Menzies Foundation

Menzies Foundation Official news and updates about the Menzies Foundation activities. This page will maintain a focus on the Menzies Alumni and their achievements.

Established in 1979 to perpetuate the legacy of Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, the Menzies Foundation has a vision to inspire and nurture Australia’s future leaders. As a national, non-profit organisation, the Foundation has awarded more than 220 prestigious scholarships to bright and inspiring young Australians. It has also invested over $9 million in four health

and medical research institutes and supported a range of other legacy activities in line with Sir Robert’s passions.

“I thought ethics was trivial, but now I think it is practical.” A Year 10 student, describing what changed. The cleares...
04/09/2026

“I thought ethics was trivial, but now I think it is practical.”

A Year 10 student, describing what changed.

The clearest evidence of impact in our pilot comes from students themselves. Four shifts came through:
🌱 They came to see ethics as something you can actually do
🌱 They began to see systems, not just incidents
🌱 They moved from resignation to agency
🌱 They paused and reflected before acting

Teachers across the seven pilot schools independently corroborated it. One of them told us the program should be compulsory for all Year 10 students.

These are not vague endorsements. They describe specific shifts in the architecture of how these young people approach moral questions.

What the students actually said is the part worth reading. It’s in the evaluation: https://menziesfoundation.org.au/design-out-racism

What does future-fit leadership require? It must be enabled through capability, confidence, knowledge and practical skil...
03/09/2026

What does future-fit leadership require?

It must be enabled through capability, confidence, knowledge and practical skill.

And it must be ennobled through purpose, integrity, stewardship and an appreciation of our shared responsibility to one another.

Capability without purpose is not enough. Nor is purpose enough without the confidence and practical ability to act.

Future-fit leadership brings both together: the capacity to navigate complexity and the judgement to exercise that capacity in service of the greater good.

➡️ Explore the leadership hypothesis and connected strategy behind the Foundation’s work: https://menzies-leadership-foundation.github.io/Interactive-Map/

01/09/2026

What has your leadership cost you?

It's not a question people are usually asked. We tend to ask leaders what they've built, not what they gave up to build it.

Episode 1 of Voices of Leadership, Extraordinary Impact starts there. Service is easy to name as a value and much harder to sustain as a practice, particularly over a career.

Our guest is Dr Peter Rogers AM, an engineer and educator recognised for advancing women in engineering and for his contribution to Indigenous and community development.

In conversation with Hon Vicki O'Halloran AO CVO FAICD, the episode explores why service remains the foundation of trust, how small and repeated acts build something communities can rely on, and where leading through service actually begins for someone early in their journey.

If you're early in your own leadership, this is the episode to start with.
https://menziesleadershipforum.podbean.com/e/leadership-as-service-with-guest-dr-peter-rogers-am-voices-of-leadership-extraordinary-impact/?token=3f324b0868f85f6199af7f8e070f895c

Australia is navigating a period of profound and accelerating complexity. Technological disruption, declining institutio...
27/08/2026

Australia is navigating a period of profound and accelerating complexity.

Technological disruption, declining institutional trust, climate pressure and social fragmentation are reshaping the leadership capability required across our communities, organisations and institutions.

Our 2025 Annual Report explores how the Menzies Leadership Foundation is responding by strengthening leadership in practice, generating insight and contributing to broader public discourse.

It is also an invitation to consider a larger question:

How do we enable more people to lead with purpose, integrity and responsibility for the greater good?

Explore the Menzies Leadership Foundation 2025 Annual Report.

🔗 Read the Annual Report: https://www.canva.com/design/DAHJUL2NbiE/7hhwlvV1OZQ8nm_JsoK4PA/view?utm_content=DAHJUL2NbiE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h66d9308301

Most leadership advice assumes you can see the path.Complex environments don't work that way. Information is incomplete....
26/08/2026

Most leadership advice assumes you can see the path.

Complex environments don't work that way. Information is incomplete. Conditions shift. Decisions create consequences no one predicted. And the people around the table don't agree on the problem, let alone the solution.

So what guides a leader when certainty runs out?

Research emerging from the ANU Leadership & Complexity Lab, supported by the Menzies Leadership Foundation, points to a distinction worth sitting with: purpose can't just be something an organisation states. It has to become something leaders are capable of practising.

A vision statement gives direction. It doesn't tell you what to do when priorities compete and no option is clean.

Purpose, in other words, is an anchor, not a map.

Read the full piece: https://menziesfoundation.org.au/stories/when-the-path-is-unclear-purpose-becomes-an-anchor

🎧 A Leadership Recommendation from the Menzies FoundationResource: "Alberto Lidji on Philanthropy, Sustainability & Purp...
21/08/2026

🎧 A Leadership Recommendation from the Menzies Foundation

Resource: "Alberto Lidji on Philanthropy, Sustainability & Purpose-Driven Business" – The Do One Better Podcast
Platform: The Do One Better Podcast

This fortnight, we're recommending an episode from one of the most comprehensive philanthropy podcasts in existence. Host Alberto Lidji — a Visiting Professor at Strathclyde Business School and former Global CEO of the Novak Djokovic Foundation — brings decades of sector experience to conversations with global changemakers on leadership, sustainability, and social impact.

