The Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation turns 100
This year, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation (LMCF) celebrates its centenary – the first community foundation in Australia to do so. It marks one hundred years of listening to community need and driving change across Greater Melbourne. It’s a milestone for the Foundation, and an extraordinary achievement for our national network.
The Foundation’s evolution over the last 100 years is a fascinating story of community spirit, innovation and perseverance. Above all, it’s a rallying cry for the enduring value of the community foundation model.
We sat down with the Foundation’s CEO, Dr Catherine Brown OAM, to discuss the Foundation’s journey, its vision for the future, and the lasting power of community foundations.
The most pressing needs of the day
Less than ten years after the world’s first community foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, was established in the US in 1914, community members and business leaders across Greater Melbourne came together to establish what was then known as The Lord Mayor’s Fund for Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities.
It was 1923, and Melbourne was in the midst of a post-war economic downturn. With an influx of servicemen and women returning from WWI in need of health services, Melbourne’s healthcare system was buckling under the growing pressure. And with no government funding afforded to hospitals at the time, access to healthcare quickly became the most pressing issue of the day.
Melbourne’s then-Lord Mayor, Sir John Swanson, established the Fund to meet this need. Donations from the community were pooled and grants were donated to hospitals across the city, so that better health services were available to all.
Although they didn’t use the term community foundation in those early years, the hallmark characteristics of the model are there from the beginning: identifying gaps in funding, collective giving, and stepping in when government couldn’t as an independent foundation. The Fund even provided donors with expert advice about which causes to donate to – an early iteration of what we now call donor-advised giving.
1923 to 2023
With the Great Depression looming large in the 1920s, and the Spanish Flu barely receding from collective memory, the Foundation began in circumstances eerily similar to today.
‘Looking back over the last 100 years,’ Catherine says, ‘there are themes that emerge again and again. The things that keep occurring are economic downturn, disasters, and a crisis around access to healthcare.
‘It makes you realise we go in cycles, ups and downs. We all feel like we’re dealing with these issues for the first time, but people before us were dealing with them too.’
Reflecting on the Foundation’s journey and looking ahead to its future can bring a healthy dose of perspective. ‘It makes you think of yourself as a custodian,’ says Catherine, cutting to the heart of the community foundation promise – structures for perpetuity, designed to outlast us all.
Lessons from a lifetime of giving
When asked what the most valuable lesson has been in her 11 years as CEO at the Foundation, Catherine doesn’t hesitate: ‘Some of the bravest things we’ve done have been the most important.’
For LMCF, risk often brings great impact. The Foundation is known for its gutsy and innovative grant-making, often stepping in as the first or early funder.
Applying a climate lens across all the Foundation’s impact areas and the Affordable Housing Challenge are two initiatives that brought with them some risk. ‘With those initiatives we really stepped out into the unknown, but in some ways they’ve had the highest impact.’
The social enterprise ecosystem is another area where risk-taking has driven high impact. ‘We’ve been able to fund a lot of social enterprises, as well as some impact investing. We did take a few risks and were often early funders, but the end results are worth it. The potential is huge.’
Beyond its trailblazing grant-making, the Foundation’s ability to be nimble, to listen and respond to community is crucial, Catherine says.
‘The idea behind the Fund, even in the beginning, was to look at the most challenging issue of the day. That means you have to pivot to meet new demands.’
In the beginning, it was the public health system that needed support. But once government began to fund public hospitals, the Foundation started granting to other charities. As community need continued to evolve, so too did the Foundation.
‘Over the past 100 years, there’s been disasters, economic downturn, new diseases like HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 – you can never stop.’
‘You can’t sit back and think you know everything. Community need is always changing, you have to keep learning about what the new issues are.’
LMCF is serious about learning from its community. Whether that’s funding research or undertaking Vital Signs for Greater Melbourne, the Foundation is driven to understand where its funding and expertise are needed most.
It’s this agility at the heart of LMCF that has helped it grow into the trusted philanthropic leader it is today. Agility and, Catherine is quick to mention, having a strong presence in community.
Reflecting on the transformative Eldon Foote bequest the Foundation finalised in 2018, Catherine says, ‘If we hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have received the bequest. Community foundations have got to be there and known to get the bequest. It might take time but just by being there, good things happen.’
The next 100 years
For LMCF, the most important thing to know going forward is that community issues are more interrelated than ever before. New issues, like climate change and the huge loss of social cohesion, overlay already existing needs that have been repeating for decades.
‘The complexity and interrelatedness of everything is what I see at the moment. There’s no point in funding affordable housing if it’s not climate safe and energy efficient. And there’s no point in funding social enterprise to create jobs in industries that are dying. We need to be in the clean and green economies and the caring and digital economies.’
‘Vulnerable, older people who live alone – where will they go in a heatwave? Health and housing, employment and climate – they’re all interrelated now.’
The solutions that LMCF funds address these issues at their intersection.
‘Disaster response was at one stage a program that would pop up now and then. But now we’ve had bushfires, the pandemic, floods – we’re funding disaster response, relief, recovery and preparedness – it’s an ongoing program.
‘Building community resilience, especially making sure we’re prepared for climate change, is a massive task. It’ll only become more and more important.’
Supporting community foundations in Australia
LMCF is the largest community foundation in Australia, stewarding some $248M in community assets, and plays a key role in supporting the national community foundation network.
For the sector to grow and strengthen in Australia, Catherine thinks the magic is in the messaging.
‘We have to get past this idea that you have to be Bill Gates to be involved in philanthropy, that’s just the wrong message.’
Most of LMCF’s donors, she says, are regular, professional people: doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists as well as small business owners and tradespeople. What they all have in common is a strong commitment to community.
‘We’ve had quite a few bequests from professional women who have passed away with no family and have left us their house. That’s the message that has to get out more: we’re here to hold bequests from people who cared about their community.
‘It’s especially about the small poppies’, Catherine says, ‘we should be celebrating them. These individuals are part of the fabric of philanthropy in Australia.’
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To learn more about the history of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, visit their new site dedicated to the Centenary: 100 Years of Impact.
Dr Catherine Brown OAM has been CEO of LMCF since 2011 and is a long-standing champion of the community foundation model.
In 2022 she was the recipient of the Sue Charlton Lifetime Achievement Award, which honours individuals who have throughout their professional life demonstrated sustained commitment to growing community foundations in Australia and whose outstanding contribution has helped create momentum for such growth.
Featured in the header image: Her Excellency the Honourable Linda Dessau AC CVO, Governor of Victoria, with The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of Melbourne Sally Capp (left) and Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Chief Executive Officer Dr Catherine Brown OAM (right).