Deanne Weir: Why philanthropy does not begin and end with rich, white men
I accidentally meet Deanne Weir – millionaire, feminist, philanthropist – in the lift 10 minutes before our interview begins. Meetings pre-meeting are always slightly embarrassing, because nobody's quite got their game face on, but Weir seems friendly and direct and determined, which is pretty much how she stays when the tape starts rolling.
We're sitting in the screening room of a Sydney production studio. It feels strange to be in a movie theatre and not watching a movie, but Weir (a film and TV buff) seems to revel even just sitting in a place where movies happen. "It comes from all those weekends as a kid in a country town, going to the Saturday afternoon double bill at the local theatre," she admits. "I was obsessed."
Deanne Weir: this is what a feminist looks like.Credit:Louie Douvis
The 50-year-old Weir – who has short hair, a very focused gaze and a cheerfully low-key manner – describes herself as "a really ordinary person"; albeit, as a senior executive with Foxtel, a well-paid one. But in 2014 she pledged to give away a million dollars of her own money within five years.
Weir has been donating to charity for 30 years. "I grew up in very small-town Victoria: Horsham," she recalls. "Dad worked at a stock feed mill and Mum in a shop. We had no money, but I couldn't have been more privileged in terms of a happy childhood. So when I got my first job, I wanted to do my bit to try to help other people."
From the beginning, she focused on women and girls. "I bring a business lens to philanthropy – I'm not interested in just throwing my money at something. I like to know it's going to have a good return for communities. And investing in women and girls is one of the best ways of doing that."
Girls worldwide, she points out, are much more likely to die young, be uneducated, live in poverty and suffer violence. And yet improving their position is one of the best-known predictors for economic growth and increased political and social stability. To pluck one statistic from hundreds: research shows that when women generate an income, they reinvest 90 per cent of their earnings into their families, compared with up to 40 per cent for men.
As well as economic pragmatism, Weir also supports women out of personal conviction. "If growing up in Horsham in the '70s didn't make you a feminist, nothing would," she laughs. "Lovely people, but my mother was made to leave school at 13, because what was the point of educating a girl? She was a really intelligent woman, but pretty frustrated: married young, four kids under seven, that whole thing." She pauses, shaking her head. "Christmas day! There'd be 30 or 40 people, and it'd be 40 degrees, and the women would all be in the kitchen with the wood stove, cooking the whole hot-meal catastrophe, and the blokes would all be sitting in the front room drinking beer. It was a very clear message about what your job was, and what the expectations were. And I wasn't having it."
Weir finished high school, studied law at Monash and began donating to the International Women's Development Agency, which she describes as the only Australian development organisation entirely focused on women's rights and gender equality: "Just 10 or 20 bucks a month, or whatever it was." She eventually left law for business, and was one of the senior management team at Austar when it was bought out by Foxtel in 2012. "All of us had invested personally in the business – re-mortgaged the house and stuff – so it turned out to be a very lucrative moment."
It was then that she set up the WeirAnderson Foundation, dividing its resources between the Sydney Women's Fund, which has numerous programs focused on women and girls in the greater Sydney area, and – her old favourite – the International Women's Development Agency.
Despite her Foxtel windfall, Weir is not extraordinarily rich. And she is adamant that philanthropy is not the province of "rich, old white guys … It's interesting to think about how ordinary Australians give, actually. As a nation, we're awesome in a crisis. What we're not so good at is regular philanthropy. And also we have that thing where we say, 'Well, I don't want all my money going in admin fees! I want it to go to the well!' "
She used to feel like this herself, she admits, adding, "and of course you don't want to fund bloated bureaucracies. Just pick something that interests you, and take the time to get informed. Then just give what's reasonable to you."
Speaking of which, what about her direct contemporaries: not rich-list contenders, but better-off-than-most-people people – business owners, executives, bankers, doctors, lawyers? Could they be doing a bit more? Or, indeed, anything at all?
Weir thanks the studio assistant who has appeared to manoeuvre us politely out of the room, then picks up her handbag and stands. "Yes," she says firmly, and smiles.