Gary has since written Inspired Philanthropy, the step-by-step guide for creating a giving plan and leaving a legacy. She has come to Australia this week, her first visit in 15 years, to urge a new generation of self-made women and entrepreneurs to share their wealth and, amid all the worthy causes, to direct some of their dollars to programs aimed at improving the lot of their less fortunate sisters. Harnessing the power of the female purse for the benefit of women and girls is a somewhat controversial movement that began in the United States in the 1970s and is finding traction in Australia. There are now more women controlling more wealth in Australia than ever - almost a third, according to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group in July - and this is expected to grow exponentially as more women move into the workforce. Women may still be scarce in company boardrooms but a new generation of so-called kitchen tycoons - making millions out of cosmetics, gourmet foods and clothing - are joining the ranks of women living on divorce settlements and family inheritances. The US has Oprah Winfrey, Abigail Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney, Melinda Gates, the Texan oil sisters Swanee Hunt and Helen LaKelly Hunt, and Jennifer Buffett, daughter-in-law of Warren - women whose generosity is antithetical to spoilt, rich party girls such as Paris Hilton. Eve Mahlab is the founder of the Mahlab Group, which specialises in costing recruitment and publishing services to the legal profession. The Melbourne millionaire believes women should be singled out for charity dollars as a matter of equity.

In December she complained at a gathering of high-profile givers that women got the ''crumbs'' from the government and philanthropic funding tables and that the United Nations and governments were big on rhetoric, tiny on budget. The statistics tell the story. Women, she says, are 2½ times more likely than men to live in poverty in their old age. Violence is the leading cause of death, disability and illness of Australian women aged 15 to 48. Every day 1500 women die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, and when a mother dies in childbirth the chances her young orphaned children will die doubles. Yet globally less than 10 per cent of foundation grants go to women and girls. ''I believe we are witnessing the third wave of the women's movement,'' Mahlab told these new-style philanthropists. ''The first got us the vote, the second liberated us from our virtual confinement to unpaid house and caring work, and the third, in the wake of women gaining education, influence and wealth, will see the financial empowerment of women and the resulting benefit to families, the community and the country.'' Funding women's advancement is not merely about redressing gender imbalance in funding, it is smart business, says Julia Keady, the chief executive of the Australian Women Donors Network, the loose network of mainly female philanthropists Mahlab co-founded three years ago to build a public case for focusing on women and girls. Most donors believe women are automatic beneficiaries of charity dollars. But unless the philanthropic impulse is targeted at women, benefits can be lost, Keady says.

That is true of microfinancing, favoured as one of the more direct routes to empower the disenfranchised and the poor. Long-term monitoring found men were more likely to fritter away profit than women, who generally used it for the care of children, Keady says. ''The best way to improve paediatric health is to feed and care for the mothers.'' Keady raises homelessness as another case in point. Forty per cent of Australia's homeless are women and yet they are most likely to be turned away from emergency accommodation because housing has been built for single males. Today's benevolent woman wants to put her wealth and business sense to good use, not always in the way of traditional philanthropists. The trend is towards a highly participatory form of giving in which donations are combined with activism to create social change, sometimes pooling money with other women as part of a giving circle or investment club to maximise the dollar impact, at times participating in organised volunteer activities or at board level. Are women a softer touch than men? Approached by a homeless person, women are more likely to put their hands in their pockets because each sees the ''possibility of them one day outliving their spouses and their reserves and becoming bag women'', Gary says. One of the first Australians to link with Gary was Jill Reichstein, who in 1987 took over her parents' philanthropic foundation, worth $12 million now, gradually replacing its retiring male board with progressive men and women who shared her vision for change, not charity.

The non-profit Gippsland Asbestos Related Disease Support is one of 33 organisations the foundation assists, providing expertise and seed money to support victims and their families. ''Five years down the track they are at the table negotiating enhanced pharmaceutical benefits, they are now advising government about the clean-up and they've just received three years of government funding,'' Reichstein says. ''You get more bang for your buck this way and it's better than funding a nursing home for the valley for dying people. It's said that it is better to have a fence at the top of the cliff than an ambulance at the bottom.'' Women are driving new ways of giving that sit more comfortably with their awakened social conscience and their discomfort with newly acquired wealth. Most female donors prefer anonymity, such as the 20 or so who attended Gary's dinner at ANZ Bank's branch in Double Bay on Wednesday night and wanted no publicity. ''The last thing a woman usually wants is to be objectified as a person with a cheque book,'' Gary says. ''She may want to identify as an artist, as a mother, first, so it's rare to see a woman flaunting her wealth.'' As a result, chequebook philanthropy is in decline and in its place are myriad investment and giving options. The ''absolutely next big thing in philanthropy'' is social investment funds that invite traditional capital investment in enterprises which deliver financial and social returns, says Kristi Mansfield, a Sydney social investment adviser and philanthropist. The new Foresters Community Investment Fund gives loans to community organisations that address homelessness, affordable housing, specialist legal services, domestic violence and childcare, helping migrant women, young women, the intellectually disabled and indigenous communities along the way.

Investors are willing to accept a low return of, for example, 3 or 5 per cent if it is complemented by a social return, Mansfield says. ''Right now an international group comprising the [Bill and Melinda] Gates Foundation and other high-net-worth individuals are trying to create a ratings system to assess and compare social returns.'' Once established, these funds will prove attractive to the administrators of family foundations and trusts who need to ''work their dollars hard''. Mansfield's three children drive her interest in supporting families at risk of domestic violence and child abuse. Values and passions shaped by spirituality and hopes for a better world motivate Gary's strategy of lifetime giving to feminist, environmental and other causes. Gary lives on an annual salary of $100,000, giving away 40 per cent each year to 20 charities. Her home in northern California will be given to four different women's foundations when she dies. ''I am a bee who loves to pollinate good ideas and hope.''