Women already drive philanthropy in Australia – now She Gives wants them recognised

The launch of She Gives: Growing Women’s Giving in Australia in late February was hosted by the Governor General, Sam Mostyn, as the culmination of a long campaign of mixed-methods research and events that highlighted and examined philanthropic contributions at every level by Australian women.

“When we asked women themselves in 2022, what did they think was required to help grow women’s giving, they said we need more stories, more role models, and we need more data. So, that gave us a really good focus,” Smith said.

One thing She Gives research uncovered quickly was that the people least likely to recognise how generous women were was, well, women. “That was proven in the media pulse check we did when we first launched,” Smith said. “We looked at the 100 most-read articles on giving in Australia, and of those, 56 featured men, 32 featured organisations, and only 14 featured women, two in memoriam. A year later, during the campaign, it grew from that number of 14 women to 26 women of the 100. So, women are now being seen to be part of the conversation, and their crucial role in giving is being increasingly recognised, which is of course one of the (She Gives) recommendations. Women are certainly throughout the [philanthropic] sector, but they do not feel recognised for the full contributions they are making and the level of influence they have. That is what this campaign has sought to do.”

The She Gives report emphasises that women will control the majority of the estimated $5.4 trillion that makes up Australia’s looming intergenerational wealth transfer, expanding their influence in the decades ahead. Its three priority recommendations are:

1. Recognise women’s crucial role in giving, including greater recognition and visibility in national honours and media coverage to ensure women’s contributions are accurately reflected in Australia’s public narrative.
3. Strengthen collective and community-based models, recognising that many women prefer to give collaboratively and that shared approaches can increase impact.
5. Build support for women’s philanthropic ambitions, including tailored development for financial advisers so they can better support women’s giving ambitions, and clearer, more accessible pathways into structured giving.

The first recommendation, calling for more honours for women and more media coverage of women’s generosity, is an important one. She Gives research showed that many women aren’t comfortable calling themselves philanthropists, maybe because they don’t relate to that term. Instead of covering only high-worth individuals who give large amounts, Smith says, the word needs to be broadened to cover the everyday acts of generosity, volunteered time, and all the other little things that improve communities and the world.

“What they told us, many of these women, is that they wanted [philanthropy] to be a more inclusive way that we see giving and women to be recognised through the full diversity of their giving,” Smith said. “It was very important to us that She Gives wasn’t just another ultra-high-net-worth type campaign, because that’s really not how we’re going to mobilise the country around giving. It’s about giving at any scale, to any cause that accelerates positive social change. That inclusivity at the very outset was incredibly important, as were the campaign principles that sat behind that, which were diversity, inclusion, safety, positivity, respect and non-partisanship.

“There was a lot of care and a lot of respect and energy that went into building the campaign, and the way that women felt that they could be seen in the campaign informed how the campaign grew. It is something we're really proud of,” she said.

Smith was inspired to conduct the research behind the report She Gives after pondering how to lift the rate of philanthropy in Australia. “You see huge wealth in this country, you see huge need, and the rate of growth of giving isn’t going at the pace our communities need, despite the level of wealth. The question was how we catalyse philanthropy at scale and what group or demographic do we focus on to do that? All the data indicates it is women in terms of significant giving. Women give a greater percentage than men and women have given a greater proportion of their income than men over the past 10 years. So, we knew that piece and we knew anecdotally that women drive a lot of the giving decisions in their household, but we didn’t actually have the evidence.

“You know, there were 2000 women involved in the report, a thousand women came to over 20 events all around the country over 18 months. We had 142 stories that we did, and I personally interviewed over 130 of those. The best part is just hearing women’s voices and seeing their confidence in owning the space in their giving. The confidence and the impact that they can have through that is lovely to witness.

“We’ve got hundreds of thousands of women engaged online, with a level of trust, and one thing I consistently saw and heard from women across the country was that they feel a part of this campaign. They see themselves in this campaign, and that’s why, when we engage or call out, we are wonderfully buoyed by the responses that we get from women,” she said.

She Gives has been endorsed by many leading Australian businesswomen and philanthropists. Carol Schwartz, a member of the She Gives advisory group, said, “Women have always given – with care, courage and commitment – but too often their leadership has gone unrecognised. This research shows what becomes possible when women step fully into their power as givers, with the confidence, visibility and support to shape lasting change. With a generational wealth transfer underway, this is a powerful moment for more women to get involved, explore new ways of giving and help build a more inclusive, ambitious and impactful culture of philanthropy in Australia.”

The question is where to from here. How will Smith capitalise on the momentum of the launch?

“We did this is to grow giving in this country, to accelerate positive social change,” she said. “Collectively, as a country, we have a lot of work to do on this. We delivered the stories, and we delivered the research and we’re changing the conversation around giving, so that is great.

“But we are very clear that this report is not something that simply sits on a shelf, it must honour the 2000 voices, the women involved, and so, for this next period of time, we are taking the findings and sharing them far and wide, engaging the sector and a broad range of communities in those findings and how to apply them.

“The recommendations are very, very clear – recognise the crucial role of women’s giving, build the ecosystem to support women’s giving at scale, and then build collaboration to support women’s giving to scale their impact. That is really where our focus will be through partnerships and communities to deliver on those collectively with an incredible movement behind us.”

More information

She Gives launch media release

Click here to download the She Gives national research report.