Helen Macpherson Smith Trust

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FY19 grants approved

2 new Lead Grants and 22 new Multi-year Grants approved for FY19

We are pleased to advise the Trustees have approved two new Lead Grants totalling $750,000 and 22 new Multi-year Grants totalling $1.8m for a range of projects across Victoria.

We congratulate our new grantees and look forward to following the implementation of their projects.

Visit our Grantee Database for our full searchable listing of over 4700 grants. 

Lead Grants

From time to time, HMSTrust identifies significant larger projects within the Trust’s current areas of interest that have the potential to deliver long-term benefits to Victoria. These grant opportunities are by invitation only.

Program Organisation Project Title Funding Purpose  Grant
Education WEstjustice WEstjustice Youth Employment Justice Program – Poverty is not Destiny (the YEJ Program) The YEJ Program will educate, empower and support vulnerable young people to better understand, negotiate and secure workplace rights and responsibilities whilst simultaneously addressing cycles of disadvantage. The project will trial and evaluate the impact of targeted legal interventions for vulnerable young people through WEstjustice’s Youth Law Program to increase both short and long term employability and improve systems.  $300,000
Environment People and Parks Environment Trust Resting Places – Healing Country Together In north-west Victoria, ancient burial sites, thousands of years old, are deteriorating as the land becomes increasingly dry and eroded. Ancestral remains now lie exposed to the elements, cattle, pests and vehicles. This project will support Traditional Owners to scale up and sustain the Resting Places program, enabling them to rebury their Ancestors’ exposed remains, and repair and maintain the landscape that protects them.  $450,000

 

Multi-Year Grants

We received 108 enquiries for this year’s Multi-Year Grants round and from these, 36 applications were received, seeking a total amount of $2.98m.

22 grants were approved by Trustees for a total of $1,823,170.

