Community Grants and Funding Opportunities

As the foundation's purpose is “To provide support that helps, grows, and enriches our communities”, they have a clear focus on providing grants to reputable community-based charitable organisations which need funding for projects and initiatives designed to benefit as many people as possible.

Because most of the funding for The Harcourts Foundation is generously provided by Harcourts offices, they will only consider applications from groups for a specific event, project, item, or initiative where Harcourts has an office.

The broad aim of the Safer Communities Fund is to support the Australian Government’s commitment to deliver safer communities through crime prevention initiatives.

The objective of this grant opportunity is to reduce crime, violence, anti-social behaviour and/or other security risks driven by racial and/or religious intolerance by funding crime prevention initiatives.

Safer Communities Fund Round Six Early Intervention grants target organisations with demonstrated experience in providing early intervention activities to youth at high risk to prevent them from engaging in criminal activity or anti-social behaviour.

The objectives of this grant opportunity are to:

• contribute to the preservation of the safety of Australians through funding local crime prevention activities that address anti-social behaviour by youth at high risk
• help marginalised youth aged 12-24 at high risk to develop life skills, including through educational and vocational skills to prevent them from becoming entrenched in the criminal justice system and to promote inclusion and build community resilience.

The intended outcomes of this grant opportunity are:

• improved engagement of youth at high risk in education, work ready programs and the community more generally
• decreased anti-social behaviour or engagement in criminal activity by youth at high risk.

The Honda Foundation is funded by contributions from Honda Australia, private donors and more than 100 dealerships across the country. More than $10 million has so far been donated to hundreds of very worthy causes, including empowering disadvantaged Australians, providing relief for victims of natural disasters and supporting the development of new technologies and research to fight disease.

The Honda Foundation acts as a charitable trust, providing financial assistance to charities and organisations doing amazing work across a range of social and environmental issues. These include:

• Supporting the disadvantaged, disabled or those suffering from illness
• Relief for victims of natural disasters
• Promotion of innovation and new technologies
• The promotion, development and preservation of Australian culture

The Honda Foundation also provides a 12-month Loan Vehicle Program which includes registration, insurance and all servicing costs, and is capped at 20 loan vehicles at any one time.

The AFL NSW/ACT School grants program has been established to provide support to local schools, teachers and school sport associations in having Australian Rules Football accessible to all students. The purpose of the program is to grow AFL participation, provide support to local schools and teachers, provide accessible opportunities for all students to participate and deliver events of excellence. Grants will be provided to successful schools and school sporting associations on an annual basis

Each year the AFL will open 6 grants categories which schools can apply for:

• AFL Goal Posts - Half/full AFL goal post sets installed on local school grounds for match and recreational play.
• AFL School Travel - Support to assist schools travel costs whilst attending AFL School Competitions.
• AFL Equipment - Supports the purchase of footballs and other key resources to support AFL programs.
• AFL Guernseysu - To assist schools purchase school AFL guernseys. For schools to be able to participate in local AFL School Competitions
• AFL School Sport Association - Financial and resource support for School Sport Associations to deliver events and programs growing AFL participation.
• AFL School Event - Supporting local schools deliver AFL programs and events.

These grants are open to all schools across NSW/ACT. Each submission will be assessed by AFL NSW/ACT based on meeting the key objectives of the grant whilst establishing a key need. 

The NSW Government’s Regional Tourism Activation Fund supports the development of unique and high impact tourism and events infrastructure that helps to boost local economies, create jobs and ensure visitors to regional NSW have unforgettable experiences that encourage repeat visitation. The Regional Tourism Activation Fund is also aiming to boost regional tourism and improve the visitor experience for people with disability in regional NSW by making funding available for:

• the development of unique and high impact visitor experiences
• visitor accessibility and inclusion enhancements.

The fund will operate two streams:

Stream One: Unique and high impact visitor experiences
Grants between $200,000 and $5 million are available for projects that create unique and high impact visitor experiences for people visiting regional NSW and encourage more people to plan and book holidays in regional areas.

Applications for funding from stream one must have a minimum financial co-contribution of 25 per cent of the total grant amount. Co-contributions must be cash and cannot be made in-kind.

Stream Two: Visitor accessibility and inclusion enhancements
Grants between $50,000 and $500,000 are available for projects that improve accessibility and inclusion at unique and high impact tourism destinations and visitor experiences.

