Change Makers

Thanks Sid

While I am so sorry that Mary is not here as the Chair of Changemakers to participate in this evening’s launch, I must confess I am delighted to be filling in for her, and do know that she is with us in spirit. She has in fact sent along some words she has asked me to read.

I have been directly involved in the philanthropic sector now for eight years. In that time, I have seen great work done by many philanthropic organisations and I think that the grants program of my own organisation, the Victorian Women’s Trust, has been able to bring about real and positive change for many Victorian women, their children, families and local communities.

But through all of this time, a nagging feeling tells me we can do much more in the way we attract and use philanthropic resources to tackle the harder edged, tougher problems and challenges in our society – public policy problems that stare at us, confront us and often times look as though they are just too difficult.

The key to this kind of philanthropy lies in the knowledge we need about our social economic and political world, the issues we tackle, and the way we work with people. The passive grant recipient/grant giver relationship is redefined to embrace real and genuine partnership, shared analysis and understanding of problems and shared commitment to solutions.

Looking back over my time at the Women’s Trust, I can see that while we have operated as a sincere and diligent grantmaker, the grant making has pretty much reflected an orthodox philanthropic approach – annual grantmaking, smallish parcels of money, and a fairly limited partnership between us and recipients. While we have certainly achieved real outcomes on pressing social needs, in my heart and my head, I know we could ramp all of this up a lot more. Comfort zones are for moving out of!

My interest in the development of Changemakers is thus twofold. At a personal level, it fits with the values I hold dear – of striving for justice, fairness and as much equality among people as we can achieve in our lifetimes. But as importantly, individual donors and organisations like mine are more likely to sharpen and sustain their interest in, and commitment to, social change philanthropy if there is an organisation on the outside which is there as a reliable sounding board, capable of providing critical appraisal of social needs and public policy, and all the time provoking and stimulating us with new knowledge, new ideas, sharper tools, and practical advice.

Now back to me.

The number of people here this evening is just another indication of the level of enthusiasm and interest that has been building around Changemakers over the last twelve to eighteen months. As many of you here tonight would be aware, there has been a group of trusts and foundations which have been keen to explore issues around progressive philanthropy over a number of years, firstly through Women in Philanthropy and then Horizons, the funders network for social change

It was about 2 years ago that this group, which included representatives from the Women’s Trust, Myer, Reichstein, Education and Melbourne Community Foundations, and the Foundation for Young Australians decided to take the plunge and establish a new organisation which would have a dedicated focus of working within the philanthropic sector to promote and encourage this approach.

Since that time, the Interim Management Group, so incredibly well supported by Trudy Wyse as Project Manager, has developed a vision, mission, strategy plan and work plan for the organisation. In achieving this, we have drawn on the many well documented international examples of how powerful social change philanthropy can be in improving the lives of people experiencing disadvantage, we have used our own experiences as grantmakers and we have sought suggestions and feedback from Changemaker’s many supporters at each step of the way.

What has been particularly gratifying is the fact that so much of what Changemakers has come to represent as a result of this work, was reflected in the funding approach described by so many of the international speakers at the recent Philanthropy Australia Conference. This approach includes developing genuine and respectful partnerships between funder and grant recipient, ensuring that grant recipients drive the search for and delivery of solutions, making financial commitments to projects that are influenced by the nature of the task and the desired outcomes, ensuring that there are sustainable outcomes for individuals and that the underlying causes of discrimination and disadvantage are addressed.

In addition, what particularly characterises social change philanthropy is that it supports social movements. Throughout history, when conditions needed to be changed, first a handful, then thousands, and sometimes even millions of ordinary people worked together over decades to bring about needed transformation. The 40 hour week, women's and indigenous people’s right to vote, equal opportunity laws, and countless other rights that most of us take for granted in our daily lives were won through such organised efforts.

To begin to realise Changemaker’s vision of a society free of discrimination and disadvantage, we have developed an ambitious workplan for the next twelve months and beyond. This includes a series of workshops, the first of which will be held early in the New Year and will look at the values and principles that underpin a social change approach to funding. Later workshops will go on to explore how a social change approach to funding can be put into operation, and will include information about building partnership relationships with grant recipients, undertaking assessment and making recommendations about funding, exploring processes for decision making, setting realistic and achievable timelines for genuine change as well as developing and implementing tools for monitoring and evaluation which take account of the fact that social change is not necessarily linear.

Changemakers is also seeking to develop a framework for undertaking evaluation of a social change approach to funding and will include developing a detailed workbook that will draw on a number of case studies to measure effectiveness of the approach.

The next twelve months will also see the development of a permanent Management Committee and the implementation of further governance policies and procedures commensurate with a growing organisation.

To grow Changemakers into the significant national body for positive social change it will inevitably become, and in line with a commitment to collaboration, we need your support.

There are a number of ways you can become involved with Changemakers. You can attend workshops and receive information about the organisation and its development, you can seek to become involved in the governance of Changemakers, you can become an affiliate or you can become a financial supporter through making a tax deductible donation.

So finally, I ask you to join with the Interim Management Group, our current group of financial and other supporters, as well as with future grant recipients so that we can work together on the premise that we all live, give and are sustained by the same community and all want to see it as a more just, tolerant and equitable society.

On the table there are forms to complete if you are interested in finding out more about our future activities and/or to register your interest in becoming more involved. Please complete one before you leave.