Every year, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) publishes the Top 50 corporate givers and Top 50 philanthropic givers, based on research by John McLeod, JBWere Philanthropic Services, and Jarrod Miles, Strive Philanthropy and GivingLarge. These 100 givers are the target population for the survey.

An invitation has been sent to every organisation listed in the Australian Financial Review’s Top 50 corporate givers and Top 50 philanthropic givers. If you or your organisation has not yet received this invitation, please contact Catherine Noble, Program Lead at Australians Investing In Women: catherine.noble@aiiw.org.au

This survey should take 5-10 minutes to complete.

This year’s State of Gender-wise Giving Survey closes on Monday 20 October 2025.

By supporting this survey you are supporting a commitment to better and more equitable giving.

The data collected will help your organisation to understand and improve the equity and impact of its giving program. It will enable you to compare your organisation’s giving against an emerging sector wide benchmark for gender-wise giving.

It will also equip you with insights that you can use in your communications with staff members and external stakeholders about the organisation’s giving in support of women and girls and gender equality

Each participant will receive an individualised report for their organisation. Published reports will be in aggregate form only – please see this survey news article for more information on reporting and benchmarks.

Final reporting information will be presented in aggregate only. However, participants are provided with an individualised report for their organisation, enabling comparison against an emerging sector wide benchmark for gender-wise giving.

The results will be shared with participants at a special launch event exploring the findings and presenting new approaches organisations are adopting to enhance their giving and social impact.

Australians Investing In Women uses data-driven insights and storytelling to promote the importance of considering gender in philanthropy and to support organisations in their quest to maximise impact.  

Gender-wise is a term we use to describe giving that recognises the impact sex and gender has on our experience of different aspects of life. You may have also heard it referred to as applying a gender lens.

Because programs affect women, men and gender diverse people differently, even those intended to be gender-neutral often actually exclude or under-serve some people and can prolong existing bias or disadvantage.

By adopting gender-wise principles and tools informed by data analysis, you can make sure that your giving programs, projects and organisations that you support better address women’s particular needs and circumstances, as well as the rest of the population.

Building gender analysis into every cause maintains a focus on women and underrepresented genders as social priorities shift in response to evolving community challenges. Considering and designing for everyone from the outset builds inclusion into the system and maximises impact, benefiting everyone in the community.

Giving programs is a broad term we use to describe the many variations of giving that are present across the philanthropic landscape, for example, direct cash donations, or major gifts, in-kind donations, grant-making programs or volunteering.

For corporates, this is also often called corporate giving programs or community investment programs. These terms are frequently used to describe how businesses contribute to social impact, whether through financial support, in-kind contributions, community partnerships, workplace giving, or employee volunteering. In some contexts, community investment is the preferred term, as it emphasises the strategic role of corporate giving in creating positive social outcomes.

Community investment is a way companies invest for social impact when they work externally with community organisations to address a social issue. Community investment programs can include financial support (charitable donation of money), in-kind support, community partnerships (funding specific programs or initiatives), workplace giving and employee volunteering.  

For the purposes of this survey as well as the AFR lists and related research, our definition of Community Investment aligns with global reporting standards (i.e. B4SI and GRI) & excludes foregone revenue, leverage, political donations and payments within land user agreements.   

We are aware that there are different ways of measuring corporate giving, depending on what is included, and that companies are not required to report their philanthropy in a consistent way that allows direct comparison or gender analysis.  

However, there are an increasing number of companies reporting activity in separate sustainability reports. The various ways companies invest for social impact as part of their sustainable social and environmental priorities are identified in the report, Sharpening Our Focus on Corporate Giving: Keeping Gender Equality in the Frame . It was developed by the Champions of Change Coalition, in collaboration with Australians Investing In Women, to set out a framework to assess corporate giving through a gender lens and accelerate progress towards gender equality.  

We do not consider commercial sponsorships part of corporate giving. The focus of corporate giving programs is charitable giving to social issues to benefit the community and society. For more about corporate giving, please refer to page 10 of the report, Sharpening Our Focus on Corporate Giving: Keeping Gender Equality in the Frame.

The list of priority areas is based on the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission’s (ACNC) program classification system. It aligns to how NFPs and charities report on their programs. ACNC developed the system to assist informed decision-making, to help supporters match their cause to the most appropriate charity, making it easier for donors, grant-makers, volunteers and the public to find charities that deliver the types of programs they are interested in supporting.  

The system is based on CLASSIE (Classification system of Australian Social Sector Initiatives and Entities), which was specifically developed by Our Community for the social sector. 

As Australians Investing In Women, our primary purpose is to encourage all Australians – particularly philanthropic, corporate, and community leaders – to apply a gender lens to their giving and increase investment in women and girls, to help create a fairer and more inclusive society.

The survey helps with understanding the consideration given to gender when decision makers plan and assess giving across Australia. The findings capture the annual philanthropic investment in women and girls, providing a national snapshot of whether, and how, the nation’s largest givers think about gender equity when making philanthropic investment decisions.

When we refer to ‘women and girls’, we include all people who identify as women, including cisgender, transgender, non-binary, and intersex people. 

Recognising the importance of diversity and inclusion, the survey enables organisations to track their giving to a range of gender identities as follows but they are not the focus of our report:

• Women and girls  

• Men and boys 

• Diverse sex and gender identities (e.g. gender queer, non-binary, gender non-conforming, intersex) 

You can download the survey as a PDF.

Not all the questions are compulsory. If you are unsure of how to respond, you can get help from Catherine Noble, Program Lead at Australians Investing In Women: catherine.noble@aiiw.org.au

If you need technical support, please contact Joyce Teo, Operations Manager at Australians Investing In Women: operations@aiiw.org.au.

We welcome your feedback. Please contact Catherine Noble, Program Lead at Australians Investing In Women: catherine.noble@aiiw.org.au

The survey has been developed by Australians Investing In Women and The Evolved Group in collaboration with philanthropic funders with input from Social Ventures Australia, and a Steering Committee comprising industry experts and sector representatives.  
 
Australians Investing in Women is a leading national not-for-profit that advocates for gender-wise philanthropy. Learn more about the Board and Staff behind the work. Our work is 100% powered by philanthropy. See Our Supporters page for more information on who funds and provides pro bono support to Australians Investing In Women. 

Australians Investing In Women offers practical tools, resources, research, and education. For more information, please visit our Research and Resources webpage.

If you would like a gender-wise presentation for your Board or a workshop for your team, please contact us directly: info@aiiw.org.au.