Applications for stream two do not need to meet the co-contribution requirement and can apply for 100 per cent of the project cost; however, applicants are strongly encouraged to make a financial co-contribution to their projects.

The Tackling Tough Times Together grant program helps communities access the resources they need to support one another through the ongoing effects of the drought.

This program is designed to provide flexible funding to support community-based activities that both help to relieve current stressors and symptoms, and most importantly, build capacity and resilience for the future. Funds could also support activities that engage your local community in being proactive, exploring options and creating something that will stand the test of tough times.

The program is divided into two parts, funding for projects up to $60,000 and funding for projects up to $150,000. Applicants for funding between $60,000 and $150,000 must speak to the foundation and submit a full application by this earlier date.

Projects seeking funding for under $60,000 can apply directly with a later closing date.

Content grants support the development, production and distribution of content via Australian community media.

This year they are particularly looking to:

• increase community participation and diversity in community broadcasting and/or
• support creativity and excellence in content production.

Content grants are distributed twice per year, with the greater portion allocated in Round 1.

Content grants include funds specifically dedicated to Specialist Radio Programming. This portion of our content grants funding is available to support ongoing ethnic, Indigenous and RPH programs.

Stations producing content that meets the needs of particular communities may be eligible for dedicated Specialist Radio Programming Content grants. This funding is intended to encourage stations to incorporate:

• RPH programs to serve people with a print disability
• Ethnic programs to serve a defined local ethnic community
• Indigenous programs.

These grants are distributed twice per year, with the greater portion allocated in Round 1.

Development & Operations grants aim to support community media station resilience by strengthening governance, building community, sustainable operations and technical capacity.

Your application must clearly demonstrate how the proposed activities address one or more of the areas listed below:

• Governance – strategic planning, technology planning, developing open and transparent governance policies and procedures, recruiting and maintaining a governance team with diverse skills and experiences
• Sustainable operations – improving the financial sustainability, and/or reducing the environmental impact of community media
• Building community – engaging the diverse members of your community.

Grants for Development & Operations are distributed twice per year, with the greater portion allocated in Round 1.

As part of the annual Heywire program, young regional Australians developed five exciting ideas to champion positive change. 

This grants program helps communities take action on the ideas generated by young Australians who attend the annual Heywire Regional Youth Summit. Grants are available for communities to adopt, adapt and act on one of the following ideas from Heywire 2021:

• Discover Your Future: How might we connect young people to their future pathways?
• Open Field Fest: How might we create a fun and safe community event that includes all ages?
• Support Squad: How might we create a youth-led peer support network?
• The Story Link Project: How might we use stories to play our part in ending discrimination?
• Contribute to the Change: How might we have conversations about our mental health that actually matter?

Projects must be undertaken between November 2021 to December 2022, take place in regional Australia and address a local issue.

Through the Smart Giving program, schools have an opportunity to design and deliver projects that explore innovative, creative and progressive approaches in education. To enable schools to do this, Schools Plus matches schools with  donors to provide funding for projects which can bring about transformational change.

Projects run for 12 – 18 months.

A smart giving grant provides schools with: funding of up to $30,000 for individual schools or $60,000 for clusters of 4-10 schools and strategic support to help with project design, implementation and evaluation.

To be eligible to apply, schools must have an ICSEA value below 1000.

The Tackling Tough Times Together grant program helps communities access the resources they need to support one another through the ongoing effects of the drought.

This program is designed to provide flexible funding to support community-based activities that both help to relieve current stressors and symptoms, and most importantly, build capacity and resilience for the future. Funds could also support activities that engage your local community in being proactive, exploring options and creating something that will stand the test of tough times.

The program is divided into two parts, funding for projects up to $60,000 and funding for projects up to $150,000. Projects seeking funding for between $60,000 and $150,000 must speak to the Foundation first and submit and EOI with an earlier closing date.

The Strengthening Rural Communities program gives small rural, regional and remote communities across Australia the opportunity to access funds that can benefit and help secure their future prosperity. Grants are available for a broad range of initiatives that directly and clearly benefit local communities.

