Apply for Banyule Community Fund – Australia

Deadline: 11-Sep-2024

The Banyule Community Fund (BCF) is offering grants to support Banyule to be a thriving sustainable, inclusive and connected community, where community members are engaged and feel they belong and where the environment is valued and protected.

The Banyule Community Fund (BCF) is the new non-profit fund established in partnership with the Australian Communities Foundation. The Fund let’s businesses, groups and residents make tax deductible donations which are then collated and granted back out to non-profit groups in Banyule. It’s all about fundraising local and donating local and is specific to the municipality.

This Fund creates a real opportunity for community groups in need to be able to receive additional funding and allows the community to donate to causes that are close to home and meaningful to them.

Purpose

• BCF assists local community groups to deliver community-based services, programs, projects and events that involve and benefit the community of Banyule.
• The aim of the BCF is to:
  • Create a thriving and active community that is safe, healthy, inclusive, bringing communities together and reflecting the diversity of Banyule.
  • Build the capacity of local charities and non-profit organisations to strengthen partnership within the Banyule Community to support resilience, collaboration and sustainability.
  • Enhance diversity, access and inclusion.

Priority Areas

• Eight key priority areas have been established for the Banyule Community Fund. These are:
  • Housing and Homelessness: This area includes support services who work with people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. The services can include assisting people with their immediate needs such as finding crisis accommodation, making sure people have food, and helping people to access medical treatment if required. They might also assist with finding longer term accommodation options such as transitional, social or community housing, in addition to supporting people into private rental properties if that is appropriate.
  • Emergency Relief: This area aims to assist community organisations that support people who are experiencing financial distress or hardship and who have limited means or resources to help them alleviate their financial crisis. People accessing emergency relief typically have a low or no income. This makes them vulnerable to financial shock such as high utility bills. Others may need support due to an unforeseen or life changing event such as illness or family violence.
  • Disability: This area includes support services in Banyule for people living with disability. These services reduce barriers to accessing goods, services and facilities, and obtaining and maintaining employment, they promote inclusion and participation in the community and achieve tangible change in attitudes and practices that discriminate against people with disability.
  • Food Insecurity: This area aims to support services and non-profits that tackle food insecurity. Food insecurity is deemed to exist when the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain. A person or household may experience anxiety about running out of food. This may result in buying lower quality and/or unhealthy foods, skipping meals or reducing meal sizes to avoid going without food or to ensure other family members (such as children) have enough to eat. Severe food insecurity is when a person or household experiences hunger due to insufficient food. Food insecurity has significant implications for mental and physical health.
  • Mental Health supports: This area is to support organisations who aim to assist community members who are experiencing mental health concerns. Services may support different age groups from children and young people to adults and older adults. Support can be delivered in many ways including individual support programs, respite and social/recreation programs.
  • Community Connectedness and Inclusion: This area is to support services and groups in Banyule which aim to enhance the wellbeing and social connection of the community, thereby reducing social isolation and loneliness. This area particularly aims to support a range of population groups, including but not limited to: residents experiencing lower socio-economic status, LGBTIQA+, first nations community, multicultural groups, people of disability, older adults and more.
  • Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change: This includes services and groups in Banyule that aim to protect and enhance the natural environment, lead on climate action and work towards achieving environmental sustainability, waste and carbon reduction.
  • Arts and Culture: This involves granting out donations to charities and non-profit groups to use the funding for art and culture related activities within their services. Arts and culture include but isn’t limited to: singing, instrumental performance, dance, drama, theatre, art, craft and more. Examples of this might be, a neighborhood house partnering with an artist to deliver a community arts program, or a mental health support service running a music therapy program.
• When donors donate to the fund, they can choose to donate their funds to one key priority area or choose to donate to the overall fund.

Funding Information

• There will be a minimum of $12,000 worth of grant money per grant round distributed for each annual grant round in 2024 and 2025.
• Applicants can apply for up to $2000

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must:
  • Be a registered charity or a registered non-profit organisation for charitable purposes.
  • Have a Deductible Gift Recipient 1 (DGR1) Status. Organisations with a DGR1 status are those that use their funding to carry out charitable works.
  • Provide support, programs or services to Banyule residents. Where the applicant is located outside Banyule borders, Banyule residents must be the major beneficiaries.
  • Align with one or more of the Fund priority areas: Housing and homelessness, Emergency relief, disability, food insecurity, mental health supports, arts and culture, climate change and environmental sustainability, community connectedness and inclusion.
• Applicants also need to:
  • Have a formal structure including office bearers and a bank account.
  • Provide an ABN or an auspice ABN or be willing to complete a “Statement by Supplier.”
  • Hold Public Liability Insurance up to $20,000,000 at the time of commencement and throughout the funding timelines.
  • Be able to supply financial statements.

Ineligible

• Educational and religious organisations unless the project responds to an identified community need and provides wider community benefit. Projects cannot be curriculum based or totally student/congregation focused.
• Groups who undertake or promote gambling, unless there is significant community benefit demonstrated.
• Political organisations.
• Groups seeking support or assistance from Councillors in their application.
• Groups with outstanding grant acquittals. All previous grants from Banyule Council where the acquittal is due prior to the closing of the grant round you are applying to, must be acquitted to a satisfactory standard. Unacquitted or insufficiently/unsatisfactorily acquitted grants will deem the application ineligible.
• Groups with outstanding debt to Council.
• Groups operating with a deficit.

For more information, visit Banyule City Council.