Billionaire Andrew Forrest's $400 million donation reflects deeper shifts in philanthropy among Australia's very rich.
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'Twiggy' Forrest donates $400m to charity
Unveiling a $400 million donation to charities and cancer research, mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest stood with politicians in Canberra to celebrate the biggest private donation in Australian history.
Donations of seriously large sums of money by the business elite have become more common in recent years, experts say, and they are also becoming more public, well-marketed, and more "entrepreneurial".
While there may some be some scepticism about the motivations business people could have for bringing philanthropy out into the open, there is a key advantage of a big announcement like that from Forrest and his wife, Nicola, on Monday.
Arguably, all that extra publicity can encourage more people with serious cash to also think about sharing it with worthy causes.
So, how does the $400 million the Forrests are stumping up stack up with other very large donations? And how does the corporate culture of philanthropy here compare with other countries?
Coming research from Swinburne University's Professor John Fitzgerald confirms Forrest's donation is right up there among the biggest in Australia.
He estimates there are about 150 philanthropic trusts and foundations in Australia with between $10 million and $100 million in assets, and 15 to 20 with between $100 million and $300 million in assets.
![Andrew Forrest and his wife, Nicola, at Parliament House on Monday.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170613154253im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/a/c/x/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwaadc.png/1495854639229.jpg)
Before this donation, two existing trusts had $400 million or more, in addition to an estimated $4 billion in a fund left by late Ramsay Health Care chief Paul Ramsay, the largest fund by far.
Fitzgerald says that, unlike Forrest, some other living donors prefer to keep their donations private, and there are "very wealthy contributors" who are "flying under the radar".
![Professor John Fitzgerald confirms Forrest's donation is right up there among the biggest in Australia.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170613154253im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/u/i/h/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwaadc.png/1495494108813.jpg)
"Mr Forrest is to be commended for going out and making this a public event, but there are other generous donors who want to come up with creative solutions out of the spotlight," Fitzgerald says.
This trend, towards greater transparency among philanthropists, was highlighted in a recent report from QUT and Swinburne's Centre for Social Impact, Giving Australia.
![The late Paul Ramsay left $3 billion to his personal foundation.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170613154253im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/z/r/3/m/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwaadc.png/1495494108813.jpg)
Published last month, the report said that in the past decade, one of the biggest changes was that philanthropists were more likely to be public about their giving.
"The old style philanthropist was a quiet achiever, Andrew Forrest represents the new, more entreprenerurial philanthropist," Fitzgerald says.
![Philanthropy Australia chief executive Sarah Davies.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170613154253im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/a/g/z/0/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gwaadc.png/1495494108813.jpg)
Technology is also having a transformative effect, so that philanthropy (setting up trusts to fund future gifts) is becoming more available to everyday people, not just the very rich.
The rise of social media and crowd-funding, for instance, can "democratise" philanthropy targeted at particular social problems or issues.
Another key trend is that philanthropy is catching on more widely among the wealthy, even though we still have a long way to go before catching up to the world leader, the United States.
The pledge by Forrest comes after several bumper donations in 2014, which was seen as a key year in Australian philanthropy.
This was when the late Paul Ramsay, health care and media entrepreneur left $3 billion to his personal foundation, and Westpac made a $100 million donation, the largest corporate gift at the time. Graham Tuckwell of ETF Securities also made a $50 million gift for university scholarships a year earlier.
All these announcements grabbed plenty of media attention, and it's argued that the extra publicity helps to foster a greater culture of giving among the wealthy.
"There's this real sense that philanthropy in Australia is coming of age," says Philanthropy Australia chief executive Sarah Davies.
"Until about five years ago, philanthropy was not something that we really spoke about much in Australia, but that has changed."
"We're seeing more wealthy Australians giving, and by talking about it publicly they can inspire others," she says.
So how do our philanthropists compare with those overseas?
While things are changing, there is still a long way to go before we catch up with the United States, where giving among the business elite is deeply ingrained in the corporate culture.
Fitzgerald says philanthropy among very wealthy Australians is on par with European countries, but the United States is streets ahead of the world.
"The United States has such a unique culture of giving back that comparisons are not very helpful or insightful," he says. "My understanding is that Australia's wealthy are about as generous as their European or Canadian counterparts, and are giving more, more often, than in the past."
The US is indeed in another league entirely. Mega-contributions such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg setting up a "philanthropic project" in 2015 that would ultimately hold assets worth $45 billion show the sheer scale of US giving – though it's been reported Zuckerberg's project may also make a profit.
It is also worth remembering that while the US culture of philanthropy may be ahead of the world, the rise in giving by the wealthiest Americans has occurred alongside a long-term increase in inequality across the broader population.