SA Giving Week: A Movement in the Making

Last week, South Australia made history. The inaugural SA Giving Week brought together over 1,000 people across 17 events, united by a shared belief: that generosity, when connected and intentional, can transform a state.

But if I’m honest, what struck me most wasn’t the numbers — impressive as they are. It was the quality and depth of the conversations. The questions people were willing to sit with. The sense that something is shifting in South Australia’s philanthropic landscape, and that we are only just beginning to understand what that means.

A sector the size of a resources boom

The data tells part of the story. South Australia is home to more than 7% of Australia’s charities. Our non-profit sector contributes close to $10 billion to the state economy and employs 7% of the workforce. To put that in perspective: mining employs 7% of Western Australia’s workforce, and WA is the nation’s mining capital.

South Australia’s non-profit sector is, in employment terms, our equivalent of the resources boom. It is not a small corner of our economy. It has an essential role in the delivery of social services and protection of our natural environment. And yet only 25.4% of South Australians currently donate to charity – below the national average of 27.5% and well below ACT where 34.2% of taxpayers donate. That gap isn’t a failure. It’s an invitation.

Connected generosity

The week opened with a powerful provocation from Catherine Brooks of Equitable Philanthropy: South Australia doesn’t have a generosity problem, it has a connection problem. People care deeply. But caring and structured giving are different things – and bridging that gap requires deliberate work. Her insight that fundraising is increasingly a relationship-first market, not a volume-driven one, landed for me as both a challenge and an opportunity. In South Australia, as one presenter put it, ‘you don’t raise money – you’re invited into it.’ And it points to something important: the organisations that will thrive are those that lead with purpose and genuine problem-solving, not those that simply chase funding.

Giving is good for you

Friday’s opening breakfast with Patrycja Slawuta reminded us of something we sometimes forget to say out loud: giving is good for you. It lowers blood pressure, releases oxytocin, gets you out of your own head and interrupts the cycle of rumination that so many of us are caught in. Generosity, it turns out, is one of the best longevity hacks available. In a week focused on growing South Australia’s culture of giving, that felt like the most human argument of all.

Is philanthropy really risk capital?

One of my personal highlights of the week was the conversation about risk. Is philanthropy truly risk capital? I think it should be. Structured giving models including governance frameworks for foundations can sometimes dampen the very appetite for risk and experimentation that communities need funders to embrace.

We need to ask ourselves honestly: are our governance models enabling bold, community-led change, or constraining it?

Can we simplify grant applications and measurement frameworks to genuinely empower the organisations we fund, rather than burden them?

Shifting power to community

The question of who holds power, and who should, was a thread running through the entire week. Shifting power to community members, giving people agency over their own futures, democratising philanthropy from the inside: these aren’t abstract ideas. They are the work. And they sit at the heart of what community foundations exist to do.

The future of giving is female

The data on where wealth is moving matters too. The intergenerational transfer of wealth is already underway and increasingly, that wealth sits with women, who research consistently shows give more, to more organisations, more often. Next-generation donors are motivated by impact, driven by values, and looking to carry wealth forward, not just pass it down. SA Giving Week’s Morgan Stanley report launch made clear: this shift is happening now, not on the horizon.

Funding what matters most

I also came away thinking about the causes that philanthropy sometimes overlooks. Organisations protecting our democracy. Public interest journalism, civic institutions, advocacy bodies, all need philanthropic support. These are not peripheral concerns. They are foundational to the healthy communities that all  our giving ultimately serves.

Community foundations: rooted in place, powered by people

For the Foundation SA team, the week reinforced why community foundations matter so deeply in this moment. We sit between community and funders, making visible what is otherwise invisible, and creating the conditions for generosity to flow where it is genuinely needed. South Australia now has seven community foundations, with three more emerging, and an ambitious goal: that every South Australian has access to one.

See you in 2027

SA Giving Week was never just about one week. It was about building something durable: a culture of giving that is locally rooted, nationally connected, and genuinely transformative. We’ll share a full impact report in partnership with Social Impact Hub when it’s complete. In the meantime, save the date: SA Giving Week returns 3–7 May 2027.