Program Organisation Project Title Funding Purpose  Grant
Arts and Culture Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Australia Contemporary ACCA will establish the Australia Contemporary series showcasing diverse Australian artists over a three-year period. Funding is sought for Victorian artists in years two (a First Nations artist) and three.  $90,000
Chamber Made Opera Hi-Viz: a professional development and networking program for women and non-binary artists To deliver a sector and professional development program including live events and ongoing online engagement that will provide networking, skills development, and collaboration opportunities for Victorian artists.  $31,228
Geelong Art Gallery Inc The Museum as Muse: Geelong Gallery’s digital asset management strategies for the future To implement a 21st century upgrade of our digital asset management system and to introduce an accessible child, family, youth focused digital interpretive framework for Geelong Gallery’s permanent collection.  $85,000
Linden New Art Inc. Linden Projects Arts Industry Placement Program To develop a robust evaluation process to measure the program outcomes and inform the development of a model for applying within the arts sector.  $80,000
Progressive Broadcasting Service Co-operative Limited PBS’ State-of-the art Performance Studio & Control Room at the Collingwood Arts Precinct To design and construct a state-of-the-art Performance Studio (Studio 5) and control room at PBS’ new home at the Collingwood Arts Precinct (CAP).  $90,000
Speak Percussion Bespoke Business Program To deliver a professional development program for artists and arts workers targeting career sustainability and the development of business, financial and leadership skills  $90,000
Community Cire Services Incorporated Using the power and pleasure of rhymes/story/music/song to strengthen Upper Yarra families and foster resilience. Deliver an evidence-based program to vulnerable young families in the Upper Yarra that strengthens attachment and interaction between parents/cares and their young children during the crucial early years/ build resilience.  $89,100
Guide Dogs Victoria Specialist early intervention for babies and children living with low vision or blindness in Victoria. To pilot an early childhood intervention service (ECIS) to provide holistic support for babies/young children (ages 0 – 6) living with low vision or blindness and their families in Victoria.  $90,000
McAuley Community Services for Women Court Support 4 Kids To continue operating Court Support 4 Kids in Sunshine Magistrates’ Court for a further 18 months and collate additional data to support case for government funding.  $90,000
Mercy Hospitals Victoria Ltd Improving Family Outcomes for the Sudanese & South Sudanese Communities of Wyndham To co-design culturally responsive maternity, allied health and parenting education service models that support Sudanese and South Sudanese communities in Wyndham and improve health and wellbeing outcomes for families  $90,000
Prevention United Partners in Parenting: evaluating the real-world use and impact of a depression prevention parenting program. To promote and deliver the evidence-based Partners in Parenting depression prevention program and evaluate its real-world impact in supporting parenting practices that reduce the risk of teenage depression.  $90,000
Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (Victorian Section) Flying Doctor Speech Therapy Extension of pilot program to address gaps in regional health service delivery and extend access to speech pathology for developmentally vulnerable children in the Mallee, improving critical life skills.  $90,000
Tweddle Foundation Limited Working Out Dads: A Roadmap For Sustainability, Reach & Impact To deliver a Business Plan, project delivery and further research to establish the sustainability of the early intervention Working Out Dads program, addressing a gap in support services for fathers.  $78,760
Education Banksia Gardens Community Services Project REAL / Northern Centre for Excellence in Trauma Informed Practice (NCETIE) To enhance support structures to increase attendance at the referring schools and maximise the chances of successful re-engagement: increased face to face support, revamped communication protocols, onsite creative engagement (OUP).  $90,000
Berry Street Victoria Berry Street Education Collective Leadership Program: Effective leadership strategies in trauma-informed education -implementation pilot project. To develop, pilot and evaluate the Berry Street Education Collective Leadership Program for schools/communities which recognise the Berry Street Education Model’s value and strive for greater impact for disadvantaged/all students.  $90,000
Good Cycles Limited City Services & Impact Evaluation Approach To fund a Project Manager role, responsible for designing and implementing participant training plans and an accompanying evaluation framework for Good Cycles’ expanding City Services enterprise.  $60,000
Springvale Learning and Activities Centre CoCO’s – Community Creating Opportunities Social Enterprise To develop and implement:
– detailed Financial Model,
– innovative business and  partnership building strategies and
– Work Readiness skills training program for CoCO’s Social Enterprise.
 $90,000
The First Step Program Limited First Step and the Future of Mental Health in Victoria To (a) coherently explain First Step’s social impact in order to attract sustainable funding partners AND to (b) test the efficacy of the business model in order to scale it.  $89,978
The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation No 2 Trust Building capacity of primary schools as a universal platform to address children’s mental health issues Scope and develop an innovative program to address rising child mental health issues using primary schools as a universal platform, co-designed with the Victorian Government (DET and DHHS).  $49,104
Womens Health Grampians Incorporated Gender-Diverse Workforces Project Develop and implement a project to support organisations to attract and retain women into non-traditional workforce roles, with a particular focus on trades and manufacturing, across the Central Highlands region.  $90,000
Environment Environmental Justice Australia Ltd River laws program To support the continuation and growth of a program of work directed to improving legal and policy protections for Victorian waterways, in collaboration with community organisations.  $90,000
University of Melbourne Indigenous Plants – Journey from Paddock to Plate: A New Model for Sustainable Agriculture Collaborating with the local Bunurong/BoonWurrung people and community, to develop a model for the inclusion of Indigenous plants in peri-urban agriculture for sale to restaurants/retailers – which promotes sustainable-agricultural practices  $90,000

FY19 One-off Grants approved

We are pleased to advise the Trustees have approved new grants totalling $594,839 for 23 projects across Victoria. A total of 45 applications were received, requesting $1,179,864 altogether.

Our One-off Grants round is our largest grant round, and this year was no exception, with a total of 103 enquiries. Following the 2017 One-off Grants round, in which we received a high number of applications that were a weak fit to our areas of interest, and cognisant of the amount of time it takes for applicants to put together a grant application, staff reviewed our processes and implemented a new application procedure in which we asked all potential applicants to contact the Trust for an initial discussion.

While the new process was time-intensive for our small team in the weeks leading up to the closing date, it was highly successful resulting in a substantially reduced number of applications received – down from 75 in 2017, to 45 in 2018 – and saving many organisations from wasting their valuable time and resources.  It also provided a good opportunity for us to learn about the enquiring organisation, and its current work.

