Arts

Performing Lines Limited
Performing Lines National Producers Platform 2025–2028
$545,372 over 4 years

Performing Lines is a national production company that works with the independent performing arts sector to develop, produce, and tour new Australian works.

The Performing Lines National Producers Platform will enable up to 22 emerging producers from across the country to undertake a two-year deep engagement with Performing Lines to develop their knowledge, skills, experience and networks in the performing arts sector.

Importantly, this is a paid professional development opportunity that will allow emerging producers to develop their skills without having to sacrifice other employment or put themselves in a position where they are struggling to cover living expenses.

In year one of the program, participants will undertake a 10-week program of learning modules which will be delivered online and facilitated by an experienced producer and industry guest speakers. Learning areas covered include the role of a producer; working with artists, arts companies, and festivals; policies, guidelines, and contracts; securing funding and in-kind partners; market development, audience development strategies and community engagement.

In year two, participants will undertake a paid, 5-week full-time industry placement to consolidate their skills, further extend their networks and gain on-the-job experience.

Performing Lines will match each producer with an organisation from their existing partner network and provide mentorship throughout the placement.

Australian Festival of Chamber Music (AFCM) Donations Fund
AFCM Pathways Program
$525,000 over 4 years

This grant supports AFCM in expanding the impact of its Pathways Program, which provides emerging Australian musicians with a structured pathway to develop sustainable careers in chamber music by addressing the gaps in high-level specialist training, business and marketing development skills, and relationships with key industry leaders and industry-lead pathways to performance and teaching opportunities.

Currently, the Pathways Program combines International Masterclasses with an Outreach & Workshop Tour. This grant will enable AFCM to expand the program: extending the duration and number of participants of the masterclasses, expanding the Outreach & Workshops tour and, developing an AFCM Digital Pathways Platform to provide high-quality instrumental teaching to rural and regional areas and extending the reach of face-to-face masterclasses through customised remote services.

The program aims to increase accessibility by providing scholarships for financially disadvantaged participants and using digital technology to reach regional and remote communities.

Buku Larrŋgay Mulka Incorporated
The Mulka Project: Cultural Careers in Digital Media Creation
$300,000 over 3 years

The Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre is an Indigenous community-controlled art centre in Northern Arnhem Land. It is located in Yirrkala, on the northeastern tip of the top end of the Northern Territory, approximately 700km east of Darwin.

Yirrkala is a remote Aboriginal community with limited education, employment, and career opportunities. However, since 2007, the Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre has served as a foundational space for developing leadership and capabilities within the Yolŋu community. The centre has been instrumental in providing meaningful employment and now has a team of Yolŋu cultural advisors, filmmakers, translators, camera operators, sound engineers, editors, artists, and scholars, all dedicated to producing and recording rich cultural resources.

The Mulka Project is an initiative dedicated to preserving and disseminating the rich cultural knowledge of the Yolŋu people. By utilising digital technologies to archive and share traditional knowledge, ceremonies, and digital art, the project ensures this rich heritage is accessible to future generations as well as informing artistic development.

This grant represents an exciting cross-pillar initiative for the Foundation, as the project meets the criteria of both the Arts and Community Wellbeing areas.

Polyglot Theatre
Creative exchange, training and pathways to strengthen the Victorian Theatre for Young Audiences sector
$255,000 over 3 years

Polyglot occupies a prominent role in the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) sector, which comprises a robust group of small to medium-sized companies and independent artists that seek to foster innovation, creativity, and accessibility.

This grant will support Polyglot's work over the next three years with seven partner organisations to deliver a professional development program aimed at artists working in the young audiences’ sector. The program will facilitate creative exchange, shared training for essential skills development, and employment pathways into the sector for new and diverse artists.

By drawing together artists, companies and a major training institute, this project will support a healthy, state-wide arts ecosystem in which artists thrive under best practices, new voices are platformed, knowledge is shared for collective benefit, and the quality of arts experiences for children is enriched.

Community Wellbeing

Devonport Chaplaincy Inc (t/a Loaves and Fishes Tasmania)
Supported Community to Career Program
$1 million over 5 years

Loaves and Fishes Tasmania is unique in the Australian food security landscape. It operates a blended model of food rescue, fee-for-service food preparation (for school lunches and residential facilities) and employment pathways for vulnerable youth.

