The Pride Foundation Australia board would like to recognise and celebrate our almost 10 years partnership with Sidney Myer Fund, which is now drawing to a close.
We first began our philanthropic partnership with SMF in 2014, when we had a first grant round together for $15,000, focused on LGBTIQ ageing.
Over the course of the last decade, PFA and SMF have jointly funded 18 large grants to a total of $320,000 on projects addressing issues facing LGBTQIA+ Australians living with disability, healthy ageing for LGBTQIA+ Australians, and LGBTQIA+ refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia. Ruth McNair, Chairperson of the PFA board notes ‘this was our first major philanthropic collaboration and it helped us to build our impact through co-funding as well as improving our connections and brand recognition around Australia.’
Kirsty Allen, Senior Program Manager of the Sidney Myer Fund and Myer Foundation states, “The Sidney Myer Fund’s partnership with Pride Foundation Australia has been a fruitful and enjoyable one for us. It has enabled SMF to reach an incredible range of organisations committed to better meeting the diverse needs of the LGBTIQ+ community, which we were not reaching through other grantmaking programs. Our partnership has helped build our commitment to and confidence in funding in this space, leading to substantial commitments to LGBTIQ+ organisations on the part of SMF Trustees in recent years.”
A great benefit of working with the Sidney Myer Fund in this philanthropic partnership has been the freedom they have offered Pride Foundation Australia and the grant recipients funded through our partnered grant rounds, to address areas of need within the Australian LGBTQIA+ sector. Our panel of assessors for each grant round consisted not only of members from PFA and SMF, but also advisors with lived experiences in the relevant key focus area of the grant round, ensuring that projects selected for funding would have the most impact.
“The PFA SMF assessment panel has always ensured that people with lived experience—be that disability, or the refugee or asylum seeking experience—have brought their insights to the discussion, setting an example not only for us at SMF but in the philanthropic sector more broadly,” says Kirsty Allen.
“It has been a great pleasure to have shared two co-funding rounds each year over almost a decade with colleagues from PFA,” says Kirsty, “Together we have had the opportunity to learn about the work of myriad organisations around Australia which are committed to ensuring they are inclusive workplaces, to improving their practice to truly understand and meet the needs of LGBTIQ+ people, and to highlight and defend the rights of the most vulnerable in the LGBTIQ+ community. The Sidney Myer Fund is proud of the partnership and grateful to PFA for its pioneering leadership in rainbow philanthropy.”
