View QSA Statement of Purpose.

About Quaker Service Australia

Quaker Service Australia (QSA) was formally established in 1959 as the aid and development agency of the religious Society of Friends in Australia, also known as Quakers. Its origins go back to 1940 when Quakers in Australia expressed concern for providing relief to its near neighbours as Australia ‘must develop good relations with all our Pacific neighbours’, as recorded by minutes of Australian Quakers in 1940.

Early projects would today be categorised as emergency relief rather than development. However, QSA has recognised its organisational strengths currently lie in long-term relationships with grass-roots community groups, therefore long-term, locally led projects form the basis of QSA’s portfolio.

QSA partners with established local secular Community Based Organisations (CBOs), NGOs or provincial government departments. Within each country, project partners of varying capacity are supported. Meetings with the QSA project manager encourage mutual sharing of knowledge and understanding, and the potential for joint activities.

QSA does not practise or accept its project partners proselytising, and it has no project partners who are created with a spiritual belief focus. It does not operate any offices overseas; all development work is managed from the QSA office in Australia. Staff managing projects are hired using an open recruitment process, and most are non-Quaker. To learn more about the projects we support, click here.

The projects are community-led, created in response to expressed community needs, and with designed collaboratively by project partner organisations and QSA.  All projects approved for funding sit within the sectors of focus determined by the QSA Board and in the geographic regions where QSA has experience and understanding, and preferably where a project partner already exists.  This has proven to be a positive approach for all concerned, and adds to QSA’s overall learning. QSA’s work is linked to the values of the organisation and development effectiveness principles, which are fundamental to the approach taken by QSA in its development work.

To see our Constitution, please click here.

Each year, QSA produces an Annual Financial report, in accordance with the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Code of Conduct. To view our financial statements and Annual Reports, click here.

How is QSA accountable to its donors?

QSA keeps regular contact with its donors and those with an interest in its work via the QSA Newsletters, and the QSA Notes which reach a broader readership, talks to Quaker Meetings and community groups.

This website is another way, and the Annual Report gives details of the projects and their achievements in the past year, about the Management Committee, and a copy of the full audited accounts.

QSA is a member of the Australian Council for International development or ACFID, and each year completes an extensive assessment of its compliance to the ACFID Code of Conduct with which QSA has been happy to be associated since its inception.

The major single donor to support QSA’s work is the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In order to receive funding from DFAT, and its predecessor AusAID, it is necessary to complete a rigorous process of accreditation.

See our GRIEVANCES HANDLING, COMPLAINTS AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION POLICY here.