In late 2025 / early 2026, more than 25 leaders from across the Australian community philanthropy ecosystem came together to test whether a more coherent, collaborative national approach to powering gender equity through community philanthropy was both possible, desirable and needed.

The answer is yes.

Since then, our Alliance has grown and strengthened. We are representatives from women’s funds, giving circles and community & Indigenous-led philanthropic initiatives from all over the country.

Through our work, we have witnessed the proliferation of gender equity-focused community philanthropy in Australia and seen that women’s and LGBTIQ+ leadership is front and centre. At the same time, we recognise that our efforts are still fragmented, and progress toward gender equity isn’t happening at the pace needed.

We now have a shared commitment to build national infrastructure that strengthens connected practice and learning, increases capital flowing to gender equity initiatives in communities, enables coordinated national stewardship and supports collective action and agendas.

Participants in the Alliance will mobilise 100s of millions of philanthropic dollars from, and into, their communities over the next 3-5 years no matter what, but we feel compelled to further activate, connect and scale this work so it can better meet the challenges our communities face now and into the future.