The episode explores:
🌍 the intersection of philanthropy, sustainability, and long-term organisational impact
💡 what it means for business leaders to genuinely embrace purpose beyond profit
🤝 how major foundations are rethinking grantmaking to achieve greater equity
🔄 building partnerships between the private sector and civil society
📣 communicating impact in ways that inspire rather than just report
🌱 developing the next generation of values-driven philanthropic leaders

Key insight from Alberto Lidji:
"The leaders who will shape the future are those who refuse to separate doing good from doing well."

An intelligent and wide-ranging listen for any leader serious about the future of purpose-driven impact.

👉 Watch/Listen here: https://lidji.org/

Human progress has created extraordinary opportunity, but it has also created systems of increasing complexity. Technolo...
13/08/2026

Human progress has created extraordinary opportunity, but it has also created systems of increasing complexity.

Technological disruption, social fragmentation, declining trust and pressure on institutions are widening the gap between the complexity of the world around us and our collective capacity to respond.

This is the leadership challenge of the 21st century.

It cannot be addressed by institutions or individual leaders acting alone. It requires leadership capability distributed across communities, organisations, sectors and generations, enabling people to understand complexity, work across difference and act around shared purpose.

The Menzies Leadership Foundation’s work is focused on helping Australia build that collective capacity.

➡️ Explore the leadership hypothesis and connected strategy behind the Foundation’s work: https://menzies-leadership-foundation.github.io/Interactive-Map/

Leadership doesn't always arrive with a title.Sometimes it arrives as a volunteer who has shown up every Saturday for th...
13/08/2026

Leadership doesn't always arrive with a title.

Sometimes it arrives as a volunteer who has shown up every Saturday for thirty years. A teacher who stayed back. Someone who kept building long after the applause stopped.

Across Australia, leadership is lived every day in acts of service, courage and community, and nowhere is that clearer than in the stories of those recognised through the Order of Australia.

Coming soon: 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽, 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 - an eight-part Menzies Leadership Forum podcast hosted by Hon Vicki O'Halloran AO CVO FAICD, with the Order of Australia Association.

Eight conversations. Eight extraordinary Australians. One question running through all of them: what does it actually mean to lead?

The voices you'll hear:

• Dr Peter Rogers AM: engineer and educator, advancing women in engineering and Indigenous community development
• Annette "Floss" Roberts AM: drowning prevention and water safety across remote NT
• Cathy Chong AM: President, Chinese Welfare Services of SA Inc
• Dr Jo Newton OAM: agricultural scientist championing young people in agriculture
• Kathryn House AM: Chair, Impact100 South Australia
• Cory Tutt OAM: Founder and CEO, DeadlyScience
• Professor Robert Care AM: Chair, RedR Australia
• Nicholas Marchesi OAM: Co-founder, Orange Sky
• Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn AC: Governor-General of Australia

Service as the foundation of trust. Resilience in the face of adversity. Grassroots power, youth innovation, women leading change, wisdom across generations, and what comes next for Australian leadership.

Their journeys remind us that leadership is not defined by title or position, but by the commitment to serve others and strengthen the common good.

Episode 1 lands 25 August.

Follow the page so you don't miss it, and tell us below: who is the leader in your community who has never once asked for the credit?

Most school programs don't fail because the content is weak.They fail because the lesson runs 70 minutes and the period ...
12/08/2026

Most school programs don't fail because the content is weak.

They fail because the lesson runs 70 minutes and the period is 55.

We spent 2025 teaching ethical reasoning to 295 Year 10 students across seven NSW schools - the Veil of Ignorance, the Five Whys, Structured Ethical Lenses. Seven core lessons, two design labs, a capstone.

But the design decision that mattered most wasn't any of that. It was building every lesson to fit inside a standard 50–55 minute period, and mapping the whole program to both ACARA General Capabilities and NSW NESA outcomes.

Because a teacher who has to choose between your program and their existing obligations will choose their obligations. Every time. And they should.

Ethical capability is not innate, and it is not taught by osmosis. It can be taught deliberately and early, but only if it survives contact with a real timetable.

We've published the full evaluation of the 2025–2026 pilot. Including the one measure that went the wrong way.

https://menziesfoundation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Design-Out-Racism-Pilot-Evaluation.pdf

🎬 A Leadership Recommendation from the Menzies FoundationResource: "Patient Capital: A New Approach to Tackling Poverty"...
07/08/2026

🎬 A Leadership Recommendation from the Menzies Foundation

Resource: "Patient Capital: A New Approach to Tackling Poverty" – Jacqueline Novogratz (TED Talk)
Platform: TED

This fortnight, we're spotlighting a defining TED Talk from Jacqueline Novogratz — founder of Acumen , the pioneering impact investment fund that has reimagined how capital can be deployed in service of the world's poorest communities. This talk is a masterclass in the philosophy of patient capitalism and what it means to invest in human dignity.

The talk explores:
💰 why patient capital differs from both traditional aid and conventional investment
🌍 stories of entrepreneurs in the developing world creating scalable social impact
🔄 moving beyond charity to building systems that create lasting economic dignity
🤝 the critical role of accompaniment — walking alongside communities rather than prescribing to them
💡 what it means to hold high expectations for impact and high tolerance for risk
🌱 reimagining philanthropy as a form of long-term investment in human potential

Key insight from Jacqueline Novogratz:
"We don't need to choose between markets and social good. We need the imagination to build something in between."

A beautiful and challenging watch for leaders at the frontier of impact investment and philanthropic innovation.

👉 Watch/Listen here: https://www.ted.com/talks/jacqueline_novogratz_a_third_way_to_think_about_aid

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