Grants for Big Ideas

Foreign. Hi, I'm Jessie Ballantyne and I love grants. I sold my house to fund the launch of the Grants Hub because I truly wanted to make grants easier to find. In the very early days, I ended up running the Grants Hub from the ICU ward of a children's hospital. Let's just say I'm committed to the cause of helping you find grants. If you're looking to get real with grants, to learn what works and what doesn't, to hear from grant experts from across the country and have some fun while we do it, then Grants Uncovered is the podcast for you. Good morning. Welcome back to Grants Uncovered. It's been quite a big week for me here on the podcast, so a couple of pieces of news to bring to you. First, Grants Uncovered has been named in the top 60 podcasts in Australia by Feedspot. So it's a very cool little achievement and a quick win for us here. Who, you know, everyone who's listening and following along. So great work, guys. Thanks for tuning in and also for your reviews. It's really helping spread the word about grants out there and how people can be more effective in applying for them and hopefully winning that grant funding as well. Next up, as part of this role, with my podcast and also my previous history at the Grants Hub as the founder there, they've identified a need within the Grants Hub for a new grant strategy role. So they've asked me to come in for that in a short term basis. So bringing some of the insights that I'm seeing through the podcast here and also just all the work that I'm doing within the Grants Directory and reviewing all the the grant opportunities that are available. So basically bringing all of this together, the Grants Hub and Grants Uncovered for the next little bit so that we can bring you great grant news. I can work in their own grant strategy role and then also share some of that here with you here on the Grants Uncovered podcast. So the next few episodes I'm really keen to dedicate to some of the grant trends I'm seeing come through the Grants Directory and all the grants available in Australia at the moment. I'll also be bringing on some of the team members from the Grants Hub so we can interview them, you can get to know them a little bit and find out about their roles. Someone like the web developer, how does search work? How can you be more effective in searching for grants? By understanding the mechanisms of grants and the searching and the database behind it. So that's one example of the conversations we'll be having over the next few weeks. So that's quite exciting and it will help you be able to find grants and track them easier and keep in the loop with what's happening a lot better. So bringing those two things together. So make sure you're on the Grants Hub if you're not already, jump on for a free trial or just follow the newsletter. You'll get some great grants grants information coming straight to your inbox as well as what you're hearing here each Thursday on the Grants Uncovered podcast. Now on that note, one grant that I looked at this week was a real standout to me and it's made me think about some of these cool trends that are coming through in some of the grant programs at the moment. Now this grant is possibly a surprise for grabbing my attention so much, but just the whole way that they'd written their webpage and the grants information, it's really grabbed my attention and it's made me keep thinking about it over the course of this week. So I wanted to share with you today grants for big ideas because there are those grants out there. Often we focus on the grants that are available for organizations, but there are also amazing grants out there for individuals who have got these big concepts that they would like to pursue, whether that's in business or health or community social inclusion. There's so many different areas now they are less common. These grants are less common than organizational based grants or or business grants, but they are there. So let's jump in and have a look at this first one that grabbed my attention and it's Spark Grants from the Fay Fuller Foundation. Now all the links through to this will be in my show notes. So don't feel like you have to sit here and write everything down. Now just listen along and then you can jump back on the show notes later and get all the links that you need for it. But SPARK Grants. So again from the Fay Fuller Foundation. Now this is focused on South Australia. So great win for South Australia here. But don't tune out if you're not from South Australia. We've got grants for everyone across the whole country here today. So basically Spark Grants wants to create space for innovation. Now that in itself is pretty cool. So the funder wants you to be able to explore your big idea. They saying one that's taken up residence in the back of your head. An idea that could change the way we respond to mental health, shift us from response to prevention or strengthen individual or community capability to build better mental health well being for the South Australian community. Now that is a cool Grants program. They just want to give you the space to be able to pursue these ideas. Applications for this program open on the 16th of April and the grants are $40,000 and they're giving away six of them. So if you're a South Australian with a great idea, particularly around mental health or health and well being, then jump on and have a look