The organisation's warehouse and kitchen facilities are located in Devonport and Hobart but it distributes to partners statewide via multiple community hubs. This allows all registered local community organisations to pick up a bulk supply of food on a consignment basis.

Loaves and Fishes also offers a structured pathway to stable employment for Tasmanians struggling with emotional and mental health challenges.

The multi-faceted support system includes:

• Providing nationally accredited training in hospitality, administration, or logistics, starting with a minimum of Certificate II.
• Supporting youth into job placements in the food production social enterprise with tailored support to help participants transition into the workforce effectively.
• Implementing a robust mentorship program where trained mentors support participants throughout their employment journey.
• Ensuring ongoing wrap-around care and preventative support for each trainee/apprentice, fostering individual and team wellbeing.
• Facilitating a smooth transition into the workplace with personalised Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAP) and long-term mentoring.

This funding will increase the program's capacity to support vulnerable individuals, thereby improving their career prospects and overall well-being.

Warrama-Li Group
Empowering through Employment: Warrama-Li
$376,000 over 3 years

Warrama-li is an Aboriginal-controlled Work Integrated Social Enterprise, dedicated to providing entry-level jobs to young First Nations people living in Moree who have struggled to find employment locally.

Warrama-Li is a property maintenance social enterprise that has significantly enhanced training and job opportunities in Moree.

This grant contributes core funding for the enterprise as it consolidates the business over the next two years and expands to achieve full sustainability.

Julia Farr Association Inc (Purple Orange)
Regional Disability Employment Model
$300,000 over 3 years

Purple Orange is the social policy agency of the Julia Farr Association Inc, a social profit organisation, working to assist people living with disability to have access to the same opportunities as everyone else.

This grant supports Purple Orange to develop a regional disability employment model to achieve ongoing employment outcomes for people with disability in Mount Gambier, SA and surrounds.

The core component of the project is a Community of Practice for local employers, joined by relevant stakeholders and people with a disability, to support employers to become more inclusive and accessible, connect with the disability community, recruit people with disability and promote disability employment in the wider community.

Early Childhood Development

Murdoch Children's Research Institute 9MCRI)
National Child and Family Hubs Network
$1,355,000 over 6 years

The National Child and Family Hubs Network is an existing body represented by families, hub implementers, researchers, evaluators, philanthropy and policymakers in member organisations all with an interest and expertise in integrated community-based hubs for children and families. The Network aims to build collective capacity and accelerate learning of hubs across Australia.

This grant provides further support to MCRI to build and accelerate the Network’s impact.

Social Ventures Australia Limited (SVA)
Piloting ImpactEd in Australia
$700,000 over 3 years

This grant will support SVA's three-year pilot of ImpactEd, a proven UK EdTech model, in Australian schools.

Launched in the UK in 2017, ImpactEd has since been scaled to over 1500 schools, benefiting over 283,000 students. The model has two key components:

1. a digital measurement and evaluation platform and
2. tailored support, consulting, training, and peer learning for schools.

The digital platform helps schools manage, collect, and extract insights from data and additionally provides access to an ever-growing library of evidence-informed measures and evaluation tools to understand things like student engagement and well-being. The platform also enables benchmarking against other schools and presents information in a simple dashboard.

Building on the platform, tailored support, evaluation services, and training enable teachers to make data-driven decisions to improve student learning outcomes and well-being.

ImpactEd has the potential to fill a gap in the Australian market for both schools and non-profits working in schools.

Pigeon Projects Limited (100 Story Building)
Capacity building funding
$600,000 over 5 years

At a time of high teacher turnover, student refusal, and an increasing equity gap between advantaged and low SES schools, 100 Story Building plays an important and impactful role.

The organisation provides a unique service offering in Victoria that has been shown to support teachers' confidence, enjoyment, and sense of support while improving student literacy and sense of well-being, confidence and belonging.

This capacity building grant will enable 100 Story Building to invest in the resources to:

• Grow their trading revenue through consulting and facilitation projects
• Build out their impact measurement and learning capability
• Invest in team capacity, capability and culture including fit-for-purpose project management tools and systems.

Details of all grants awarded in this round can be found in the Grants Database.