On giving close to home and leaning into hope and hustle

My earliest reflection is that giving often starts close to home. I have an adult son with Down syndrome, and when he was little, I realised that the organisations supporting him and us had hardly any resources. Although we didn’t have much ourselves back then, giving what we could was important so those organisations could keep doing the work, not just for Nick but for others as well. I think the pathway to giving is often personal. Over time, you discover that creating change is a very long road — and you find other ways to contribute and other things you can do. 

I joined the board of a local community health centre when we were living in Melbourne, and much of my role involved hustling for money because the service was based in Prahran, where there is a lot of public housing. Our client group was very diverse: some newly arrived Australians, some young people, some elderly. The service was stretched, so my contribution involved pushing government to provide more funding so we could deliver decent services. Giving isn’t just about money. A lot of it is about time, skill, energy and hustle — and I’m a hustler. 

My giving is focused on creating change and staying with it over time. And it’s driven by a combination of things. The first is finding organisations that I believe are good custodians and are genuinely making change. The second is supporting causes that are close to my heart, where I have firsthand experience of what makes a difference and what doesn’t. And the third is simply doing things that feel good to do. For example, we put money into the exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane showcasing the work of Archie Moore, which won the Venice Biennale. It’s an extraordinary piece of art and Archie is a Queenslander, so the work documents his family history over thousands of years and that visibility is important here. Bringing it to Brisbane felt like something that had to be done — and if the gallery needed funding to make that happen, we were happy to be part of it. 

We give a money, but I also give a lot of time. I still speak at many events about what philanthropy is and how to raise money, because lots of people approach me. I’m happy to help them think about fundraising differently and engage with the wider world in a way that gives them a greater chance of success. A lot of our giving is place-based. A couple of years ago, we moved from Sydney back to Brisbane. Our giving had been very centred in Sydney, and we’ve been deliberate about looking for opportunities here. I think it’s important to give where you live, because you notice the areas that need support. It’s been interesting to ask: where can we make a difference? What’s going on here? Where are the opportunities, and where is the need? 

I also believe in amplified giving — piling into areas where other people are already having an impact, because you multiply your impact if you’re thoughtful about it. With some of our disability giving, we’ve continued supporting what we were doing in Sydney because it has a national focus and high impact. Overall, we look around, do our own research, and respond when people come to us. Our giving is a mix of all those things, but disability, arts and Indigenous have been our sweet spots forever. 

The disability sector is fragmented and underfunded — it really has the worst of all worlds. It’s fragmented by disability type, even though many services are quite similar, and by organisations that are often under-resourced or dominated by parents or stakeholders. It’s a sector where people are vulnerable and looking for hope. 

Anything that builds capacity, hope and ambition, especially for the lives of people with disabilities, rather than simply managing them — really matters to me. What I’ve learned is the importance of backing leaders who are prepared to step into the abyss and present things in a way that builds hope and ambition. That has been our experience in indigenous giving and broader community giving as well. This is key to driving change and I’m big on change. 

My ambition for the future is simple: more people giving more. In my experience as chair of UNICEF, most financial giving comes from people who don’t have a lot but give small amounts regularly. While there’s a lot of attention on big donations, the reality is that around 80% of funding comes from ordinary people who just want to help. It’s important we never diminish this. But if we all gave the same proportion, we’d have a very different giving culture. The challenge is that the richer you get in Australia, the less likely you are to give — you’re more likely to use that money to buy a bigger house. We need to find ways to unlock the willingness and ability to engage in giving in a more holistic way. 

That thinking also applies to Indigenous giving, which I’ve been involved in for more than 20 years. The lessons are consistent: you need local leadership, you need to stay with it over time, and you need to be prepared to invest. It takes a long time to create change, but I’ve seen real progress in the communities and causes I’ve worked with. The Yes campaign reflected a clear understanding that if you want systemic national change, you must invest in it. And lot of that funding came from corporates, who are often silent on big social issues but weren’t silent on marriage equality or The Voice — and that matters. 

But money alone isn’t enough. In many cases, communities don’t need more cash — they need skills, leadership and cultural relevance. The discipline is in working out what’s needed and backing approaches that build capability and long-term change. In Indigenous education, the scale of progress over the past two decades would have been unthinkable when I was first engaged . Back then, you could count on one hand the number of Indigenous students completing Year 12 and going on to university. Now a single university can have more than a thousand Indigenous students. We still have a long way to go — a couple of hundred years to make up for — but change is possible. And we need hope for the future, because it it’s been stripped away from too many people’s lives. Hope and joy are magic ingredients. 

I think women banding together has given us power across many domains, so it makes sense that it would also create power in giving and philanthropy. When we come together, we amplify our impact.