at the Fay Fuller foundation and their SPARK Grants program. The second one. Now, this is a big heads up. So the Amps Tomorrow Fund, very well known program, but that is opening again on 3 May. Now the reason I want to share this with you now, particularly on the weekend before the long Easter weekend, is that this is a prime time when people start thinking about those ideas in the back of their minds. You might be heading away for the long weekend, you've got a break from work and you start thinking about that big idea that is sitting there. The Amps Tomorrow Fund is one grant program you definitely want to look at. And start looking at it now. You can go onto their website again. The links will be on my show notes. Go and see what they've funded in the past, who have they funded, what are the ideas that they've funded. You can do a lot of research before this program opens. Now, the Amps Tomorrow Fund gives grants of 5,000 to $100,000 per person. They have up to $1 million that they give away every year. Again, that is opening on the 3rd of May, and it's to help you pursue your goals, whether that's in arts, athletics, science, social innovation. There's a whole, whole range of areas that they fund. Incredible opportunity. Make the most of it, do your research now, get your foot in the game, give yourself a good understanding of what they're on about and what they fund, and you'll already have a really great head start when that program opens. The third grant I wanted to highlight is a specific one for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. And it's from Deaf Children Australia. Now, there are a lot of incredible deaf and hard of hearing support organisations across Australia. It wasn't really until my work with the grants hub that I realized just how many there are and how huge the need is right across Australia, including within the indigenous population in particular. So many children don't have good hearing. So much change can happen in terms of education and people's ability to access economic income. You know, there's a huge game changer that having hearing can bring. And that's something that most of us take for granted. And to be honest, I Have as well until I've seen some of the work that these organisations are doing. So Youth Grants from Deaf Children Australia opens on 12 April. Now this is for 15 to 23 year olds, for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and they will give you a grant of up to $2,500 to help you achieve a personal goal or project. It's very cool. They're willing to fund projects that could be on personal development, the deaf community and culture, leadership challenges, education, representing your local state, sport or national team or life experience. So jump on and have a look at that when it comes up on the 12th of April. Really cool opportunity for young and something really specific for that community. So share this if you know someone who's deaf of hard of hearing or someone who's got a child who's deaf or hard of hearing between that age bracket 15 to 23, please share these grants information with them so that their kids have got a chance to get some funding to support one of their brilliant ideas. So they're just three of the grants available at the moment for big ideas. We're heading into the season where more of these grants are opening. Last year things did change around a little bit, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens with individual based grants and these idea based grants, particularly for innovation and some of these bigger concepts. So I'll be keeping you in the loop with what happens in this space. So 2021, I think there'll be a heap of funding opening up in this area, giving people the space to innovate and to pursue these big dreams and ideas that you've got. So mull away over the Easter weekend and see what grants are available for that. Now, little heads up if you're in the field of environment and there are grants for individuals as well with big ideas in the whole environment space. Now that's massive. It includes land care, gardening, children's gardening, programs for schools or kindergartens. There's a whole massive space there, pest control, you know, environment is one big broad topic for so many different grant categories. But on Wednesday at the Grants Hub, we're sending out a grant highlight specifically on environment grants. So if you're not already a member, make sure you jump on, do a free trial or at the very least just jump onto the website. It's the grantshub.com au go to the bottom of the page, sign up to the newsletter and on Wednesday you will get an email in your inbox highlighting some of the best environment grants available at the moment. So that's a little heads up. I won't give you those heads up every week, but this time I thought while we're on big ideas, let's share some of those environment ones as well. There's so much available in that space at the moment, so jump on and have a look. That's all for me this week. I hope you have a really great Easter weekend. Think about those ideas, jump onto the Show Notes and pursue some of these grants that I've mentioned and see if you can get some funding to support these cool concepts that you're doing. Have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks for joining me on Grants Uncovered. If you'd like show notes, head over to grantsuncovered.com see you next time.