Neil Balnaves

Neil Richard Balnaves was born on 5 May 1944 in Adelaide, South Australia.{{cite web | last=Litson | first=Jo | title=Neil Balnaves has died | website=Limelight | date=23 February 2022 | url=https://limelightmagazine.com.au/news/neil-balnaves-has-died/ | access-date=27 April 2022}} He grew up in Penola in the south-east of the state, and had polio as a teenager,{{cite web | last=Healy | first=Rachel | title=All Australians should mourn the death of Neil Balnaves – and applaud a generous life | website=The Guardian | date=23 February 2022 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/23/all-australians-should-mourn-the-death-of-neil-balnaves-and-applaud-a-generous-life | access-date=27 April 2022}} which crippled his right arm.

Balnaves' media career started in advertising, in Adelaide in 1960, moving into senior roles in production companies.{{cite web | title=Neil Balnaves: A little bit quirky | website=Fundraising & Philanthropy Australasia Magazine | date=17 July 2013 | url=https://www.fpmagazine.com.au/neil-balnaves-a-little-bit-quirky-335732/ | access-date=27 April 2022}}

Balnaves worked in the media industry for over 60 years. He founded the Southern Star Group in 1988, and was executive chairman of the company. The company later went through various mergers and incarnations, becoming Endemol Australia in 2013/2014,{{cite web|title=Southern Star Entertainment to become Endemol Australia| date=27 December 2013 |website= Endemol Distribution| url=http://www.endemoldistribution.com/content/readnews.aspx?id=1763 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131227011833/http://www.endemoldistribution.com/content/readnews.aspx?id=1763 | archive-date=27 December 2013 | url-status=dead | access-date=27 April 2022}} Southern Star was responsible for bringing shows such as Water Rats, and McLeod's Daughters, Big Brother and Bananas in Pyjamas to Australian television screens.{{cite web | last=Kelly | first=Cait | title=Neil Balnaves, Australian arts philanthropist, dies aged 77 after boating accident | website=The Guardian | date=22 February 2022 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/22/neil-balnaves-australian-arts-philanthropist-dies-aged-77-after-boating-accident | access-date=27 April 2022}}

From 2003 until 2016 he was chair of the Ardent Leisure Group, responsible for running theme parks such as Dreamworld in Queensland. Other directorships included Hanna-Barbera Australia and the Taft-Hardie Group.

• Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, 2016–2018
• Director and Trustee Member of Bond University
• Board member of the Art Gallery of South Australia, 2013–2019
• Member of the Advisory Council and Dean's Circle at the UNSW Faculty of Medicine
• Director of the Sydney Orthopaedic Research Institute
• Member of the Chairmans Circle at 'Sydney Theatre Company
• Foundation Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
• Served various advisory and community organisations

• 2009: Honorary doctorate of the Bond University
• 2010: Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia, "for service to the community through philanthropic support for the arts, education, medical research and Indigenous programs, and to business" in the Australia Day Honours{{Cite web|url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1141685 |title=Mr Neil Richard Balnaves: Officer of the Order of Australia| website=Australian Honours Search Facility| publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia) |access-date= 28 April 2022}}{{cite web | last=Laurie | first=Victoria | title=Neil Balnaves, Australian philanthropist and major arts patron dies aged 77 after boating accident| website=ABC News | publisher= Australian Broadcasting Corporation| format= Audio (20 mins) + text| date=22 February 2022 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-22/neil-balnaves-death-australian-philanthropist-arts-patron/100851604 | access-date=27 April 2022}}
• 2010: Honorary doctorate of the University of New South Wales

Balnaves died on 21 February 2022 in a boating accident while holidaying with his wife, Diane, in Tahiti.{{cite web | last=Ciccarelli | first=Raffaella | title=Former television executive Neil Balnaves dies in boating accident | website=9News | date=22 February 2022 | url=https://www.9news.com.au/national/neil-balnaves-dead-television-executive-and-philanthropist-dies-in-boating-accident/074b1343-ee92-48ab-9a71-43127a76fac4 | access-date=27 April 2022}} He was survived by Diane and children Hamish and Victoria. Their sister Alexandra had died after a long illness in 2019.{{cite web| url=https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/aussie-entertainment-giant-neil-balnaves-dies-in-boating-accident/news-story/9fb05bd7bc9f2b1e2f7737f9e101a1c3| website=news.com.au| title=Aussie entertainment giant Neil Balnaves dies in boating accident| date=23 February 2022 | access-date=27 April 2022}}

It was after a near-death experience caused by a boating accident on the Gold Coast, Queensland in 2002 that Balnaves turned to philanthropy. He sustained injuries which caused pain and inhibited his ability to travel, so he sold Endemol.

He married Diane in 1971, and he ascribes his love of arts to her influence. Growing up with polio, and being on life support for a while and not being able to walk for a year after his 2002 boating accident led to an interest in health and medicine. Having Aboriginal neighbours as a child fostered his interest in Indigenous cultures of Australia.

Balnaves established the Balnaves Foundation in 2006,{{cite web | title=Who We Are | website=Balnaves Foundation | url=https://balnavesfoundation.com/who-we-are/ | access-date=27 April 2022}} to support the arts, education, and research into medical and social justice issues in Australia. Balnaves said that it was important to him that the foundation focused on "Indigenous Australia, young people and the disadvantaged" in order to help create "a better Australia".

