Our charitable grants committee oversees the discretionary grants program. The Committee includes AET and IOOF employees, as well as an independent philanthropy expert.

• review the progress of projects funded through the program
• discuss broader issues aligned to the not-for-profit sector (especially in the areas aligned to our granting strategy)
• review expressions of interest
• make granting decisions

More information on our approach to funding and insights from our FY19 portfolio of funding partners can be sourced here.

Our discretionary grants committee works with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation to help guide our approach to grant making and evaluation. Every three years we revisit our Theory of Change and grant making strategy. We continually test the assumptions we make about our approach to philanthropy in the spirit of fostering trust and learning more about the challenges and opportunities that our not-for-profit partners and the sector faces.

Our current and future funding strategies are:

For more information about the Learning for Impact program, download our full report here. This comprehensive report reflects on three years of delivering the program, assessing the effectiveness of Learning for Impact grants and seeking to explore the following:

• What is optimal learning environment for NFP Practitioners?
• How critical is professional development investment for early to mid-career practitioners?
• What organisational criteria needs to exist for learning to thrive?
• How can professional development opportunities transform team culture and amplify the value of philanthropic investment?

We’re excited to announce the launch our Small to Medium Stabilisation Fund in 2019. Through this Fund, we will invest in a portfolio of not-for-profit partners. Our aim is to support not-for-profit partners that are building their organisational capacity and effectiveness, in particular those looking to:

• adapt their organisation and revenue models
• develop capability in their staff, volunteers or partners through professional learning opportunities.

• Step 1. Familiarise yourself with our  Theory of Change and identify whether or not your organisational priorities are likely to align with our funding focus.
• Step 2: Register your interest in our ‘tell us more’ day  by registering an expression of interest. In late February/early March 2020 we will invite organisations that have demonstrated an alignment with our funding strategy to discover more about potential partnership opportunities at our ‘tell us more’ day.
  Please note: Unfortunately, due to the number of enquiries we receive, we will only respond to expressions of interest we believe are aligned with our funding focus and qualify for our ‘tell us more’ day.
• Step 3: Following the ‘tell us more’ day – and where we can see a genuine partnership opportunity – we will seek to gain a greater understanding of your broad goal and the challenges your organisation is seeking to address. At this point, our philanthropic services team will support you in completing a proposal to be submitted to the Discretionary Grants Committee.
• Step 4: The Discretionary Grants Committee will meet in the first week of May 2020 to review and approve suitable funding partnerships. We will formalise our partnership agreements and process any grant payments by the middle of June 2020.