As the peak body we serve a community of funders, social investors and social change agents working to achieve positive social, cultural, environmental and community change by leveraging their financial assets and influence.

Informed, independent and with reach and credibility, Philanthropy Australia gives our members a collective voice and ability to influence and shape the future of the sector and advance philanthropy. 

When developing our 2017-2020 strategic map, we had to balance our rich heritage with the ‘now’ and the future. We had to recognise the incredible expertise and resources of our traditional members and to their commitment to philanthropy. But we also needed to acknowledge that philanthropy was changing.

We needed to respond to the emergence of new types of philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, new ways of giving, new ways of investing corpus, changing and blurring relationships between "givers" and "receivers" and the growing realisation that the social sector were very much part of, in fact key players, in the philanthropic community - they have as much of an interest in our success as do the funders. We also understood that Corporates and intermediaries are critical to the success of our community.

Finally, key to the success of Philanthropy Australia’s future would be to change the way our supporters and members engage with us - we needed to democratise the existing membership model.

We held a number of consultations during 2015 and 2016 to determine how we can best partner with the philanthropic community to help create a better world together. Throughout this time, we continued to ask ourselves some key questions: Who do we serve? What is our purpose? What are the few things we are going to focus on and do really well? How do we harness the resources necessary to do those things? The resulting answers to these key questions form the basis of our strategic direction.
 

Watch the launch of our 2017-2020 Strategic Plan

Our 2017-2020 Strategic Plan was launched by CEO, Sarah Davies, at our 2016 National Conference in Sydney. 

 

 

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Who do we serve?

As we are a membership organisation, our role is to service our members, but we’re also a peak body, and as such, we also have the role of advancing. These two roles are complementary because by promoting and growing philanthropy to create a better world, together with our members, we are actually fulfilling both of our roles.
 

What is our purpose? 

Our purpose is to serve our members to achieve more and better philanthropy.
 

What are the few things we are going to do really well in order to advance our purpose?

1. Leadership and advocacy. We will be an informed and prominent champion and advocate for the sector in order to shape and influence the ecosystem within which philanthropy can flourish and drive effective change.
    
2. Connecting and convening. We will enable and support effective partnerships and networks both within philanthropy and across sectors bringing all the agents of social change together for collaboration and partnership.
    
3. Data and insight. We will facilitate and promote openness and transparency, collecting and sharing grant data and research that informs the work of Funders and social investors and drives impact and helps to demonstrate the case for philanthropy, economically and socially. 
    
4. Professional learning and services. We will build the capability of the sector through training and education.
    
5. Better Giving Hub. We will build a digital community of interest using open platforms to share resources, tools and information and to provide a place for you to share knowledge, ideas and experiences