It has given donations to many Australian arts organisations, including the Ensemble Theatre, Bangarra Dance Theatre, the Sydney Biennale, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) and TarraWarra Museum of Art. It also awarded a grant to Guardian Australia specifically for "in-depth reporting on Indigenous affairs, and an in-depth reporting project on Australian arts".

Balnaves also helped to fund Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney, and Australian presentations at the Venice Biennale in a partnership with the Australia Council. He supported the START program at AGSA in Adelaide, giving families with children access to gallery events each week. He believed that governments' attitude towards the arts had deteriorated, and that politicians tended to regard the arts as elitist, and as a consequence funding had decreased enormously. In a 2013 interview, he called the current crop of politicians as a "bunch of philistines". he believed that the arts should be available to all, and that private philanthropists should be proud of supporting the arts.

Around 2007, he provided funding to subsidise tickets to eight shows at the Sydney Opera House per year, for welfare recipients and pensioners to access the arts there.

In 2010, the Balnaves Foundation Australian Sculpture Archive was established at AGNSW "to acquire the archives of major Australian sculptors and to extend research in three-dimensional practice".

In 2011, the foundation started providing support for two Indigenous-led works per year at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney. It also created the Balnaves Award (won by Nakkiah Lui in its inaugural year, and later Leah Purcell and Ursula Yovich), which has since evolved into the Balnaves Fellowship.{{cite web | title=Fellowship and Residencies | website=Belvoir St Theatre | date=25 February 2022 | url=https://belvoir.com.au/for-artists/fellowship-and-residencies/ | access-date=27 April 2022}}

In 2017, Balnaves supported the Adelaide Festival, then under the directorship of Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield, and started the "Tix for Next to Nix" program, which still runs today ({{as of|lc=yes|April 2022}}). In 2022, {{AUD|2,000}} was allocated across a number of events, enabling people with a Pension or Health Care Card ro purchase tickets for $5 each.{{cite web | title=Open House | website=Adelaide Festival | url=https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/info/open-house/ | access-date=27 April 2022}}

In 2020, the Balnaves Foundation gave A$1.25 million to the Indigenous Law Centre at UNSW to establish a term chair, known as the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law, to allow Professor Megan Davis to continue the work of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The chair was named in honour of Alexandra Balnaves, who died in 2019. The foundation had had a long relationship with UNSW, by 2020 having given almost A$5.5 million, which included allocations for Indigenous medical scholarships and for funding the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre.{{cite web | title=UNSW Professor named Chair in Constitutional Law | website=Inside UNSW | date=2 June 2020 | url=https://www.inside.unsw.edu.au/social-impact/unsw-professor-named-chair-in-constitutional-law | access-date=28 April 2022}}

In 2021, the foundation helped to fund Unsettled, an exhibition on the colonisation of Australia through Indigenous perspectives mounted at the Australian Museum in Sydney,{{Cite web |last=Gripper |first=Ali |date=14 May 2021 |title=Australian Museum gears up for most important show in its history |url=https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/why-captain-cook-is-only-a-footnote-in-australian-history-20210507-p57pud.html |access-date=5 January 2024 |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |language=en}}{{cite web |title=UNSETTLED exhibition at the Australian Museum 2021 |website=Barani |date=10 October 2021 |url=https://www.sydneybarani.com.au/unsettled-exhibition-at-the-australian-museum-2021/ |access-date=17 November 2024}}{{cite web |last=McBride |first=Laura |last2=Smith |first2=Mariko |title=The Australian Museum's Unsettled exhibition |website=The Australian Museum |date=21 May 2021 |url=https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/ |access-date=17 November 2024}} enabling free entry to for the more than 70,000 visitors. Balnaves was a strong supporter of the First Nations Division at the museum, and also encouraged others to contribute to supporting the arts and First Nations peoples.{{cite web |title=Vale Neil Balnaves |website=The Australian Museum |date=1 March 2022 |url=https://australian.museum/blog/at-the-museum/neil-balnaves/ |access-date=17 November 2024}}

Nick Mitzevich, NGA director, said of Balnaves: "The beauty of his philanthropy was to leverage and do more with the support he gave to make it bigger and better. He was never a passive philanthropist". The Balnaves Contemporary Series supported major annual commissions of contemporary artists from 2018 onwards.

Others to benefit from the foundation's philanthropy are:

• St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney
• Black Dog Institute
• Story Factory
• NIDA's First Nations Program

All three of Neil and Diane Balnaves' children worked for the foundation, and after Neil's death, Diane, Hamish and Victoria continued to work for the foundation, along with a daughter of Alexandra, Caillean Honor. By the time of Balnaves' death on 21 February 2022, the foundation had given away {{AUD|20–40 million}},{{efn|ABC sources says $40m.}} and was continuing to give around {{AUD|3 million}} per year to the arts.

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0050997}}
• {{official website|https://balnavesfoundation.com/|Balnaves Foundation}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balnaves, Neil}}

Category:1944 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:21st-century Australian philanthropists

Category:People from Adelaide

Category:Officers of the Order of Australia

Category:Australian media executives

Category:Philanthropic organizations

Category:2006 establishments in Australia

Category:Boating accident deaths

Category:Polio survivors