2019 Collective Giving Summit – a summary
Representatives of Impact100 SA, including chairperson Kathryn House and members Julia Steele Scott and Nikki Harmer recently attended the Inaugural Collective Giving Summit held in Sydney in November.
Collective giving groups like our own Impact 100 SA have grown in numbers in recent years and in response, the Summit for Australian Collective Giving was established, to enable giving circles and foundations to explore ways of sharing resources and to discuss the various structures and processes for grant giving.
More than 60 people attended the day, representing groups such as the various Impacts from around Australia, 10 x 10, Philanthropy Australia, The Melbourne Women’s Fund, various Community Foundations and The Funding Network, just to name a few.
It was wonderful to see that South Australia is doing well, and in fact has the biggest membership of any of the Impact100 groups in Australia. Interestingly, some of the giving circles work on a model of giving away only half of the funds raised, with the remainder being invested to grow and use in order to remain sustainable and to cover administrative costs and other overheads.
Some of the Impact100 groups or giving circles reported that they host up to six events a year, including education sessions. Some have a formal dinner for their major voting night, rather than an informal night such as in SA.
Most of the Impact100 groups also provide the opportunity for members to visit the sites of shortlisted charities, prior to the voting night, where in SA we offer you the opportunity after the grant has been awarded.
Another initiative some groups offer is life membership for a gift of $25,000. Impact100 WA also has a ‘Generous Australians’ lecture each year, where a well-known successful entrepreneur and philanthropist gives a talk about their experience in topics such as giving or in establishing foundations.
In the coming month or so, we plan to send out a survey to all members to find out how we might do things better. We would be interested to hear from you about your preference for more or less events, for example, or the format for events. More details will be provided in our next newsletter.
