Deadline: 02-Sep-2024
Major Grants is providing funding to support civil legal projects that help legal organisations better understand and support the legal needs and capabilities of Victorians.
Major Grants are new in 2024-25 replacing elements of their previous Knowledge Grants and Community Legal Grants. Everyday Legal Grants are also available for projects that deliver civil legal information and education.
Objectives
- The Major Grants program supports projects that build capability to understand and respond to legal need. These grants aim to:
- develop new understandings of the legal needs and capabilities of particular clients and communities in Victoria
- improve the Victorian justice sector’s data and research capabilities
- support the community to navigate the Victorian justice system and access relevant and accessible legal information
- expand knowledge across the Victorian justice and community sectors through sharing project outcomes and insights.
Funding Information
- Grant Amount: $100,000
Project Types
- Projects likely to be funded involve:
- Researching a civil legal problem or issue to better understand how to effectively respond.
- Developing systems and staff capabilities to collect, understand and use data to improve services or programs
- Developing new pathways to improve access to legal services or programs.
- Trialling approaches to support people to better navigate the justice system.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible organisations
- Applications are open to:
- community legal organisations
- community organisations with an internal legal service
- community organisations in partnership with a legal service.
- Applications are open to:
- They prioritise submissions from community legal organisations and other not-for-profit community organisations in partnership with a legal organisation.
- Community organisations are required to partner with a legal organisation with suitable expertise to ensure accurate legal information is provided to the intended audience.
- They encourage partnerships between research organisations, courts, tribunals, statutory bodies and other community organisations to share knowledge, resources, provide guidance and expertise where there is shared interest.
- They only fund organisations – individuals are not able to apply.
- They focus on civil law and access to justice issues. They will consider work at the intersection of civil and criminal law, but they do not fund work exclusively on criminal law.
Criteria
- Evidence of the need – the legal issue or research topic responds to legal need and/or is timely and likely to be of broad interest in the sector.
- The project addresses needs of clients and/or community groups experiencing disadvantage in access justice.
- Project design/methodology is appropriate for audience or approach.
- Sustainable project outcomes.
- A process for sharing the project findings, processes and/or outcomes more broadly with the sector.
- A commitment to evaluate and learn from the project to improve organisational practice and help identify effective approaches.
- Organisational capacity to undertake the project.
- Partnerships and collaborations to improve reach and impact or facilitate knowledge transfer.
For more information, visit Victoria Law Foundation.
