Myriad Australia is creating new pathways for Australian donors to give internationally. As a founding member of Myriad Alliance, the global network for borderless philanthropy, they help Australians give to trusted causes overseas with donations that are tax-deductible and fully transparent.
Bridging the gap between local donors and global impact, Myriad Australia makes it easier for individuals, foundations, and companies to support communities worldwide—from disaster recovery to long-term development.
According to Executive Director Anita Toy, Myriad Australia is dedicated to unlocking the full potential of international philanthropy by bringing together a network of like-minded donors and local organisations through one platform. “We are really trying to globalise cross-border giving,” she says. “We want to make it easier for Australian donors to give internationally [AR1] and to let local leaders abroad drive the solutions they need to tackle.”
Anita Toy:
I've been in the philanthropic sector for about 15 years, predominantly in a funder position and giving domestically. I worked in a private bank, servicing high net worth clients, many who were of Asian background and wanting to give back to their homeland from Australia. At the time, regulations in Australia prevented funds from leaving the country in a tax effective way. The only way to give abroad was through an international NGOs like the Red Cross and World Vision, but for a donor who wants to give to a specific community where they had a personal connection, the government structure prevented them from doing that, so I could see a gap in the market.
When I finished at the bank, I started as the Country Advisor at Give2Asia USA and worked with the international team to suggest great charities for them to give to. It really opened my eyes to cross-border giving and the impact it can have in developing markets. By this time, Australian regulations were changing and the barriers for giving abroad had lifted enough for Give2Asia to extend its offerings to Australia and the global board supported me to pursue this here.
We launched as Give2Asia Australia and for the first 12 months, we predominantly worked with Aussie donors who want to give into the Asia region. During this time, Give2Asia formed an Alliance with a similar organisation in Europe that were doing the exact same thing, and we joined forces to unlock the potential cross-border giving, and from that the Myriad Alliance was born. We changed our name to Myriad Australia because we're no longer bound by giving to one region which meant we could facilitate giving anywhere in the world. There are nine members across the globe including New Zealand, USA, Canada, the EU, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. Together we're working to globalize cross-border giving and democratise how donors can engage to make it more accessible.
Anita Toy:
It shares the learning. Australia is very new in this cross-border give space; the doors only opened in 2017. But in places like the US and Europe, they've been doing this for over 20 years, so we can leverage their learnings to help us create a robust model in Australia. Aussies are notoriously very risk adverse, and a lot of donors worry that if they’re giving abroad, it’s like giving to a black hole. So, it’s been great to bring in processes that have worked overseas, and address some of those concerns. Working as an alliance also gives us the benefit of more channels to access different countries, and to navigate things like government regulations on behalf of the donors.
Anita Toy:
We’re in a really challenging environment globally this year, especially with the pause in USAID. I think the Myriad Alliance has a really important role to play in this funding ecosystem. Philanthropy can never fill the whole of the gap, but by making cross-border giving easier and accessible, donations in developing countries will have an impact that goes a long way. We have this unique role, where we can partner with smaller grassroots organisations who are trusted in their communities and then elevate their amazing work to an international audience so donors can find them. [AR3] Smaller organisations often lack resources and connections, and this international framework really promotes who they are, what they're doing and connects them with like-minded donors who want to support them.
One story that stands out is in September 2024, the late Pope went on his visit across Southeast Asia, and I randomly received an e-mail from the media team at the Vatican to connect with a tiny organisation called the Alma Nuns in Timor-Leste. They are one of the organisations we support, so I told my contact person to drop everything because the Pope wanted to visit them. And so, just by being on our platform, one of our amazing partners were able to be part of the Pope’s itinerary that year.
Anita Toy:
We see ourselves as a connector, an intermediary. We work with Australian donors who want to support organisations or communities overseas and because we’ve got DGR-1 status, we’ve created a unique model where a donor can use us to get the funds safely to that organisation while also getting the tax deduction. We do the due diligence and can solicit the grant application, so donors know what impact they’re having.
We also auspice overseas organisations so they can start to tap into the generosity of Australian donors. Aussies have a great reputation; we're a very lucky country and we're a wealthy and diverse country as well. So, we help overseas organisations tap into this without them having to get DGR status or navigate local law. Essentially, we bring them under our umbrella and say we trust you, we support you, we can be your local strategic partner to fundraise here and that opens the door for them to create a collective giving movement and really grow their donor base from a diaspora community or an alumni network here that they want to engage in.
There are so many Australian businesses operating overseas, and I think many of them are genuinely open to supporting the communities where they work. We see strong motivations for giving – particularly from women, and we see it especially with the next generation. This is a generation that was born with the internet at their fingertips so its normalised travel much more than in the 70s and 80s. They don't see our land borders as boundaries for giving. But there is a boundary when it comes to the regulatory system, so we’ve become a bridge to help overcome that.
Anita Toy:
The sky's the limit. Because Myriad is quite new and unique in Australia, we've got this opportunity to really push the boundaries and to unlock diaspora giving. Until now, philanthropy in Australia has been seen as white, older men but the demographics are changing. If we're looking at the diversity of Australia at this moment, the Indian community is growing at exponential speed. I would love to see the diaspora community involved in more discussions around philanthropy and to see them lead the way, in terms of what giving looks like in their culture and then find way to embed that into what we're doing. What do we need to change in Australian philanthropy to enable them and make it more accessible? What are some of the resources that we need to tweak? Do we need to change the face of what philanthropy looks like? I'm one of a very few faces of Asian descent in Australian philanthropy and I really want to change that.
We're embarking on a feasibility study, which will be an Australian first to deep dive into diaspora giving. We see a big opportunity to unlock its giving potential. In the latest remittance report by Money Transfer Australia, the diaspora community in Australia sent over $38billion in remittance back to their homeland. That is double the amount of charitable giving and almost 10 times as much as the foreign aid budget. Imagine if we can unlock that potential and apply it to charitable purposes?
