Family Foundations Peer Network (March 2025)

When

Wednesday 5 March 2025

1.30pm - 3.00pm AEDT (ACT, NSW, VIC)

Online event

A Zoom link will be provided after registration.

Overview: Incorporating diverse perspectives in funding decisions

In this session, we will explore how diverse perspectives, including those of family members and individuals with lived experience, are shaping decision-making processes within foundations.

The new network co-chairs, Ingrid Albert - the Tony Foundation, and Jess Perrin - the Eureka Benevolent Foundation, are hosting the discussion with the speakers:

Jane Arnott - Strategy Leader, Governance and Philanthropy, Julia Farr Group (JFM Fund): Jane will share how the Julia Farr Group embeds inclusion and lived experience across their grant programs. From governance and strategy to decision-making, she’ll highlight how lived experience shapes funding strategies, partner selection, and program design. Jane will also provide real-world examples of how these principles have directly influenced funding decisions.
Tabitha Lovett - Chief Executive Officer, Besen Family Foundation: Tabitha will share the foundation’s approach to including the younger generation in the Foundation’s strategy and activities, including selecting cause areas, organisations to support, and investments. Tabitha will also discuss practical ways in which a family foundation can represent divergent interests, priorities and views and bring the family together to share ideas, experience and perspectives to both educate and inspire all involved.

Audience

This event is for Philanthropy Australia members who are staff, trustees or family members that represent a Family Foundation. If you are not yet a member of Philanthropy Australia or want to find out more about the philanthropic work in this area, please reach out to membership@philanthropy.org.au.

Speakers

		Jane Arnott - Strategy Leader, Governance and Philanthropy, Julia Farr Group Jane leads governance and grant making for the Julia Farr group of social purpose organisations – JFA Purple Orange, inhousing, and the JFM Fund. All three organisations share a common set of values and a mission of disability inclusion, through people with disability exercising personal authority and being active citizens in community life.
		Jane has spent much of her professional life working in organisations providing governance, management and financial support to not for profit organisations. She started her career working with community groups, including local advocacy organisations led by people with disability and their families. Jane held senior roles in large grant making organisations in the UK, where she led teams developing new funding programs and grant making processes. Immediately before moving to Adelaide, Jane was working in global philanthropy, with a focus on growing giving in key global markets. Before joining JFM Fund, Jane led programs supporting disability service providers to transition to NDIS, and mainstream community organisations to make their services more inclusive. Her role at JFM Fund allows Jane to live her values around inclusion. She loves working directly with grant applicants and grant holders, and seeing how our funding supports them to challenge stereotypes and develop new approaches to inclusion.

		Tabitha Lovett - CEO, Besen Family Foundation Tabitha Lovett was appointed CEO of the Besen Family Foundation in 2017 and before that was the General Manager of Philanthropy Services at Equity Trustees (2009 – 2017).
		Tabitha graduated from Monash University with a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Skills and Ethics and a Bachelor of Arts/Law. She has been involved in the philanthropy sector for over 15 years and in that time managed some of Australia’s most established charitable trusts including, the William Buckland Foundation, the Alfred Felton Bequest, Charles and Sylvia Viertel Charitable Trust and, R.M. Ansett Trust as well as the grant manager for the Victoria Law Foundation and a solicitor at King & Wood Mallesons. Tabitha is passionate about the role that philanthropy plays in the community in tackling social issues that require innovative, compassionate, and sustainable solutions. Before moving into the philanthropy sector in 2008 she worked as a social justice lawyer at Justice Connect and that experience and exposure to the causes and contributors to inequality, hardship and disadvantage underpins her approach to the practice of philanthropy.
		Her skills and experience cover the full spectrum of the philanthropic sector: including the relevant law, governance and regulatory framework and taxation issues; investment oversight, discretionary grant-making, reporting and evaluation. In 2007, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research free legal services for charities and not-for-profits in the United States which informed the establishment of Not-for-Profit Law at Justice Connect.

Peer Network Chairs

		Jess Perrin - Foundation Director, Eureka Benevolent Foundation Jess Perrin is the inaugural Foundation Director of the Eureka Benevolent Foundation (EBF), a family foundation established in 2007 by Belinda Hutchinson and Roger Massy-Greene. EBF focuses on early childhood and education, and on disadvantage in the developing world, seeking to influence and empower lasting change. The foundation’s strategy is to give a small number of larger, long-term grants to support catalytic change in our focus areas.
		Jess is a seasoned partnerships and philanthropy executive, with over 18 years’ experience delivering social impact programs globally. Her career has spanned for purpose organisations, the private sector and the United Nations. Most recently, as Head of Social Innovation and Digital Inclusion at Infoxchange, and prior to that as Head of Global Programs at the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London. She holds a Masters of International Communications and Development from the City University of London and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

		Ingrid Albert - Executive Director, Alberts/The Tony Foundation Ingrid is executive director and member of the fifth generation at Alberts, a 139-year old family business backing pioneers to create a vibrant and sustainable future for all. She leads Alberts philanthropic arm, The Tony Foundation, which partners with pioneers harnessing the transformative power of music to improve life outcomes of young Australians.
		The Foundation embraces a responsible investment approach across its corpus through multiple investment strategies including positive and negative screens, stewardship, impact investing, and catalytic capital.
		Ingrid also manages Alberts marketing, with a focus on leadership and advocacy initiatives, and is involved with Impact Ventures, investing in early-stage start-ups addressing equality, healthy minds, sustainable environment, and vibrant culture – four impact themes incorporated across Alberts operations. Prior to Alberts, she built her strategy and marketing career working locally and internationally in Switzerland and Dubai for FMCG company CPW (a joint venture between Nestle and General Mills). An Alberts board director and Foundation investment committee member, Ingrid is a graduate of AICD and a committee member of Philanthropy Australia’s Foundations Group for Impact Investing.

Peer Network Lead

Rachel Findlay - Executive Director Membership and Engagement, Philanthropy Australia

Rachel has been working with philanthropists and funders both in Australia and the UK for more than 10 years. Prior to Philanthropy Australia, Rachel was at Australian Philanthropic Services (APS) where she advised clients on all elements of their giving including strategy development, charity analysis and social sector research.

Rachel has also worked at Social Ventures Australia (SVA), the Social Impact Hub and headed up New Philanthropy Capital’s (NPC) Funder Effectiveness team in the UK. Rachel is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) having started her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Learn more about Philanthropy Australia membership

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Family Foundations Peer Network (March 2025)

Jane Arnott - Strategy Leader, Governance and Philanthropy, Julia Farr Group

Tabitha Lovett - CEO, Besen Family Foundation

Peer Network Chairs

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