Grants staff received positive feedback about the process. Potential applicants were pleased to have the opportunity to discuss their project in person, even if the discussion resulted in the organisation not making an application, as we were able to provide clarity about what the Trust looks for in an application and could make recommendations as to ways to strengthen a future application, direct them to potential partners or others working in the same space.

We congratulate our new One-off grantees and look forward to following the implementation of their projects.

Program Organisation Project Title Funding Purpose  Grant
Education Culture is Life Limited The Boonwurrung Cross Sector Schools Project – bringing Boonwurrung culture to life in bayside schools To support the roll-out and refinement of the curriculum framework and content into 5 local bayside cross-sector primary schools  $30,000
Foundation for Young Australians YLab strategy and business plan To test and develop a strategy and business plan for the Foundation for Young Australians’ social enterprise, Ylab, to increase its financial sustainability and social impact.  $27,000
Give Where You Live Inc Grow Our Own: Colac collaboration and capacity for our local workforce To build capacity of local employers to understand skill-based training needs, workforce development and planning, and inclusive employment practices that will support sustainable employment of long term local job seekers.  $30,000
Righteous Pups Australia Inc Em-Power To lay electricity, internet and fans, to the learning environments used by over 100 at-risk young Victorians to improve conditions for engagement, growth, learning for life and future educational pathways  $24,500
Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation Victorian Learning Areas Map: Kitchen and Garden Task Ideas for Years F-6 To develop and publish a downloadable educational resource that shows Victorian Primary School teachers how to use a kitchen garden program to enhance Victorian curriculum teaching.  $30,000
Zoe College Limited Fit for Purpose: College Modifications for Registration To to complete the modifications required according to VRQA registration requirements  $30,000
Community Birth for Humankind Settling in to parenting: Best-practice skills building for new mothers experiencing disadvantage To deliver a pilot parenting support program to support socially isolated mothers in Melbourne, while developing resources (material, human resources) and working partnerships (community, local government) for scalable implementation.  $25,933
Kidsafe Vic Inc Development of an online educational tool for community organisations working with vulnerable or disadvantaged families To develop an injury prevention education tool for workforces of community organisations (COs) with the aim of developing capacity to reach vulnerable families with critical safety information.  $23,050
Wyndham Little Buddies Toy Library Learn Through Play – Toys for Wyndham’s Children To expand the toy collection of Little Buddies Toy Library so that we can service more families  $9,000
Arts and Culture Ausdance Victoria Leading and teaching Dance to Ageing Populations – Dance Professionals and Mature Movers To develop a new workforce via an accredited training program for dance professionals.  $30,000
Burrinja Burrinja Studio Artist Enterprise Development To develop a program that enables sustainable careers and creative practices for artists by increasing resource capacity to support artistic enterprise through an activated studios program in the Dandenong Ranges.  $25,480
Circus Oz BLAKflip Community Engagement Coordinator To trial a part-time BLAKflip Community Engagement Coordinator to support the development and delivery of Indigenous community circus workshop programs in Victoria, encompassing new and existing programs.  $30,000
CLIMARTE ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019: Rewriting the Score by Mandy Martin, Alexander Boynes and Tristen Parr. ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019: Rewriting the Score: To provide artist fees, materials and associated costs to create a large-scale installation at Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell.  $15,000
Community Music Victoria Building Victorian Community Music Leadership (stage 1) To undertake the necessary research and planning for a large scale program commencing on 2020 to increase Victoria’s community music leadership capacity.  $29,512
Kaiela Arts Working Towards Achieving Twenty- Twenty Digital Vision To build workforce capacity through the purchase of equipment  that allow the flexibility of workspaces and enable digital point-of-sale services.  $21,114
Melbourne Fringe Melbourne Fringe at Trades Hall: Space to Create To purchase performance infrastructure to fit-out a new year-round venue at Trades Hall, operated as an additional income stream for Melbourne Fringe, significantly increasing capacity to support Melbourne’s independent artists.  $30,000
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Acknowledging Victoria’s Indigenous Countries with MSO (working title) To create 11 musical Acknowledgments of Country developed collaboratively with, and featuring Victoria’s 11 indigenous language groups, to be shared for ongoing  local community use.  $30,000
Punctum Inc. The Pavilion Project – Phase 2 To create a new artistic and architectural response to how we might collectively welcome and celebrate the cultural contribution of newly arrived members of three multicultural communities into our region.  $15,000
West Space West Space Re-location Project To engage a freelance special projects coordinator (with relevant experience across project management, capital works and visual arts) to oversee the planning and build of West Space’s new gallery.  $20,000
Environment Cardinia Environment Coalition Inc. Relocate CEC Community Nursery from Tynong to Deep Creek. To vacate the temporary and dilapidated Nursery at Tynong and move to a new facility at Deep Creek where the new CEC office and educational facilities are presently being built  $30,000
Invasive Species Council Determining the distribution of the invasive smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) to enable potential eradication. To map the distribution of invasive smooth newts in Victoria to determine whether eradication is feasible and inform decisions about future management.  $30,000
Monash University Designing genetic rescue – a cost effective solution to save Victoria’s only endemic bird To DNA-sequence the genomes of Helmeted honeyeaters and their relatives, for designing a genetic rescue strategy to save from extinction the last remaining population of Victoria’s bird emblem.  $29,250
The Tree Project Inc TreeProject website redevelopment. To seek help from a design agency to redevelop our website and make it easier for people to get involved in our revegetation program and improve staff efficiency.  $30,000

