History

How we started

To celebrate Sidney Myer's life and to recognise the centenary marking his arrival in this country, the descendants of Sidney and Merlyn Myer initiated a major giving program to the Australian community in 1999.

Among their gifts was $1 million to establish a national foundation for rural communities.

After an international search for ideas and a Regional Australia Summit convened in 1999 by the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson (a farmer from Mullaley in NSW), the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) was born.

It would combine the feeling of the regional summit which said philanthropy could play a strategic role in enhancing the assets - natural and human - in regional Australia's economic and community development. In short, regional Australia, reeling from tough times thanks to drought and the impact of globalisation, wanted to show it could help itself. The Federal Government provided $10.7 million as a corpus in 1999/2000 and a further $3.8million from 2000/2001 to 2008/2009.

Our members are the Myer Foundation and Federal Government. Both of these entities nominate one Director to the Board.

Setting Up

FRRR began in 2000, setting up its permanent headquarters, appropriately in the home of Sidney Myer's first store - in the regional Victorian city of Bendigo. There it continues to operate and to follow the principles and ideals first set down by the Regional Australia Summit.