2026-2027 Community Grants Program - Three-year Signature Community Event Grants

Thank you very much Councillors. So first report today. The purpose of today's report is to provide a summary of the 26-27 community grants and three year signature community event grants. And to seek council's endorsement of the proposed funding allocation across the four categories. And those categories being projects, equipment, facility development and events. The grant program as you are aware is a really key driver to our situation. Strategic goals for Council and supporting our community organisations and our most valuable volunteers in the community as well. The demand continues to exceed. So the demand that we get for our grants continues to exceed what we have in our budget and we've had over 626. Six hundred and twenty six thousand dollars worth of requests coming through from 42 community organisations for our community project grants. This really highlights what the reason why we need to do a very robust and transparent assessment process as well grants. For this particular round we're recommending 22 projects for funding to the value of $258,466.82 with a total project value of $862,000. So what I'd like to let you know is every dollar that we provide to our community project grants and subject to endorsement we're actually getting $3.33 in return so it's a great investment. So again for our three out-of-round signature grants recommended funding for $27,000 we're leveraging a total project value of over $95,000. So if we put that into a dollar investment it is every dollar we put in we're getting $3.55 in return. So again a great investment. So the outcome being sought in this particular report is council's agreement to endorse the recommended distribution of grant funding and the allocation of remaining funds to community respond to needs through the quick response grants throughout the year subject to sufficient funds being allocated in council's adopted budget in 26-27 community grants program. Thank you very much.

Karen Finzel192:42

Okay, do we have a mover? Yes, second. Thank you. I think that was cancer fizzle. And Councillor Phillips is the seconder. Councillor Finzel. Yeah, look, I think this is fantastic in terms of when we're focusing on our volunteers and community groups who have worked in the past. These three-year signature events are fantastic because it gives you time for planning. They know the funding's in the pipeline, so it really frees up the community volunteers and the committee members to actually really you know drill down on what they want to deliver in the community. So I think it's really fabulous to be able to promote the three-year signature community events and the community can put it in their calendar. They look forward to it coming and if there's schools involved and you know other broader community members it's all they know what's coming they know what's ahead of them and it's a really great one for bringing the community together and they're real celebration so it's fantastic that this three-year signature event still provides that opportunity and forward planning for our committees and volunteers so thank you.

Brian Stockwell162:14

So welcome back. We're about to start item 7.2 which is the 2026-2027 community grants project, community project and signature community event grant summary and we have with us Director Kerri and also community connections manager Alison. I presume Alison you're going to give us the summary.

Brian Stockwell191:37

Others wish to talk to the motion? Okay we're happy to put the motion. Those in favour? That's unanimous. We now move on to item 7 in this category which is the community grants for the three years signature community events grants which are the more significant ones.