 

FY19 Impact Grants approved

We are pleased to advise the Trustees recently approved seven new Impact Grants totalling $1.38m for a range of projects to benefit people and communities across Victoria.

Impact Grants of up to $200,000 are for well-developed proposals that have strong potential to achieve significant outcomes within our program focus areas.

The type of activities that may be considered include those that will result in benefits across multiple organisations or communities; have substantial reach in beneficiary numbers; or take a new approach to an identified sector issue.

HMSTrust received 62 enquiries with 11 projects invited to make a Stage 1 application. From these, nine projects were shortlisted to continue to a Stage 2 application and seven projects resulted in being awarded grants as outlined in the table below. We congratulate our new Impact grantees and look forward to implementation of their projects.

Visit our Grants Database for our full searchable listing of over 4700 grants. 

Program Area Organisation Project Title Funding Purpose Grant Amount
Community BeyondHousing Keeping Home To develop and deliver housing focused programs on budgeting, living skills and tenancy legislation to people at risk of homelessness, building capacity to remain housed on a low income. $196,440
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute The Healthier Wealthier Families program: addressing child poverty through better healthcare systems To test the feasibility and potential impact of providing financial and income maximisation advice to families experiencing or at-risk of poverty, building on Victorian universal Maternal and Child Health services. $199,916
The Bridge Youth Service Inc. Making Quality Happen: enhancing services for families by building organisational capacity for continuous quality improvement To develop a replicable, sustainable and collective model of continuous quality improvement which primarily enhances programs, services, quality and outcomes for families, and secondly, meets compliance demands $200,000
Environment Royal Botanic Gardens Foundation Victoria Landscape Succession Planning and Biodiversity Conservation in Victoria’s city and regional Botanic Garden Network To integrate findings from RBGVs Landscape Succession Strategy into the Care for the Rare biodiversity conservation project within Victoria’s city and regional botanic gardens. $195,000
Health Bolton Clarke Delivering a free low intensity mental health program to Western Victoria Primary Health Network area. To implement NewAccess, the evidence based, non-clinical, low intensity mental health program,  free of charge to rural and regional communities within the Western Victoria Primary Health Network (PHN). $199,760
Monash University An innovative holistic approach to women’s mental health in rural and regional Victoria To establish a sustainable video-consultation service to enable better access for women in rural and regional Victoria suffering mental illness and her treating GP to specialised mental health treatment. $196,142
Swinburne University of Technology Community Collective Impact: A best-practice, community-based approach to accessing rural mental health services. To implement, with health services, an established community development process that uses best-practice evidence and enables communities to develop optimal local accessible mental health services through services and citizen collaboration. $199,269