More than 1600 Australian community groups submitted applications for the national carrier’s Regional Grants program, almost 40 per cent more than when the program first launched.
The Qantas Regional Grants program is providing $10 million in grants over five years – $2 million each year – to support not-for-profit community groups and projects directly benefitting regional Australia. The grants include a combination of flights, cash and marketing support.
An analysis of this year’s applications shows that:
• Regional organisations based in New South Wales submitted the most applications from any state and territory, with 506 entries.
• This was followed by Queensland organisations who submitted 416, and West Australia with 242 applications.
• Towns where 10 or more organisations submitted an application included Alice Springs, Armidale, Broome, Cairns, Coffs Harbour, Dubbo, Geraldton, Hobart, Launceston, Mackay and Townsville.
• Health and wellbeing, sports and recreation, children and family, and education were the top application categories.
The record number of applications exceeded the 1200 submissions received when the program opened in 2019.
The grants program was relaunched in December and doubled in size, following a three-year pause due to COVID, with applications for this year’s round closing on May 10.
Successful recipients will be determined by a panel made up of Qantas and community group representatives. Applicants will be notified of the panel’s decision in June.
QantasLink Chief Executive Officer John Gissing said the airline was delighted by the community response.
“As an airline born in regional Australia, we know how important it is to give back to rural and regional communities,” Mr Gissing said.
“It’s fantastic to receive so many applications and it just goes to show how many people and organisations around Australia are working to make their communities that little bit better.
“Our selection panel has a huge task to choose the successful applications, which we’ll do methodically over the next month or so.
“Being able to invest in regional organisations, especially those who have done it tough during the pandemic, is very rewarding for everyone across Qantas,” Mr Gissing added.
Qantas Regional Grants program was launched in 2019, with the first year of funding distributed among 20 community groups from every state and territory.
Details of all the previous grant recipients can be found here.
