource Research group.

John produces the leading research reports for the trends in the for-purpose and philanthropy sectors. He is also responsible for compiling the list of Australia’s major philanthropists for the Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) annual special, Philanthropy 50, as well as Australia’s top 50 companies for corporate community investment, published in the AFR’s Boss magazine. He is a Board Director for Summer Housing and Philanthropy Australia.