Groundswell Giving

Kylie Kwong celebrates some of her hospitality heroes and the individuals helping to grow a stronger community. This month, we meet the trio behind the philanthropic initiative Groundswell Giving.

- Joanna Hunkin, Kylie Kwong

As the skies turned red above Mallacoota and people struggled to breathe through acrid smoke, a wave of helplessness swept the country – and social media. “It was 2 January that we had this surge of people turn to us,” recalls Arielle Gamble, co-founder of Groundswell Giving. “What we do is provide a way for people to transform their despair into action. The antidote to despair is action.”

Groundswell Giving is a giving circle, designed to grow a community of paid members who support and fund the climate movement. Gamble co-founded the project last year, alongside long-time climate campaigner Anna Rose and Clare Ainsworth Herschell. The trio was still developing the concept when the bushfires arrived last summer.

“That is really what made us accelerate our plans to launch it and bring that forward,” explains Ainsworth Herschell. “A lot of people were feeling vulnerable and worried about the future and didn’t know how to get involved in climate action. We had a number of friends and colleagues asking ‘what can we do?’. Groundswell answered that question for a lot of people.”