“It’s now time to step up and inspire”: Philanthropy Australia head

With just eight years to go to reach the government’s philanthropy target, there are plenty of opportunities ahead to increase philanthropy giving, especially in locally-focused organisations and amongst new demographics of givers.

Ahead of this week’s Philanthropy Australia national conference, Pro Bono News sat down with Philanthropy Australia CEO Jack Heath to discuss how to double giving by 2030, and what the future holds for philanthropists and the organisations that rely on their funding.

What do you see as being the future direction of philanthropy in Australia? What are some of the big opportunities and threats that are coming our way?

I think there’s a huge opportunity to just lift the level of giving right across Australia. We know that by international standards we’ve got a little bit of ground to pick up on some of our peers across the ditch. But what we also have in Australia though, is some extraordinary examples of incredible generosity and really groundbreaking work that’s been done by philanthropy. I think that there’s a huge momentum that’s sort of building at the moment. And one of the challenges is to make sure that we communicate to people the fantastic things that are out there that are happening so that more people get inspired to think about giving. 

I do think we’ve got this ongoing tendency [where] we don’t want to be seen to be sort of blowing our own trumpets. But I think it’s necessary for people to communicate what they’re doing. Because I think when you look at some of the examples in Australia, it’s just incredibly inspiring and it’s now time to step up and inspire… sharing your story can have a profound impact on others. 

We’re operating in a context where we’re thrilled that the government picked up the idea to double giving by 2030. If we’re going to do that, some people can increase their current level of giving, but we’re going to have to bring a whole new range of people into the fold. 

How can not for profits and philanthropists themselves prepare for that? What are some of the things that we should be thinking about as we look to the future?

I think one of the big developments that will happen over the next five to 10 years — and it’s something that I think has been brought into sharp focus by lockdowns with COVID and also some of the recent events around floods and the fires — is that we’ll see a much stronger focus on place. With the expansion of the community foundations that have got DGR1 status, I think that we’re going to see a huge increase in terms of giving at a local level. 

We’re operating at a time when there’s diminishing trust in national institutions. I do think that when we’re not so trustful of others, we tend to look to get confirmation or build trust with someone that we can physically eyeball. I think that’s one of the things that’s come out of COVID, the pandemic and the lockdown. 

So I think there’s going to be an increasing focus on the local aspects of philanthropy… but at the same time, we’ve got to make sure that that increased local focus doesn’t stay contained to local. We need to extend it really to the whole of humanity. And that’s why we’ve very consciously structured the theme [of this year’s conference] as ‘for the love of humanity’. There is a common humanity around this. 

A report that came out last week said that Australia lags behind in high net worth giving. Is this trend of locally-focused philanthropy something that’s being seen around the world?

It does require regulatory change by government. And what’s happened was that the previous government indicated they were going to be granting DGR1 status to 28 community foundations; Labor has followed that and agreed to implement that as well. We think that it shouldn’t be limited to those 28 and it should be set up as a category for which organisations can apply. 

We would hope that down the track there would be a flourishing of community foundations that would then enable people to direct their philanthropic giving to organisations or to people in their immediate vicinity, [where] they will get to see or those that come after them will get to see the direct benefits of that philanthropy.

You’re leading the peak body in Australia for philanthropy at a time when we’ve just come out of COVID, and we know that Australians are less connected to their neighbours and their communities. How does this impact your focus and the way that you guide Philanthropy Australia?

I think it presents enormous opportunities at the moment. I’m very optimistic in terms of where we can go. I expect that as the data comes in over the next six to 12 months, we’re going to see greater involvement at that local community level coming through in terms of the statistics. What we do know, though, is that there are increasing numbers of high net worth people who are moving into the philanthropic space and I think that that’s probably going to continue. That’s an enormous opportunity. And also, Australians are fundamentally generous people and there’s numbers of ways that people can give. There’s different structures. It’s becoming increasingly easy to be able to work out good ways to give. 

One of the challenges is that people are not aware of how easy it is to give, whether it’s contributing to some kind of a community foundation or for those who are more wealthy, setting up a private ancillary fund. When I look at a lot of things, yes, there’s some challenges, but this is a really significant time. We’ve never before had a government in that sort of lockstep saying ‘we want to double giving by 2030’, so I think the current times are full of opportunity. 

For me, it’s a great time to be leading philanthropy in Australia. There’s this really, really strong dimension [around increasing] giving because we can see the transformative impact that can have on individual lives, but also communities as well.

Do you think maybe part of it is that people don’t really understand what philanthropy is, because it has been seen traditionally that in order to be a philanthropist you have to have millions in the bank? Would it help if we make the definition of philanthropy more publicly accessible?

It’s absolutely critical that philanthropy is not seen as something for the billionaires or the multi-millionaires. It’s something that can be done for people across the community. We’re actually in the process of undertaking some research into community attitudes around it at the moment. 

I think the thing is that we know what we’re talking about in terms of giving our resources, our time and also our skills to  help other people who might be doing it tough or who don’t have the opportunities that we do. I get that there’s a challenge around the word itself but when you go back, [philanthropy means] ‘for the love of humanity’. And I don’t think anyone can argue around that. Philanthropy is not just for the rich.

Charities minister Andrew Leigh has got big plans to double philanthropy by 2030. What do you think it’ll take to get there, given that we’ve got changing demographics in givers but at the same time, we’re going through hard times economically? With eight years to go, how should we get there?

I think it’s going to be tough in the next couple of years, certainly in terms of living pressures and people finding it tough. What’s happening is that notwithstanding that, there are significant numbers of people who’ve got huge increases in wealth. You see so many of the tech start ups where people have accumulated enormous wealth through phenomenal effort in a relatively short period of time. I think we’re going to continue to see those big investments by [those] people. 

I think the other thing, too, is that connection to local community — I think that that’s going to make it more likely that people will give. And one of the big things is that when we look at the intergenerational transfer in wealth… there’s an enormous amount of wealth that’s going to be transferred over the next 10 to 20 years, so when we’re looking at increasing giving, I think we really need to target different aspects of the communities directly. A lot of that wealth is held by people in their seventies and eighties, so what we need to do is to be able to communicate to those people about how easy it is to give and the impact of their giving. 

At the moment we’re looking at only about seven or eight per cent of people leaving charitable gifts in their wills, so there is huge opportunity there. But we really need to segment the different areas within the community and then to have specific strategies to increase their giving. We also think that there’s a huge opportunity in terms of enabling people to give from their superannuation when they pass away. 

This week is the first Philanthropy Australia conference for a while. What can people expect?

We’ve got over 130 presenters. We’ve got people coming from overseas. We’re on track for well over 800 registrations. This is probably going to be the biggest conference we’ve ever had. We’ve got a really, really rich content programme and I think people are in for a bit of a feast, and I wouldn’t underestimate how special it will be to reconnect with people face to face.

Registrations for the Philanthropy Australia conference are still open online.