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about the cause
Why we became a
not-for-profit.
The story of Neta Care isn't a corporate origin story. It's a story about what we learned trying to deliver good care inside a funding system that wasn't built for it.
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The Beginning
We started as a private provider.
Neta Care was originally established as a private-sector provider of allied health, disability and aged care services. The thinking was simple: the work was needed, the people were ready, and the funding systems (NDIS, DVA, NIISQ, aged care) existed to pay for it.
What we discovered, in the actual delivery of care, was that the funding systems were designed around averages. They worked reasonably well for the average participant. They struggled for everyone else. And in the disability and aged care space, "everyone else" is a lot of people.
We kept saying yes anyway. We kept matching support professionals carefully. We kept showing up when the system fell short. And we watched our margins disappear, not because we were running inefficiently, but because the cost of good care exceeded what the system actually funded.
The Tier System
Why NDIS Tier 1 to 3 funding doesn't add up.
Inside the NDIS, support is delivered at different intensity tiers, each with a different funded rate. On paper, this looks like a sensible system: simpler needs get simpler rates, complex needs get higher rates. In practice, it routinely under-funds the work.
Tier 1: standard support
Funded at a rate that assumes minimal training, minimal supervision and minimal continuity. The rate covers a casual workforce with limited career investment. For participants whose needs genuinely are standard, this works. For everyone else, the gap appears immediately.
Tier 2: moderate complexity
Funded slightly higher, but still based on a model where most of the cost is the support hour itself. It does not adequately fund the time required for planning, family liaison, transitions, plan reviews and the dozens of small coordination tasks that turn services into actual support.
Tier 3: high complexity
Funded at a higher hourly rate, but the underlying assumption is still wrong. Participants at Tier 3 often need senior clinical input, behaviour support consults, allied health coordination and 24/7 backup. The Tier 3 rate is rarely sufficient to cover all of that and still pay support professionals what they are worth.
The result, across the sector, is providers either cutting corners on care, paying support staff poorly, leaving plans under-delivered, or absorbing losses. None of those outcomes are acceptable, and yet they are routine.
The Beginning
We started as a private provider.
Neta Care was originally established as a private-sector provider of allied health, disability and aged care services. The thinking was simple: the work was needed, the people were ready, and the funding systems (NDIS, DVA, NIISQ, aged care) existed to pay for it.
What we discovered, in the actual delivery of care, was that the funding systems were designed around averages. They worked reasonably well for the average participant. They struggled for everyone else. And in the disability and aged care space, "everyone else" is a lot of people.
We kept saying yes anyway. We kept matching support professionals carefully. We kept showing up when the system fell short. And we watched our margins disappear, not because we were running inefficiently, but because the cost of good care exceeded what the system actually funded.
When Funding Gets Cut
The other story you don't hear about.
Even when a plan is funded adequately on day one, plans get reviewed. Plans get reduced. Plans get reassessed by people who have never met the participant, sometimes based on policy changes upstream that have nothing to do with the person in front of us.
We have watched participants lose substantial funding mid-plan. We have watched families discover, days before a key appointment, that the funding to attend it has been cut. We have watched support arrangements that took months to build collapse in a single phone call from a planner.
In each of those moments, we had a choice. Withdraw the support and protect our margins, or keep showing up and absorb the gap. We kept showing up. We always will. But it cannot keep being a one-provider problem.
The Decision
So we became a not-for-profit.
Becoming a registered NFP is not a marketing decision. It is a structural one. As an NFP, every dollar of surplus is legally required to flow back into support services, staff development and community care. There is no shareholder to pay. There is no exit. There is only the work.
The NFP structure also lets the public become part of the solution. With DGR endorsement, every donation is tax deductible, and we can invite the broader community to help close the gap that the system, on its own, doesn't close.
We hope this work also inspires others, both in our sector and in business communities, to look at where their own resources can complement and supplement the work providers like us are doing. The funding system is what it is. The gap is what it is. The people in the gap are real.
Care before profit, always. As a registered NFP, every dollar of surplus is reinvested directly into support services, staff development and community care.
The Neta Care Commitment
Now you know why.
Stand with care this EOFY. Your tax-deductible donation helps keep Australian care available where the funding system stops short.
Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.
