Vale Brian Page

For Brian, serving community was a guiding principle throughout his life. He was part of a group of visionary community leaders on South Australia’s Limestone Coast who in 2004 established a community foundation for their region – the Stand Like Stone Foundation. Brian and his wife Sue were founding donors of Stand Like Stone, with Brian serving as a director on the Foundation’s board until 2017. In 2020, he became a Patron of Stand Like Stone.

Through their involvement with the Foundation, Brian and Sue established numerous scholarships benefitting different schools across their local region and Brian was known for being a ‘willing extra pair of hands for the office’.

Brian was also an early advocate within the Australian community foundation movement for the need to create a support structure to enable this unique form of community-led philanthropy to flourish here. He was the inaugural Chair on the interim steering committee for the Community Foundation project, which later became Australian Community Philanthropy (ACP), now Community Foundations Australia.

In 2010, Brian’s leadership in that area was publicly recognised with the award for “Excellence and Achievement in the development of Australian Community Foundations”. His vision and commitment to community philanthropy will live on, in the success of Stand Like Stone – which is today South Australia’s largest community foundation – and in the work of Community Foundations Australia as the peak body supporting the growth of our national network of community foundations, each creating lasting change in their communities.

Brian will be missed by all who knew him. Those of us who worked with him in the community foundation movement will always remember him fondly and with gratitude. Our thoughts are with Sue Page at this sad time. We share in a small way in her sense of loss.