Community Grants Policy - Revised

Thank you Councillors I'm here today to present the new revised Community Grants Policy so I just like to firstly thank the Councillors the community and staff for helping us to pull this policy together it's quite exciting to bring this together today to General Committee so as you're aware the community grants program is a very competitive program often oversubscribed we have just under a million dollars worth of money in the community grants program been running we've been its current format since 2014 we've received over 800 applications in that period of time so through the community grants program we've been able to deliver about a million dollars worth of funding to community it's really very well the community really loved this particular program and the staff doing a great job administering the program we have a three day a week grants officer doing this administration but the team are supporting her but we also actually support community in terms of attracting external grants as well so when we looked at doing a review of the community grants program one of the four areas that we really wanted to focus on is the government side of things, the community effectiveness, the efficient resource allocation noting the staffing that we have in place to help deliver this program and maximising the funding so again making sure that we tap into all those external grants that are out there not just relying upon Council internal grants. So the main changes that we're proposing with the Community Grants Policy is around the grants program changes so introducing a combined the signature community events in line with the festive season so having it one particularly grant category and also introducing our quick response grants and our individual sports grants as well. And then finally we're just looking at cleaning up some of our procedural changes so looking around our governments making sure we're linking to relevant legislation and allowing flexibility with our policy to implement changes into the future.

Karen Finzel59:41

Yes, I think as always our community benefits greatly from these grants and moving forward I think it's great in alignment also with the around we have these opportunities that community can reach in and the process expedited to meet emerging needs. I emerging needs. It's really good to see that we're heading towards a future that you know is responding to our community and that we're trying current and keep things you know really flexible and providing opportunities for people to I guess minimise that whole red tape of slowdowns to keep our community really engaged and moving forward on the things that they'd like to see. I thank staff for doing a great considering the deficiencies around the social strategy, so I think working together with the community and our staff and Council to support these changes, I think the grants policy, the revised version is going to really I thank us forward to a future that is broad. So thank you.

Brian Stockwell52:43

All those in favour? Councillor Wilson? That's carried unanimously. Thank you. We now move on to Community Grants Policy. Vice and manager Alison Hamblin is coming up to talk to us about the new bill and Paul brinkman as well.

Amelia Lorentson58:01

Ali, you've identified as a risk that the amendment, amended policy, it's not well communicated. There's concern that community groups may disengage. So my question is, have we actually run past the revised changes with community groups and what's their feedback been?

Yes, as part of review of the community grants program, we engaged community and our not-for-profit sector in particular. So the changes that they put forward to us was considering one grant round per year and those quick response grants. However, as you know, our not-for-profit sector changes every AGM. And so we just need to ensure that we are continually communicating with our not-for-profit sector and community and making sure they're aware of have gone from two grant rounds per year for our community projects and now looking at going one grant round per year. However, this policy allows that flexibility. So if it doesn't work, we see that a need to do two rounds per year or more or less. We can have that flexibility.