Deadline: 31-Jul-2025
The NRCF Empowering Women & Girls grant is an annual funding program aimed at grassroots initiatives in the Northern Rivers that focus on empowering women and girls facing inequality and disadvantage. Its primary goal is to provide seed funding to pilot new programs or help existing services pivot, scale, or build their evidence base.
This program is unique because its funds come from the NRCF Women’s Giving Circle, a collective of passionate women from the Northern Rivers who promote equality and human rights for women and girls through participatory grantmaking and collective giving.
The grant supports projects that serve the broader community or focus on specific groups such as First Nations women, LGBTQI+ women, young women and girls, women living with disability, refugee and migrant women, rural women, women experiencing homelessness or housing stress, single mothers, women in low-paid professions, and older women.
In 2025, three grants of $20,000 each will be awarded. Applicants can choose to receive their grant in one payment over 12 months or two payments over 24 months.
Eligible projects include those that prevent and respond to men’s violence against women, recognize women’s achievements (excluding prize funding), address social isolation, raise awareness on women’s issues, develop leadership capacity, support financial independence, improve health outcomes, and promote gender diversity and inclusion.
Funds may be used to deliver activities, events, programs, and services; purchase equipment and materials; acquire community assets; and strengthen organizational capacity through research or evaluation development.
However, the grant does not support one-off emergency relief, prizes or gifts, fundraising projects, religious or political promotion, or programs that exclude people without justified reasons.
To qualify, applicants must be locally based or governed within the seven LGAs of the Northern Rivers, have women-led projects or formal mechanisms involving women in decision-making, and be not-for-profit organizations with Deductible Gift Recipient 1 (DGR1) status.
Applications will be evaluated based on women’s leadership involvement, demonstrated need, potential outcomes, project viability, and the applicant’s capacity to deliver the project successfully.
For more information, visit NRCF.