Surf Coast Shire Council will introduce two new funding streams to its popular Community Grants Program, focusing on health and wellbeing projects and minor capital works.
Council resolved at its July meeting to endorse the changes, with the aim of streamlining processing of applications and encouraging submissions.
Applications for health and wellbeing and minor capital works projects have previously been submitted via the community initiatives category.
As part of a mid-program review Council also approved adjustments to existing funding streams, including:
- Increasing the upper limit of funding in the Quick Response Grant Program from $2000 to $3000.
- Increasing the upper limit of funding in the Natural Environment Grant Program from $5000 to $8000, and
- Allowing partnership project grants of up to $10,000 in the Climate Emergency program, alongside individual grants of up to $5000.
Council also noted a total of $139,942 in 55 grants funded through the 2022-23 Community Grants Program.
“Our grants program is a really valuable way for us to support and enable our community members and organisations in nurturing and realising projects which are important to them,” Deputy Mayor Mike Bodsworth said.
“We are continually amazed and impressed by the breadth, vision and purpose of project applications and the community skills and expertise behind them.
“We continually look for ways to improve our grants program to help ensure that it provides the right scope and ease of access for applications, and these latest updates will further enable us to support projects which help our community and environment to thrive.”
Inclusion of a specific minor capital works grants program will allow applications to be processed more effectively as they typically demand more detailed scoping than other categories.
Health and wellbeing grants are among the most sought-after in the grants program. Creation of a targeted grant stream will help Council enable community partnerships while working towards priorities outlined in its Health and Wellbeing Plan.
