Australia’s biggest donors don’t just want to soften the world’s hard edges – they’re challenging the status quo.
Kristy Muir is trying to pinpoint the moment when she first realised the system needed to change. Like many conversations with Muir, an academic and social worker who in September last year was appointed to run the country’s largest philanthropic foundation, there’s no quick or easy answer to this question. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
. They don’t want to just soften the world’s hard edges; they want to address the existential threat of climate change, strengthen democratic institutions and rethink the way the country is run. “Philanthropy has this great opportunity to be the risk-takers, to invest innovative capital in a way we know government can’t do,” says Muir, pointing to marriage equality campaigns as an example.This new shift is being turbocharged both by a generational change among the big established foundations and by the surge of money from tech entrepreneurs, who are bringing a sense of urgency and competition to the philanthropy world.
It’s not just the newcomers making waves. The Sidney Myer Fund, set up after the influential philanthropist’s death in 1934, together with the Myer Foundation, has just signed off on a five-year strategic plan. A core pillar of that is to become more public about its programs to boost awareness and advocacy, as a way to better leverage its giving. But this does not come without risk.
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