Leonie Bell is a passionate philanthropist with a strong commitment to empowering women and girls around the world.
I don’t remember a time where I haven’t given. I have always given to the usual organisations such as Cancer Council, Salvation Army, Red Cross, World Vision and homeless people.
Inspiration and joy with a measure of anger at the inequality around us drive my giving. I am inspired by the many people I meet through philanthropy, mainly women, who see a problem and think to themselves “I can do something about this”.
Inequality is another thing that drives my giving. I have been lucky in my life, lucky to be born in Australia and lucky to have been born into a family who could give me every opportunity.
I recently visited Uganda where I met a woman by the name of Imelda. Imelda and her husband are subsistence farmers. They sell their excess produce, as well as other things, in a small roadside shop. They raised 9 children most of whom have moved to the city for work.
Because they don’t earn enough to support them, they have sent their own children home to Imelda. Now she has 8 more children to raise. Imelda is also the chairperson of the local PTA, she is a volunteer community health care worker and she mobilises local women to teach them about backyard farming and other income generating projects. Imelda is smart, resourceful and inspiring but because of an accident of birth she has not had access to an education which could have lifted her and her family out of poverty.
My giving has shifted from small, one-off yearly donations to many large organisations in Australia to giving large, multi-year donations to a small number of highly vetted organisations in both Australia and Africa.
Inspired to give more.
This year I travelled, with my family, to Uganda to attend the year 12 graduation of 54 students at School For Life. SFL are currently feeding, educating and housing 1,750 students in remote villages outside of Kampala. Without SFL the possibility of these children receiving a high school education is quite remote. I can’t begin to describe the emotions I felt at the graduation, watching those students, their parents and the younger students at the school. Their lives and the lives of their families have been changed forever.
Imelda’s youngest son, Stephen, was one of those graduating students. He is the first in her family to finish school and wants to go to university to study journalism so that he can shine a light on the inequalities existing in Uganda. Imelda’s oldest grandchild, who will graduate next year, wants to be a lawyer so that he can help protect the land rights of people such as his grandmother.
Despite the doom and gloom surrounding us at times, because of people such as Imelda, I have faith that we are making progress towards a more equitable world where every person can have good nutritious food to eat, a roof over their heads and an education.
I believe in “Trust Based Philanthropy” “Give While You Live” and I am also attracted to some, but not all, of Peter Singer’s philosophy of “Effective Altruism”.
About 6 years ago, I started working with a Philanthropic Advisor. This made a huge difference to the way that I give. Instead of a heart led scatter gun approach to giving, she has helped me to hone in on what matters most to me and to find the organisations that are best in their fields and to form relationships with those organisations. My goal is to advance gender equality. I believe that gender equality is the foundation for peace, prosperity and sustainability.
I give a small number of organisations a large amount of money for multiple years.
I treat my philanthropic portfolio like I treat my stock portfolio. I like small to medium sized charities. Due diligence is carried out on each organisation before they are contacted for a meeting.
Giving is addictive. The joy that I receive from giving far outweighs that money that I give.
People around the world are just like us, they want the same things. They want to look after their children, feed, house and educate them and for those children to have a better life.
Everyone can make a difference. You don’t need a lot of money, or in fact, any money at all.
Due diligence is so important. You wouldn’t give your money to a stranger to invest for you
Philanthropy should bring you joy, if it doesn’t, find another philanthropic organisation that does.
Maya Angelou once said that “if everyone looked after their own, the world would be a better place”. Not everyone can look after themselves, and their own as Maya said, but if those that can looked after those that can’t, just imagine what the impact could be.
I would like to see more donations going to grass roots organisations, both local and international and every Australian taxpayer claiming a deduction for donations to charities.
It would be great if everybody who could, would commit to giving time, treasure or talent on a regular basis.
Is a passionate philanthropist with a strong commitment to empowering women and girls around the world. She is driven by a deep belief in the transformative power of education and strives to create lasting change by championing gender equality and ensuring that every girl has the opportunity to learn, grow and lead.
