On an equitable future and making giving more accessible

For me, it’s less about giving and more about my family dynamics. As the daughter of a Baptist minister, our house was open to the community because it was the church's space. I grew up with a strong sense of what it meant to play a role in creating community. There was an awareness about what people needed, whether they were going through grief or in need of emergency relief, or fleeing from domestic violence situations - you name it, the church community was a microcosm of everything.

Watching my parents navigate that from a leadership perspective was really formative. My mum was this phenomenal feminist figure who not only held this space at home, but she also had her own career as a social worker outside the church, which back then, was pretty unusual.

I ended up following my mum into social work. I’d say that my adult life has been shaped by my family’s values, but it didn't really show up as ‘giving’, until I became deeply embedded in the community foundation network.

I often think about how my upbringing prepared me for being part of this values-driven community. For the first 20 years in non-profit land, it made sense to be involved in mission-driven work around social justice. And then I ended up in the community foundation sector, which I didn't know at the time, was a really important subset of the philanthropic sector.

For me, it always comes back to fairness. My personal motivation for working in the purpose sector is to drive equity and fairness and to bring about social change, which for me includes environmental change because it’s so critical.

It comes down to the fundamentals of making Australia a fair place where everyone has access to basic human rights, and the planet has access to what it needs from us. I talk a lot about the principles of redistribution of wealth because philanthropy cannot be at its best unless it’s creating fundamental change. We need to think about how we make a real difference to the lives of people in this country.

In terms of what I think drives other people to give, it's hard to go past family values and legacy. However, there’s also been a shift into what I call ‘donor activism’, which is related to the changing demographics of giving. I believe more people are looking to be more involved in the issues they're giving to. Whether that shows up as volunteering, joining a board or fundraising, the sector is morphing into this interesting space of giving and activism. I think it's a response to the rise of the social movements and a demand for philanthropy to see itself as part of civil society and to be funding in different ways.

For me, this is a story about the power of community foundations. I give mostly through the structure of a fund at Australian Communities Foundation because giving in a community is both powerful and accessible.

My giving shows up as the conversations I have with the kids about what we're going to support and what they're passionate about. A lot of our giving has been around LGBTQIA+ rights and advocacy because one of my kids transitioned in high school. We've given to organisations that are safety nets for young LGBTQIA+ people such as Minus18, as well as advocacy groups like Equality Australia that are tackling queer rights. We also give to organisations that are working for the environment.

More broadly, I’m influenced by what's going on in the community foundation and what other people are giving to, particularly women.

These are the stories we don't tell as much. So much of giving in this sector is driven by women - through women's funds, giving circles and the ‘women's philanthropy book clubs’ as I like to call them. The majority of these vehicles that I saw set up during my time at ACF were driven by women.

Giving should be accessible to everybody. Giving circles and vehicles like community foundations are such an important entry point for people, particularly  when people don’t know where to start. We need to promote them more. They create these powerful learning environments around giving as well as opportunities for networking and relationship building.

The untold story of these mechanisms is how giving can be amplified when you do it together. These collective giving mechanisms can go beyond raising money to influencing policy and systems change, which is harder to achieve as an individual philanthropist.

My personal ambition for giving comes back to that idea of people and planet, fairness and change. I'm always drawn to supporting policy and legislative change because I've seen the power of doing that through collective action.

My vision for giving in Australia is to move beyond the idea that philanthropy is something that's owned and driven by the elite. We need to open this space to anyone who has the capacity and feels like they can be involved in giving. We also need to lose some of the dichotomies that we keep getting stuck on, like ‘funder and fundee.’ These old school ways of thinking about giving and receiving are becoming increasingly redundant; our language has to evolve.

I want to take the sector forward by focusing on the critical partnership between philanthropy and changemakers - one can’t exist without the other. 

Another big reason for taking on the role at Philanthropy Australia is to support First Nations-led giving and community led giving in this country. We’re at this critical time where we need to shift from good intentions to actually moving capital into First Nations control.

If I can play a part in making giving more democratic, accessible and collaborative, so it helps open up giving to a broader group of Australians and achieves real social and environmental change… I’ll count that as a win. If we can do this, I can walk away proud of the job I’ve done.