Canva founders donated $31.6m last year, new documents show

Canva’s three co-founders have pledged to give away their fortunes, and have already emerged as some of Australia’s biggest living donors.

Canva co-founders Cliff Obrecht, Cameron Adams and Melanie Perkins.

Canva’s young trio of billionaire founders have quickly emerged as some of Australia’s biggest charitable donors, newly lodged documents reveal.

The Canva Foundation, established by technology entrepreneurs Melanie Perkins and her husband Cliff Obrecht, and their fellow co-founder Cameron Adams, donated $31.6m to charities last year.

The figures are for 18 months, with the foundation shifting to a calendar year period from the previous 2022 financial year that ended on June 30, but the millions of dollars involved are still among the most given away Australian billionaires.

The Canva trio are all members of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 and have for several years now talked publicly about their ambition to build one of the most valuable companies in the world – and then also donate most of their wealth.

The Canva Foundation financial report for the year ending December 31, 2023, lodged with authorities this week, shows it received about $39m in donations from the three billionaires over the previous 18 months.

In turn, the foundation doled out $31.6m during that time and also gave away another $5m in January this year. The foundation gave away $14.7m in 2022.

“We have this wildly optimistic belief that there is enough money, goodwill, and good intentions in the world to solve most of the world’s problems,” Perkins and Obrecht have publicly said, while pledging to give away most of their wealth – which is tied to their shareholding in Canva, one of the most valuable private technology firms in the world.

“We feel like it’s not just a massive opportunity, but an important responsibility and we want to spend our lifetime working towards that.”

About $23m of the Canva Foundation donations in 2023 went to GiveDirectly, a non-profit organisation focused on helping people living in extreme poverty through unconditional cash transfers.

“This second phase expands on our work in this space, contributing a further $23m to provide direct cash donations, in a joint project that will reach more than 64,000 people living in extreme poverty,” a note in the Canva Foundation report said.

The foundation also launched an education pilot program with the goal of improving foundational literacy and numeracy learning in southern Africa and India.

“The pilot program, in partnership with Prevail, will support more than 400,000 children through structured pedagogy programs. We are pleased to have contributed an initial $7.4m towards this program as we learn more about its effectiveness in improving learning outcomes,” the Canva Foundation report said.

About another $1m was donated to crisis responses around the world and also local community initiatives.

“This included providing medical and emergency relief following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, Morocco, and Afghanistan, aiding Hawaii’s recovery efforts after the unprecedented wildfires, and providing critical humanitarian aid following the floods in Libya.”

Perkins and Obrecht, 36 and 38 respectively, maintain a large shareholding in Canva, which is valued at about $US26bn. They met at university and founded the business in 2013, a year after forming Fusion Books, which helps secondary school students design their own yearbooks.

Meanwhile, 44-year-old Adams and wife Lisa Miller have also established an ecology-friendly venture capital fund, Wedgetail. It has deployed an initial $3m to help reverse the effects of biodiversity loss.

The biggest foundation among members of the Richest 250 is the Minderoo Foundation established by Fortescue Metals Group executive chairman Andrew Forrest and his wife Nicola Forrest.

Although the pair have split up, they have pledged to continue their charitable endeavours. Minderoo gave away $224.9m last year.

Other big billionaire donors include Anthony Pratt and his sisters Heloise Pratt, and Fiona Geminder, Frank Lowy and Judith Neilson.