Welcome back to the Impact Fund Notes – a monthly update on our flagship giving initiative.
Last month, I shared a little about the Impact Fund’s refreshed direction: a sharper annual focus, deeper shared learning, and more community voice in the way we make decisions.
This month, I want to stay with the question of community voice – not as an abstract principle, but as a practical discipline. How do we, as funders, make decisions that are more grounded in lived experience, less shaped by assumption, and more useful to the people and movements we’re hoping to support?
It feels especially important right now. Across many issues – climate, democracy, racial justice, gender equality, migration and First Nations justice – public debate is increasingly shaped by misinformation, disinformation and fear. When narratives become distorted, philanthropy has a responsibility to slow down, listen more carefully, and seek out the people closest to the truth of what is happening.
Community voice in practice
For the Impact Fund, one way we are doing this is through our Community Advisory Group. The group brings together trusted community and sector partners to inform grantmaking decisions, test assumptions, and help us understand the broader ecosystems we are funding within.
This isn’t about outsourcing decisions; it’s about improving them. Community Advisors help us see what might otherwise get missed: which organisations are emerging, where momentum is building, and where well-intentioned approaches to partnering with changemakers might accidentally create burden.
Community leaders and advocates are often working under significant pressure. Many are managing multiple relationships with funders, government, media and community, while also responding to urgent need. Bringing community voice into grantmaking should not mean asking people to repeatedly educate us for free, but engaging meaningfully, recognising the time, expertise and relationships people bring, and making participation as useful and low-burden as possible.
So, how can we apply community voice across all our giving?
A good first step is to resource yourself. Read what is already available. Learn the history of the issue. Ask: who is most affected, and who is leading work with those communities? What organisations are trusted? What is the wider ecosystem, and how do different parts of it work together?
Then, where appropriate, build relationships with care. Be clear about what you are asking and why. Keep meetings purposeful. Pay people for their time where you can. Share back what you are learning . And, most importantly, be willing to let community insight change your mind.
Listening through the noise
Through the Impact Fund, we are seeing how community voice helps us connect with organisations and work that is genuinely grounded in community relationships and leadership.
That matters when public debate is noisy or distorted. When we listen to people closest to an issue, we hear a more complex – and often more hopeful – story than the one that dominates public debate. Community voice helps us understand not only what is going wrong, but where trust, leadership and momentum already exist.
That has been particularly clear in our climate work this year. Our 2026 Catalyst Grant partner, RE-Alliance, is working with farmers and regional communities to support a fair and community-led renewable energy transition. Hundreds of farmers are already hosting renewable energy projects, with thousands more signed up and ready to participate. Yet public debate often tells a very different story. Despite evidence that more than 63 per cent of farmers support renewable energy, a false narrative of widespread rural opposition continues to dominate – fuelled by vested interests and misinformation.
Listening well helps funders move beyond that noise. It helps us understand what kind of support is needed: not just funding for a project, but resourcing for trusted organisations to build relationships and support communities to lead.
We are seeing this same need for grounded, community-informed responses in another current granting opportunity. The Human Rights Law Centre is seeking support for work that would help Australia better understand and respond to the rise of far-right extremism — including how fear, disinformation and false stories about marginalised communities are being used to make people less safe and weaken democratic participation.
The project would bring together community experience, expert analysis and practical recommendations to support more coordinated action – ensuring responses are shaped by the communities most affected. Australian Communities Foundation has committed $20,000 from the Impact Fund, and thanks to the generosity of our giving community we’ve already co-funded an additional $60,000 towards this work. We are seeking to raise an additional $40,000 from interested Fundholders to help bring the project to life.
In backing both RE-Alliance and Human Rights Law Centre, we have been reminded that community voice is not a “nice to have”. It is how we understand what is real, what is distorted, and what is needed. It helps us all avoid easy assumptions and invest in work that is grounded, timely and trusted.
What’s next
If you are thinking about how to bring more community voice into your own giving, I warmly invite you to join our next Impact Fund webinar, Amplifying Your Giving With Strategy, on Thursday 6 August. We’ll hear from ACF Fundholders Luci Folder and Ben Sharpe from the Pollinate Fund, who have developed a giving strategy with community voice at its heart.
You can also contact us to learn more about the current Agile Grant opportunity with the Human Rights Law Centre and pledge your support.
