On lightbulb moments and Next Gen giving

My parents have always engaged in ad hoc giving, donating to causes mainly in China. If there was a crisis, such as an earthquake that happened near our hometown, then they would donate. For me personally, there wasn't any structured giving, I would donate to the odd charity here and there, and would support if friends were fundraising for different causes. However, when I was 24 I fought a personal battle with leukemia. It was during the covid pandemic, so it was a pretty awful time for my family. It was after that experience, I started reflecting more about what we could do as a family in terms of giving. Originally, I started off by wanting to give to the organisations that had helped me and my family throughout that journey and this evolved into the idea of setting up a family foundation. I enlisted my sister’s help, and we spent a year getting our parents (who are very entrepreneurial and historically very profit driven) on side, presenting our pitch to them and to what is now the foundation’s board. It wasn’t a quick process, but I think my experience with leukemia was a real lightbulb moment for my family. It brought us closer together and it was easier to understand how in many ways we all are aligned in terms of philanthropy and recognising that we have the resources and means to give back to the community. We have now set up Vermilion Foundation, which represents the first formalised kind of giving we’ve come together as a family to do.

I'd like to think that setting up a structured way of giving was inevitable at some point in my life. I suspect the cancer experience just accelerated that thinking so instead of waiting until I was in my forties or fifties to establish a more formal type of giving, I decided now was the time. I recognise my own privilege and that awareness plays a huge part in how I feel about giving. My parents worked really hard to give my sister and I a lot of opportunities that many people do not get, so awareness of that is a huge motivator. Another factor is my day job isn’t as impactful in terms of ways I would like to be making a difference in the world. The experiences that I have had, with leukemia, mental health, growing up as an Asian woman in Australia etc. have inspired a real sense of care and empathy around those issues. Even if we can’t truly empathise with someone (which is often), we should try our best to at least consider and include the perspectives that are often forgotten about, that’s why diversity is so important to me, and giving is a way of enabling that to happen.

A huge focus for our foundation is cultural diversity. We really like funding CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) CEOs and founders. Our other big focus is climate action. Climate change is so urgent and time critical, and all the other issues that we care about aren't going to matter if we don't seek to address this one first. One of the organisations we support is the Multicultural Leadership Initiative, which are really acting at the nexus between CALD communities, and climate action. The climate movement in Australia can lack diversity which can have downstream impacts e.g. many climate resources are produced in English, so they won't necessarily reach a lot of communities.

I think as a foundation we're more heart than head in terms of our decision making. We're quite new, we have been operating for 3 years now. The challenge is making the decision of who to give to. It's so difficult because there are so many amazing organisations out there but since we are a small foundation, we're only really interested in giving to smaller, grassroots organisations. We try to take up as little time from these organisations and eliminate any red tape, all our funding is untied. We don’t have a lengthy application process, we approach organisations we are interested in. We don't ask for any arduous or specific reports, we try make it as simple and easy as it can be for the organisations we work with.

The first thing is that it's hard to make the decision of who to give to and it’s also hard deciding whether to continue a partnership or not. I think these experiences have taught me a little bit more about my leadership style. I mentioned the concept of heart over head before and I think that's very much at the core of how we do things as a foundation. The head side of things is important. Obviously, you need to do your proper due diligence. It's important to ensure the reporting is accurate, and our funding is going to X, Y, and Z and this is measured through KPIs. But none of that stuff feels as important as a personal connection to the cause and to the people running the organisation. I've become more comfortable with that over time.

I would like to see, particularly in Australia, more diversity amongst funders. And when I say that I mean more diversity amongst the list of funders you can see, recognised funders. There’s a lot of giving that you can’t see. I don’t want to give the impression that people from diverse backgrounds, particularly multicultural backgrounds, aren't giving because they are, but it may not be through structured giving, or it may just not be recognised or visible. I would also like to see more young people engaging with giving and philanthropy. I think there's this very traditional idea of what philanthropy is, that it's wealthy people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies who want to give back. The reality is very different. [1] Next Gen philanthropy and diversity in philanthropy are two things I’d love to see grow within the sector.