The Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) and the Australian Communities Foundation (ACF) today announced a national open grant round for programs and organisations working with families with children in the prenatal to two-year-old age range.
The grant round is part of PRF’s Strengthening Early Years, a program which aims to support families and children to ensure that every child has the opportunity to thrive upon school entry. In particular, the program focuses on the critical importance of the developmental period between conception and age two. Equally, it aims to ensure that parents are well supported to flourish during the early years of their child’s life.
Program lead and senior associate at the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Hannah Barber explained that to achieve its goals, PRF was seeking to source, seed, and support ‘promising programs’ that are working with families with children aged prenatal-two years old.
“We are thrilled to launch this open grant round to help us make inroads into strengthening the early years of children’s lives by supporting those who do fantastic work with children and families all around Australia,” said Barber.
“One of the primary objectives of this nationwide open grant round is to extend PRF’s reach into communities with which the Foundation does not have a long history of partnering.
“We’re seeking to support innovative practices which lead towards success in ensuring parents and caregivers are supported, and building strong positive relationships in children’s lives that support physical and mental health and wellbeing.”
Barber explained that the role of ACF was critical in helping reach the right programs and organisations.
“By partnering with ACF, we are able to expand our reach into those communities that are often underserved by funding opportunities. ACF brings a long history of high quality, community-based partnership and we are thrilled to be working alongside their team.”
There will be two grant types available:
- Large Grants: Between $250,000 and $750,000 (total) for a period of up to five years are available and amounts will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
- Small/medium Grants: Between $50,000 and $250,000 (total) for a period of up to five years are available and amounts will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
ACF Director of Philanthropic Services, Georgia Mathews expressed ACF’s enthusiasm for the work.
“We’re pleased to be able to work with PRF to identify organisations showing leadership in this important space and look forward to seeing the positive outcomes of some carefully placed funding for parents, their young children, and the community more broadly,” she said.
“It’s wonderful to see a foundation like PRF working with us to leverage our deep networks across the country and using them to achieve a positive result.”
Application Process
Large grants
Interested applicants must complete an Expression of Interest (EOI). Full applications are by invitation only, based on the outcome of the EOI process.
EOIs open: 16 August 2022
EOI close: 6 September 2022
Full Applications open: 13 September 2022
Full Applications close: 7 October 2022
Small/medium grants
Applications open: 16 August 2022
Applications close: 21 September 2022
APPLY ONLINE: communityfoundation.org.au/support/sey
