ABSTRACT
Community services abut and overlap the health, education, employment services, housing and recreation industries in particular. Third sector providers of community services, generally referred to as community organisations or the community sector, vary greatly in their size and scope. The great majority of community organisations are local in focus and reputation. Many of even the largest are barely known outside their own state. The first two of these are Australian branches of organisations with headquarters in the United States and Belgium respectively: the nonprofit equivalent of a multinational. Despite the continuing strong local and state focus of community organisations, it is possible to detect a small but growing interest in developing a national perspective, even national organisations. Community organisations draw their income from a large variety of sources. They provide the most complete illustration of the complexity of revenue sources that is one of the defining characteristics of the nonprofit sector.
