Community Foundations Australia

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Growing community foundations for a fairer Australia.

News & Analysis

Adelaide Hills Foundation gets off the ground while Greater Shepparton celebrates 25 years

CFAustralia Update

Welcome to Michelle Baldwin as she begins our inaugural Community Collaboration Fellowship

CFAus opens 'engine room' to navigate the Community Charity framework

The focus at CFAus is to ensure that the community foundation network realises the full potential of the new Community Charity DGR-1 framework. Consequently, a dedicated Community Charity Engine Room is being launched to help foundations make sense of the guidelines in practice.

‘Communities are rushing in to create their own futures’: Ian Bird's Leadership Victoria Oration 2026

CFAustralia Update

Community Funds for Gender Equity alliance gathers paces as new groups join the conversation 

Energy working group renews focus on practical skills to support a ‘just’ transition

CFAustralia Update

What is an Impact Community? CFAus Lead Mari De Liseo explains

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News & Analysis

Video

National Community Foundations Forum 2026 - video

Highlights from the 2026 National Community Foundations Forum.

How Denmark Community Foundation is supporting youth mental health and creating real local change

Services in Denmark, located over 350km south of Perth, are 'next to nothing', says Karen Burford, Chair of the local community foundation. But that’s beginning to change, thanks to the foundation’s tireless commitment and ability to convene local stakeholders on issues such as youth mental health, food insecurity and substance misuse services.

Major funder backs trusted local leadership through WA community foundations

The Stan Perron Charitable Foundation is forging a distinctive partnership with community foundations to achieve ‘immediate impact’ where it’s needed in Western Australian communities. The trust-based giving model recognises that community foundations hold the key relationships central to achieving significant long-term change in their local areas, said Chair Elizabeth Perron.

Geelong Women’s Impact Collective gets tremendous response to launch

A fund aimed at tackling gender inequality and strengthening women-led philanthropy hosted by the Geelong Community Foundation was launched in April with the backing of more than 100 founding members.

River People network gains momentum as cross-border collaboration grows

A grassroots alliance of community foundations along the Murray River is driving regional collaboration in a growing network.

Impact Communities: Turning shared local challenges into collective action

Community foundations are coming together across Australia to tackle some of the most complex issues facing communities today in a more collaborative and systemic approach. Through the Impact Communities approach, shepherded by Community Foundations Australia (CFAus), groups of foundations are sharing knowledge, testing ideas, strengthening advocacy and exploring how community philanthropy can drive meaningful change across a wider sphere than a local context.

CFAustralia Update

CF Lifecycles Framework & Card Game

Designed with and for community foundations, the Lifecycles framework and card game offer community foundations the chance to reflect on four fluid stages — emergence, growth, durability, and renewal - not as a linear progression, but as an ongoing journey.

CFAustralia Update

Hungary’s historic movement for change ‘grew out of community connections’

Tamás Scsaurszki, one of our international guests at the National Community Foundations Forum, shared the powerful story of how Péter Magyar’s landslide win over Viktor Orbán came after he spent two years visiting hundreds of communities in rural Hungary holding 'talking groups' about civic matters.

CFAustralia Update

Em Scott: How Australia can build community-led, resilient funding for LGBTIQ+ equality, inclusion and safety

Em Scott, CEO of the national community foundation Rainbow Giving Australia, has published nine major recommendations to address chronic underfunding for community organisations supporting LGBTIQ+ equality and inclusion as part of her Churchill Fellowship research.

Community foundations roundtable contributes to renewables legislation in real time

Community foundations influence renewable energy policy in real-time as NSW parliament debated bill

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What we do

Community Foundations Australia connects and supports community-led philanthropic organisations so that the field can operate more effectively and efficiently, and create lasting social change in communities.

Our mission is to catalyse collaboration, participation and innovation within the community philanthropy movement to create a fairer, more sustainable Australia.

We work with the whole field–community groups, community foundations and other forms of community-led philanthropy, partners and government–to advocate for community governance models, and to empower local communities to determine their own futures.

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Acknowledgement of Country

Community Foundations Australia acknowledges the traditional custodians of the country where Community Foundations Australia and its Community Foundation members operate. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.