Applications from not-for-profit organisations in communities of fewer than 15,000 people are prioritised, particularly those communities whose size, remoteness and relative access to services, funding, and resources present particular ongoing challenges. The Strengthening Rural Communities program accepts applications any time. FRRR considers applications and makes grant distributions on a quarterly basis.

The Establishment Grant Program is designed to encourage and support the establishment of new before and after school care services to increase the number of approved BASC places for NSW Government primary school children.

The total funding pool available through the Establishment Grant Program is $4,000,000 (including GST). Applicants may seek up to $40,000 (including GST) to support establishment and operating expenses. 

This is a competitive grant program, which will be run across four rounds in 2021 as follows:

Round 1 - 12 July 2021 to 27 August 2021
Round 2 - 27 September 2021 to 26 November 2021
Round 3 - 3 January 2022 to 25 February 2022
Round 4 - 4 April 2022 to 27 May 2022

The objective of this grant opportunity is to support the recovery efforts of communities in eligible Local Government Areas (LGAs) affected by the 2019-20 bushfires and enables them to apply for projects that address community recovery needs within their own timeframes.

The Australian Government will directly fund successful applicants to conduct a range of projects designed to support the social and economic recovery, and restoration of the built environment in those communities.

The grant amount will be up to 100 per cent of eligible project expenditure and you must complete your project by 31 March 2024.

The objectives of the grant opportunity are to:

• support recovery and resilience of communities impacted by the 2019-20 bushfires, and
• build stronger communities by supporting social, economic and built environment recovery.

Activities must be undertaken in an eligible the Local Government Area, and while many have also been impacted by other disasters, this program is intended to addresss community bushfire recovery priorities.

A funding envelope has been allocated to each eligible LGA to ensure all LGAs have the opportunity to receive funding. Eligbible LGAs have been grouped into two categories, based on the impact of the bushfires on the LGA. If the project is located in multiple LGAs the amount of funding assigned to the LGA would be commensurate with the cost of activities being undertaken within the LGA. 

For the Northern Inland, the following LGAs are eligible under the following categories:

Category 1 - A funding envelope of up to $4.5 Million per LGA:

• Armidale
• Glen Innes
• Tenterfield

Category 2 - A funding evelope of up to $1.6 Million per LGA:

• Gwydir
• Inverell
• Narrabri
• Tamworth
• Uralla
• Walcha

The Transport Grant funds transport solutions to increase access to Before and After School Care services. Access for students in small, regional, and rural schools is a particular priority with this grant.

The objectives of the Transport Grant are to:

1. Support transportation solutions that can reasonably be expected to increase or maintain the number of approved before and after school care (BASC) places for NSW government primary school children
2. Support transportation solutions that can reasonably be expected to increase access to BASC places for NSW government primary schools

This is a competitive grant program, which will be run across two rounds in 2021. 
Round 1 - 12 July 2021 to 24 September 2021
Round 2 - 25 October 2021 to 28 January 2022

The Sisters of Charity Foundation provides charity grants of up to $10,000 to organisations that use clever ways to fight poverty, loneliness, suffering and oppression, but struggle to find funding.

The Sisters of Charity Foundation favours programs that:

• restore hope and build dignity
• fall between the cracks of other funding sources
• are not associated with well established organisations with significant reserves and or are not capable of raising their own funds
• are not eligible for funding from government or other sources.

There are two rounds a year:

• March Grant Round - Opens 1st of February and Closes 31st of March
• September Grant Round - Opens 1st of August and Closes 30th of September

The foundation provides funding for two priority areas:

1. Children with physical &/or mental disabilities
Projects by community based organisations to support children with physical and/or mental disabilities or their carers, particularly projects seeking to address social isolation experienced by such children and their carers (Not including research projects).

2. Elderly people suffering mental disabilities

Projects by community based organisations to support elderly people suffering from mental disabilities (including dementia) or their carers, particularly projects seeking to address social isolation experienced by such elderly persons and their carers (Not including research projects).

This program provides financial assistance for coaches, officials and competitors aged 12-18 participating in state, national or international championships.

Between $500 and $750 is available towards the cost of attending their championships as follows:.

• Base Grant: $500
• Applicants travelling 800km - 1999km to their nominated championships: + $100
• Applicants travelling internationally or greater than 2000km to their nominated championships: + $200
• Applicants residing in a rural electorate: + $50