Pay What It Takes: Building a brand that sparked a sector-wide movement
When the sector starts competing to spend less on itself
For years, Australian charities have been caught in a quiet but damaging cycle.
In an effort to appear efficient, organisations tend to minimise how they talk about overhead costs. They reduce complex, essential investments into a single number to be kept as low as possible. Over time, this reinforces a public narrative that the “best” charities were those that spent the least on themselves.
The result? A sector-wide “starvation cycle” where underinvestment in people, systems and infrastructure limited charities’ ability to grow, innovate, and deliver long-term impact.
By 2023, this had reached a tipping point. A coalition of Australia’s leading fundraisers called the Pay What It Takes Charity Consortium, backed by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, came together with a shared ambition: to change how an entire sector thinks and talks about overhead.
But first, they needed to challenge a deeply held assumption that donors were driving the problem.
Proving the problem, and reframing it
To challenge this assumption, the Pay What It Takes Charity Consortium together with ntegrity designed and delivered a national research program bringing together literature, sector analysis, and primary research across across 95 fundraisers and over 1,200 donors.
What emerged was both clarifying and confronting.
Donors weren’t actively searching for overhead costs. Their behaviour didn’t match the long-held belief that low overhead drives giving. And when overhead was framed in terms of outcomes and impact, sentiment shifted positively.
At the same time, the data showed fundraisers were ready for change but lacked the tools, language and collective confidence to lead it.
This wasn’t a donor problem to solve.
It was a narrative the sector needed to rewrite, together.
Turning insight into a brand that sparked a movement
With the evidence clear, the challenge became bigger than research. The sector didn’t just need to understand the problem. It needed a shared way to act on it.
Together, we created a unifying platform: Reframe Overhead.
More than a campaign, it was designed as a sector-wide brand and movement, giving fundraisers the language, confidence and collective backing to shift how overhead is communicated.
At its centre was a comprehensive not-for-profit communications guide, translating complex research into clear, practical action.
It equipped organisations to:
Reframe language - moving away from vague, limiting terms like “administration” toward clearer, impact-linked concepts like governance, fundraising and operational effectiveness
Reframe visualisation - replacing traditional pie charts with more transparent, meaningful breakdowns that show how investment drives outcomes
Reframe reporting - evolving annual reports into “impact reports” that clearly connect spend to mission, outcomes and societal change
Build internal buy-in - helping fundraisers bring leadership, boards and stakeholders on the journey
Crucially, this wasn’t about individual organisations changing in isolation.
The platform was built to enable collective action by creating consistency across the sector and giving fundraisers the confidence that they weren’t acting alone.
Launched at Australia’s leading fundraising and philanthropy conferences, Reframe Overhead quickly moved from idea to industry conversation.
And because it was grounded in robust research, fundraisers paid attention. It gave them the proof they needed to start changing how they communicate.
From sector conversation to long-term change
By giving fundraisers the tools, language and evidence to lead change internally and externally, Reframe Overhead is challenging long-held norms and moving the focus away from minimising cost toward maximising impact.
Early signs of behaviour change are already emerging.
Following the launch and a sector-wide pledge from 900+ fundraisers… a follow-up survey found that fundraisers have already begun changing how they communicate about overhead, with 43% of those who responded reporting:
More consistent inclusion of overhead in pitches and proposals
Positive feedback from donors and funders
Greater willingness from funders and partners to engage in conversations about overhead
And in 2026, the movement is extending beyond Australia and onto the global stage, including being shared at AFP ICON 2026, the largest fundraising conference in the United States.
Impact
Services USED
Brand Strategy and Design + Creative, content and video