Cat Fay is the Managing Partner of Perpetual Private’s Social Investment businesses and ESG Strategy. She is also a leader in democratised philanthropy and a founding board member of GiveOUT.
I work as a managing partner at Perpetual, where I have the great privilege of looking after our philanthropy business. My family immigrated from Ireland when I was seven years old. Growing up in an immigrant household in the 1980s was very difficult for my parents, as it still is for any immigrant family coming through. One of the most influential things I remember around the practice of giving was with my family and the Irish diaspora. During the late eighties and early nineties, it was exorbitantly expensive to get back to Europe, so they set up what’s referred to as a “diddley,” which is a combined fund that they all put money into, to ensure that if anybody's parent fell ill, there was a pool of collective money to get them home quickly to their families. This instilled in me, from a very young age, what our responsibilities are to each other. It is also a reminder that it is not just individuals with a lot of wealth who ensure our communities are functioning the way that they need to function.
Probably my upbringing but also a genuine belief in fairness, which is an important principle of being an Australian. My giving is focused on those who don't experience the type of fairness that we'd expect within our communities. The organisations that I give to tend to reflect the communities that are overrepresented in some of our worst community indicators and underrepresented in terms of resources.
I give financially. I think that's an important part, and it’s been true at every stage of my life. Giving initially in small ways and then, as I've had more financial capacity, doing more. But I also give through volunteering, and I sit on a couple of boards. I am an absolute believer in time, treasure, and talent in terms of how I give, and I certainly want to see that reflected in how I show up in the communities that I care about.
One of the benefits of my role is that I spend a lot of time understanding how people are initially driven by a warm heart. Seeing issues right in front of you, it tends to be an initial driver of your giving practice. But I also spend a lot of time exposed to data, and that data tells me there are communities that are under-resourced and under-supported by philanthropy and governments and as result, they show up in some of the poorest life outcomes statistics. When communities are under-resourced, a vicious cycle begins which ultimately becomes systemic in nature. As a result, we end up having to park the metaphorical ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead of building a fence at the top. We too quickly accept that there are some people that will just fall through the cracks, who will miss out on a safe home, a good education and an opportunity to thrive. I don’t think that’s good enough or fair. A great example of this under-investment is LGBTQIA+ communities, which are overrepresented in statistics around homelessness, the justice system, foster care and domestic violence. These issues are important for us to address as a community and from a data point, I think we have a deep responsibility. And it’s not just because I am a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, but because I want philanthropy and my personal giving to be as effective as possible. Sometimes investing in under invested communities is a great way to make your dollar go further.
For those of us who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ communities and have access to resources or work in philanthropy, I think we have a responsibility. As my mother says, “if not me, then who?” For me, giving to LGBTQIA+ communities is part of my responsibility to that community, and to young people coming through who face barriers that maybe I didn't face. We have a responsibility to lift our voice and sometimes that responsibility stretches to putting our money into the pool as well.
When I was much younger, I wanted to support things that were tangible so I could see where the money was going. I quickly learned through a career in philanthropy, and through decades of personal giving, that the best giving you can do is to find good organisations that you care about and are aligned with your values. Invest in them to make great decisions about how they'll use your money because you need them to still be around in two decades time to address the root causes of the issues that you care about. Finding good organisations and investing in them is the most important thing that I've learned through my practice of giving, but the most vital piece of the giving puzzle is to just start giving. You'll find those good organisations through the process of giving.
On a personal level, I want giving to always be a central part of who I am and a reflection of all the values that my parents have passed on to me and their parents passed on to them. Hopefully, I'll pass it on to future generations of my family, too.
In terms of giving in this country, it has to grow. We're in this unique moment in time where there is an enormous intergenerational wealth transfer taking place, and we have an opportunity to share a vision for how we want our communities to benefit from this transfer across generations. We hear a lot of big dollars bandied about in terms of what the intergenerational wealth transfer would look like. I think we should be talking about what we want our communities to look like off the back of that wealth transfer.
In my experience, those people who talk about wanting to leave a legacy are rarely talking about purely money. They want to help contribute to a world that is better than the one they came into and better than the one they are leaving behind. They see their children and all future generations as the beneficiaries of that world. They want their kids to be better educated, to have thriving communities and great healthcare. They want their kids to have every opportunity to achieve what they want with their life. We should be bolder in our purpose as a nation. The dollar figure isn't the end goal. What we want our communities to look like is the end goal. But to do that, we need to set an expectation that we are all part of the solution.
After a career in philanthropy, I can tell you that giving and a legacy of sharing wealth is intrinsic to most women. They do it in lots of different ways: around the kitchen table, through mentorship and when they have capacity financially, they give at greater rates than men. As this intergenerational wealth transfer is taking place, women will have more decision-making power with regards to where that wealth goes and who the beneficiaries will be. We need a coalition of women who understand that this moment in time can be a generational legacy for our communities, it truly can be a moment to realise our potential and purpose as a nation. She Gives is an opportunity to build that campaign around bringing more women to giving and to shine a light on the incredible role that women have always played in philanthropy. And the incredible role women play in our communities every single day.
Cat Fay is a senior social investment and business leader in Australia with more than twenty years of private family and institutional philanthropy experience in Australia and Europe. At Perpetual, Cat oversees approximately $5 billion in community funds across Perpetual’s work with philanthropists, non-profits and Native Title groups. Under her management, Perpetual’s clients distribute more than $120 million annually through philanthropic trusts, estates, and endowments. Prior to her time at Perpetual, Cat worked on community and built heritage regeneration projects across Scotland and London. She is also a leader in democratised philanthropy, focused on giving a voice to communities in decision making. She’s a founding Board Member of GiveOUT – a national day of giving for LGBTQIA+ causes, a founding member of Melbourne Women’s Fund, and a Board Member of Ladder and of Save The Children’s Impact Investment Fund.
