The Bennelong Foundation has launched the April 2021 Grant Round to enhance community wellbeing and provide opportunities for positive and lasting change in community.

The Foundation also aims to provide opportunities for people within the Bangarra Group to personally get involved in the activities of the organisations it supports.

The Bennelong Foundation provides support to a number of organizations and community projects across Australia, which in turn enables these organizations to deliver a broad range of initiatives to support the community in which they live. Some of the organizations they have supported are highlighted below giving their perspective on the grants provided and the impact to their organizations.

Funding Areas

Education Training and Employment

Programs providing access, equity and inclusion opportunities to Education and Training or that support and build Pathways to Sustainable Employment

• Build numeracy and literacy skills for pre-school, primary school and secondary school students
• Build numeracy and literacy skills for adolescents and adults
• Building STEM capabilities for pre-school, primary school and secondary school students
• Supporting student wellbeing and fostering school engagement
• Scholarship, Internship or Bursary Program
• Building interpersonal, employability and life skills for adolescents and adults (personal grooming, interview skills, and other workplace skills)
• Mentoring and Coaching
• Access to vocational training opportunities for adolescents and adults
• Building learning skills through art or music programs
• Programs providing access to entrepreneurial and business foundations

Community Health and Wellbeing

 To assist organizations that conduct programmes with the express purpose of improving the physical health, nutrition, and well-being of the Australian community.

• Programs promoting participation in physical activity and sport
• Improved nutrition intake
• Programs promoting social inclusion and cohesion
• Empowering communities and community development
• Settlement and transition support for new Australians
• Programs promoting cultural identity
• Programs supporting family preservation

Funding Information

For the April 2021 grant round, in keeping with the Bennelong Foundation's community & grass roots tradition, they will be seeking grants of up to $20,000. 

Target Communities

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
• People with a refugee background, newly arrived migrants and culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• Communities/groups experiencing socio-economic disadvantage

Criteria

They strive to support causes, organizations and projects that possess the following principles and/or criteria:

• Innovation and proactivity: They seek to support programs that respond to an identified area of need in the community that are presently not being addressed, or that take a new approach to problem solving. Ideally, such programs, if successful, should be able to be replicated in other locations or contexts.
• Change not charity: A focus on prevention is one of their main criteria. They endeavor to fund projects that address the causes of problems, rather than treat the symptoms.  Longevity and sustainability - they support projects and programs that will continue to have an impact over the long term and beyond their period of support. They also encourage programs that are able to become financially self-sustaining.
• Project-based and goal-orientated: The programs that they choose to fund must have strong and identifiable outcomes and key performance indicators over both the short and long term.
• Partnerships: To maximize the impact of their grants, they look towards organizations that are able to combine their funding with other sources. The ability to leverage financial support from other trusts, foundations, governments, businesses and volunteers is seen as an important criterion.  Administration - they look to make grants to organizations that have low administration costs and solid and proven administrative backing. Organizations with a strong volunteer program are also highly regarded.
• Bennelong Foundation involvement: They try to support organizations that have the capacity to allow their staff to become involved in their organization/projects, should they choose.
• Low government or institutional support: Their preference is to assist organizations that receive little or no government funding and are not currently the benefactor of substantial philanthropic support.

For more information, visit Bennelong Foundation.