Macquarie Group Foundation | FY2025 Annual Review
Welcome to the Macquarie Group Foundation’s 2025 Annual Review, which will be my final as Chair as I hand over to Evie Bruce, Macquarie’s Group General Counsel.
This year marks the Foundation’s 40th anniversary of driving Macquarie’s social impact work, supporting our people, businesses and communities to build a better future. Its founding Chair, David Clarke AO (1942–2011), who was also Chairman of Macquarie at the time, firmly believed that Macquarie and its people should strive to improve society in a variety of ways.
Over the past four decades, as Macquarie has grown and expanded globally, so has the Foundation’s work, always in collaboration with our passionate people. Since its inception, together with our people, the Foundation has contributed $A698 million to thousands of community organisations to drive social impact and change the lives of people around the world1.
During my time as Chair, I’m proud of the way we’ve evolved the Foundation’s strategy to be more ambitious about the role it can play in supporting our people and businesses to have a greater impact in the communities in which we live and work. In doing so, we’ve further amplified the level of giving by our people, while also introducing social impact investing activity alongside our grantmaking. In addition, catalytic grant funding available through the Macquarie Shared Value Award, focused on outcome-based approaches and aiming to deliver sustained social impact over an extended period of time, is further encouraging our businesses to think about how they can deepen their social impact alongside delivering commercial results.
Over the years, Macquarie’s people have also dedicated thousands of hours to working with non-profit organisations globally. During my tenure as Chair, we have increased the number of employees contributing to the community from 23% in FY22 to 37%2 this year and in that time our people fundraised or donated over $A64 million3 to causes close to their hearts.
In FY2025, through skilled volunteering and by providing their knowledge and expertise for social good, our people contributed $A5.8 million in value4. We recently introduced paid volunteer leave to further encourage participation, and this year over 2,000 volunteer days were taken by our people.5
During FY2025 alone, we contributed $A57 million to more than 3,000 community organisations6 supporting a wide range of causes worldwide, including humanitarian efforts, environmental initiatives, human rights, food relief, mental health, medical research, and more. In line with Macquarie’s purpose, these contributions are helping to build a better future for those in need.
I’m pleased that in FY2025 we were able to provide a $A1 million donation to the Save the Children’s Emergency Fund to help deliver lifesaving programming, distribute essential supplies and restore education to and the livelihoods of children in need of assistance.
Recognising that many people around the world face systemic barriers to employment, we focus our grant and social impact investment funding on breaking down barriers and building effective pathways to employment.
Over the past three years, we have enhanced our impact reporting, allowing us to better understand the impact of our funding and better inform our decision-making going forward. In FY2025, the Foundation provided $A12.2 million dollars in philanthropic and social impact investment funding to 57 employment-focused partners.7 The funding supported 7,400 people into employment and over 30,000 people through training, skilling and employment programs.8
In 2022, we announced an additional $A20 million in support of social impact investing, a new form of capital to support entrepreneurial organisations breaking down barriers to employment around the world. To date, we have made seven catalytic investments around the world, including two this year in the United Kingdom and Australia. Furthermore, the financial returns we have received as a result of these investments is being recycled for ongoing social impact.
I have witnessed firsthand the impact these organisations are having and am delighted that we have been able to expand the way in which we provide capital to social impact organisations. I’m also pleased that alongside these investments, Macquarie is leading and participating in a range of market building efforts, which seek to further strengthen the social impact investing ecosystem.
This year, we celebrated the conclusion of the Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award, with each of our five grant winners making significant progress towards their goals. In particular, I’ve been impressed with Social Finance’s market building work and was pleased to visit the team in Boston in 2024. Unlocking new types of investment such as sustainable financing expands the pool of capital accessible to the social sector, therefore enabling organisations to help more people.
We’ve continued to raise awareness among our colleagues of the benefit of a shared value approach, exploring how they can work to deepen their social impact by identifying projects that can have both a positive social impact and deliver commercial results.
As a judge for the Macquarie Shared Value Award, launched three years ago to foster shared value across the organisation, I was again impressed this year with the range of impactful projects and concepts underway. We have already awarded five projects, across many of Macquarie’s Operating and Cental Service Groups and provided $A500,000 in grants to non-profits.9 I look forward to seeing this work continue.
Over the past year we welcomed Christina Lee, representing Macquarie Capital, and Rachel Palmer, Macquarie’s EMEA CEO, to the Foundation Committee, and farewelled Jackie Hamilton and Paul Plewman, who stepped down from it. In the year ahead, John Darmanin will join as the representative of the Risk Management Group, and Kristina Kloberdanz will join as the representative for Macquarie Asset Management, taking over from Leigh Harrison who retires from the Committee. Miki Edelman, Macquarie’s Head of Americas, will also join, as Shawn Lytle also retires as a member. We sincerely thank Jackie, Paul, Leigh and Shawn for their contribution and dedication.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Evie Bruce as she steps into the role of Chair. Already a Committee member, her valuable contribution over the past two years positions her well to progress its important work. I wish her the very best in the role and look forward to continuing to support the Foundation’s work in other ways.
I’ve greatly enjoyed my time as Chair of the Foundation and am proud of how we have significantly grown our impact. I feel passionately about Macquarie’s social impact work, so I’m incredibly proud of our colleagues for their tireless efforts to give back to the communities in which we live and work. I want to recognise the Foundation team for their unwavering leadership and commitment over the past year, which enables us to drive impactful outcomes for communities worldwide.
I hope you enjoy the many inspiring stories contained in the Review.
Alex Harvey
Chief Financial Officer, Macquarie Group
Chair, Macquarie Group Foundation
