With her husband, Leonard Gordon Darling (known as Gordon Darling; 1921—2015), she instigated and has provided ongoing funding to the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, ACT and other not-for-profit and charitable organisations.
In 1979 she became president of the Victorian Children's Aid Society (VCAS) Auxiliary, then board member from 1984–1987.
[3] From 1984 to 1989 Darling was a trustee of the Victorian State Opera Foundation and from 1986–1891 a member of the executive committee of the Dame Joan Hammond Award.
From 1987 to 1991 she was a member of the Music Foundation Appeal committee at the University of Melbourne's Trinity College.
[4] Darling was awarded the Centenary Medal on 1 January 2001 "for service to Australian society through the arts".