Raisera McCulloch:

Growing up in Australia as a migrant Pasifika woman, giving was a cultural and a faith-based practice in our family. I was born on Nauru and came to live in Australia; my mother is English, and my dad’s heritage is from the small Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu. Giving was a normal part of life. It was just the way we did family, culture and community.

My father taught me that when you recognise that something is needed or asked for, you always reciprocate immediately. It was an idea that I didn't articulate until later in life when I started working in philanthropy, because I had a childhood of giving being practiced daily. It was as natural as flexing a muscle. Coming from this background makes the work that I do very special, and that intersection of culture and faith is still the same intersection that comes into all my conversations around giving.

Raisera McCulloch:

I was working at the intersection of philanthropy and international development and was constantly immersed in conversations with communities that were doing so much with very little. From a funding perspective, it was difficult administratively to be able to put things together.

I had the opportunity to look at funding in a different way, by using culturally sensitive and appropriate behaviours to create grants for these communities, which made me think about the systems that were being used. And then we all hit 2020, and I found myself in lots of conversations around racial hierarchies, power dynamics and the idea that there is always an exchange. There was this question around how could giving be less about a transaction and more about a behaviour.

There were a lot of people, in both my faith community and my work life, where these conversations were becoming very open and sometimes very heavy. A Giving Circle was an opportunity for them to participate in something that looked like real, right-relationship philanthropy.

We started talking about power dynamics, not only in our individual giving, but how to shift from charity to solidarity in international development and the nonprofit sector. Although lots of people were having these conversations, there wasn’t a mechanism for them to action what they were feeling. It was like people were transitioning out of an amnesia about Australia's history and realising how mechanical we’d become in the way that we give.

My journey into collective giving came from wanting to create a mechanism that put that realisation into action, and to build a community that would walk alongside the conversations that needed to be had. I felt this real obligation to unify these tough conversations and to be somebody who had enough hope to put words into action. And I had this moment when I realised that it wasn’t actually that hard. A lot of people talk about it being difficult, but it didn’t have to be. I wanted to offer something to the people I cared about, who were feeling very lost about how to help First Nations people here in Australia and to open that door to anybody who is interested.

Raisera McCulloch:

It’s a community of everyday givers. And it’s based around the idea that there is a simple way to be part of regular giving as well as be a part of the ongoing conversation around what's happening for First Nations people in Australia. But there is also a connection to the stories that evolve from the recipients.  A real shift from project to people and identifying the power of story was really important.

As a community, we aim to build the bridge into those stories without burdening Indigenous groups. The essence of it being reciprocal is something, that for us as a collective, we get from giving to Indigenous people with no strings attached and we find that reciprocity in each other.

What's been interesting is that the givers are a mix of non-Indigenous and Indigenous, and those who have been involved in the co-creation and design have been Indigenous, not only to Australia but also people who have come to Australia from other places. The conversation around being a global Indigenous community of givers has been an interesting one for me.

For us, it’s about sharing what's happening in community. It’s a collective of people who are continuing to do projects with enough flexibility to always adapt to changing priorities. This lack of flexibility is a real restriction in other granting mechanisms and systems.

I have a full-time job so I can't focus on this full time, as much as I’d love to. But I have this deep obligation to keep chipping away. And the community is growing. Before the Indigenous Giving Circle became official, we were a casual group of people who began by supporting a local Aboriginal minister. He was not being remunerated for the work that he did and because there was a real misunderstanding culturally, the way in which he worked was not really valued.

I initially set up the Indigenous Giving Circle to support him for a portion of the year. He’s in his seventies and commented that receiving this money felt very different to the funding he had received from anywhere else over his lifetime. It felt like a real freedom for him to continue doing the work without having to tick any boxes. And so that was the whole purpose of the circle, to be untethered as much as it could be in the systems that we currently have to work within.

It's been a personal journey, that’s for sure. This wasn't a career move; it was a continuation of my identity story and cultural tale. I have been to several big events and realised that there’s not that many people in the room who look like me, both in terms of women and philanthropy and philanthropy in general.

I've learned a lot around valuing and loving my identity because it enables me to create ways for other people to feel the same. I’ve had to understand how I fit into this moment in time; how do I navigate these conversations and ask what part do I play?

The Indigenous Giving Circle has prompted me to move into a different stage in my own life. I’ve recognised that my identity as a woman is really important, not only to our First Nations people but also globally. It’s also made me recognise how I can begin to represent my culture and obligations to the Pacific and my homelands while understanding that Australia is where I live and where I've been nurtured, and that have a real responsibility to both.

Raisera McCulloch:

I've thought about this since I started the Indigenous Giving Circle. There's an intellectualising and a vernacular that happens around giving. But for me, it's more about understanding the behaviour around why we give and believing that the behaviour can change.

Transformation is the mechanism for me; to journey with people in conversations that change behaviour, which will transform giving in Australia. There's a lot of talk about where we got the money from and how we can give better, but nothing changes unless we transform into different behaviour. And we can be that change in community. I would like to see Australia understand the behaviour behind the way we currently give and transform it into something that allows us to care for each other in ways that we couldn't have imagined.

We also need more women in the room who look like me. It’s difficult not to feel like it’s about belonging, but it’s actually an invitation issue. As Indigenous women, we often do things because there's a force that allows us to do what we do, whether we are in the room or not. But I think we need more opportunity, encouragement and networking forums for women to support each other and continue the momentum of giving.  Things change when there's more visibility and more invitation, but momentum and growth will come from collaboration. The more women we have in these spaces, the more brown and black women will have the confidence of knowing that they don't have to do it alone.

Raisera McCulloch:

Ultimately, success would be for the recipients of the Indigenous Giving Circle to access more funding. To have more people in our giving circle, and to have more storytelling impacting people's lives, so they have less of an attachment to their wealth and giving.

I've always wanted to deconstruct the definition of wealth. One of the things that I’ve always known is that wealth is not monetary, and that whatever is attained or gathered needs to be shared amongst the community. We talk about that a lot, but there's not a lot of behaviour around what that looks like.

And it's about relationship, right? Trust comes in relationship. Creating the architecture for the Indigenous Giving Circle has been interesting to navigate because there's all these set ways in which you should and can build a giving circle. But often I need to think about the way in which I want to proceed to be making those decisions and whether it feels right in my stomach? I constantly wrestle with those two worlds and those two systems to be able to stay true to my own integrity and my own cultural values.

Raisera McCulloch:

I think women take a holistic approach to giving which is so important right now. Giving needs to approach the whole problem with a whole solution. And that’s the untapped power of women’s giving. When we can support each other as women who give, there's an unspoken understanding that this isn't binary or transactional. It’s a holistic approach to societal change, especially when we are talking about money, time and treasure.