Director Artsupport Australia
Louise Walsh
My first involvement with growing philanthropy was when I persuaded the law firm I was working with to give…me!
I was working as a graduate lawyer, not long out of Uni, when I read an article in the newspaper about Rod McGeoch. He had spoken at a lunch in town for all the heads of professional service firms: law firms and accountancy firms. Rod was running the Olympics bid at that time and he was trying to raise money to fund it. I cut the article out and persuaded the managing partner of my firm to give ‘me’, instead of cash. It changed my life.
When Sydney won the bid, I was asked to stay on. The organisers said to me, ‘Okay Louise, now we need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to put the Games on. What do you know about fundraising?’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything but I’ll have a go at it.’ So I started up the corporate sponsorship team. I did the Westpac, Ansett, AMP and Energy Australia deals before moving on to work with fundraising for the Sydney Symphony.
I came to the Australia Council in May 2003 and the brief was simply to ‘grow more philanthropy.’ We had three years to get Artsupport Australia going and there were just two of us to start with but I could see the huge potential for philanthropy in Australia. I could absolutely see it, right across the arts. Now we have state managers in Queensland, WA, Victoria and Northern Territory. We offer free advice and mentoring to arts organisations and individuals on how to grow their philanthropic sources and we work with businesses and wealthy people to be more strategic in their giving. And hopefully, give more to the arts.
Giving is catching. We’ve observed that, for lot of philanthropists, once it works and they get the bug they become passionate and want to do more. And then it’s not just writing cheques: they’re getting involved on the Boards of the organisations they support or they’re giving pro bono advice or they’re setting up foundations.
I love this work. It’s so rewarding. We can be mentoring the tiniest little start up organisation and to see the joy on their face when they get their first grant from a foundation. it doesn’t get any better than that.
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