Why we’re starting Resource Generation Australia — and why donor organising matters now
Resource Generation Australia Working Group
Resource Generation is a global community of young people with wealth and class privilege committed to the equitable distribution of wealth and power.
The global donor organising movement includes Resource Generation (USA), Resource Justice (UK) and Resource Movement (Canada). It’s seeing rapid growth in our peer countries, but until recently there’s been nothing like it here in Australia.
Like its peers, Resource Generation Australia (RGA) will organise young inheritors, entrepreneurs, investors and high-income earners to move money, shift mindsets and change the story about wealth in Australia.
We (the authors of this blog post) are Georgia and Charlotte — two members of the founding working group.
Donor organising and why we love it
Donor organising is the practice of bringing people with wealth together not just to give (as is often the main focus), but to understand themselves as influential actors within systems of inequality.
“Wealth is not neutral. It is structured by systems of extraction and protection. If those systems are to change, people who benefit from them must organise.” — Michael Gast, Author, Free the People to Free the Money to Free the People and Resource Generation US alumnus.
Donor organising helps wealth holders reorient themselves from ‘benefactors of’ to ‘participants in’ social change. It treats giving as a shared political endeavour rather than simply a responsibility or personal choice. It urges us to change ourselves in order to change the systems we operate within.
Movement building and organising like this are typically and rightfully associated with communities that are under-resourced and most impacted by the issues they’re working on. But we believe that movements also need participation from those (like us) that benefit from the status quo, want to change it anyway, and have some serious power to do so. Recognising this was a starting point for RGA.
Why the time is now for Resource Generation to come to Australia
Australia has one of the highest rates of wealth concentration in the world. The much spoken about Great Intergenerational Wealth Transfer is happening — and young people are on the receiving end much of the time. Young inheritors and high-income earners in Australia are navigating or witnessing:
- Rising public scrutiny of wealth
- Deepening wounds caused by colonisation and its ongoing impacts
- Climate collapse and extractive investment legacies
- Deep housing and cost-of-living crises
- Growing inequality
- A philanthropic culture that they don’t fully identify with, and that often avoids structural analysis
Many feel isolated and conflicted. Many want to move significant resources to address these structural issues but don’t know how. Yet, we have very little infrastructure for organising and activating them.
Both in our work and personal lives, we hear time and time again of young wealth holders who never engaged because they didn’t find their place in the ecosystem or only got activated around social change through a chance encounter. We think more organising infrastructure will go a long way to changing this. Infrastructure that meets people where they are at, and challenges them to question exactly how they got there.
Where is Resource Generation Australia at?
We are in the early stages — building founding cohorts in Melbourne and Sydney who are undertaking the Australian pilot of Resource Generation’s core offering Praxis, building relationships with movement partners, and laying the foundations for a long-term organising project. This will include undertaking a process to build out RGA’s broader strategy and model by community advisors and participants in the second half of 2026.
We believe Australia needs infrastructure that supports wealthy young people to:
- Move more money
- Move it earlier
- Move it with fewer restrictions
- Move it in alignment with those closest to harm
And to do so not in isolation, but as part of a collective political project.
We are grateful to the funders and supporters of the pilot, including the Reichstein Foundation, Tripple, Australian Communities Foundation and a number of the young wealth holders involved.
There are still a couple of spots left to participate in our Melbourne cohort (kicking off in March)! Please share the opportunity or express your interest if you want to learn more!
