Climate Communities Grants Program (Vic)

The Climate Communities grants program is a Victorian Government initiative designed to promote and support local actions to tackle climate change. It provides local groups across Victoria with information, advice and grants of up to $50,000 to take practical action on climate change in their own communities.

Tackling climate change at a local level

The Climate Communities government grants program will help to link existing community networks centred around local councils, service clubs, schools and environment groups. It will also encourage and support the establishment of new groups who wish to take environmental action at a local level.

The key objectives are to support local communities to:

• reduce emissions
• build community resilience to adapt to climate change
• trial and/or promote new ideas to help tackle climate change.

The government grant, managed by Sustainability Victoria, supports communities by providing grants of up to $50,000 for community organisations. The Victorian Government has also appointed Climate Communities facilitators to work with local communities across the state. These facilitators will provide information, advice and assistance with grant applications.

Supporting community-based initiatives

There are many different projects that could be receive government grants under the Climate Communities grants program. For example:

• retrofitting a community hall to reduce energy use and using it as a demonstration to promote energy efficiency
• establishing a shared transport scheme such as a bicycle repair and hire cooperative
• offering community gardening workshops to promote drought-tolerant and edible gardening
• providing training for a community leader or volunteer to support the group to operate more sustainably and share knowledge with other members
• setting up a pilot project to reduce waste at a local sports club and encouraging other clubs to adopt the practice.

Government grants are open to community groups committed to tackling climate. Local councils and schools are also welcome to apply if they can demonstrate that they support the community in taking action on climate change. Usually this will be in partnership with a community group. Other organisations such as businesses can participate in Climate Communities by partnering in a project with an eligible organisation.

Application

The first thing to do is to arm yourself with all the available information.

• Download the Grants Kit .
• Have a look at the Grants FAQs.

Then, if you think your project meets all the guidelines, you’ll need to contact the Climate Communities team through Sustainability Victoria to discuss your proposal before submitting an application.

The Climate Communities team can help you develop the project, provide guidance with filling out the application (part of the Grants Kit) and ensure your project meets the grants assessment criteria. They can also help to link you with existing community networks you may wish to partner with for your project.

There are also some useful templates that might help you put together your government grant application:

• Budget template (download as a PDF or Excel document)
• Project plan template (download as a PDF or Word document)
• In-kind information statement (required if you are claiming in-kind contributions in your project budget).
  (download as a PDF or Excel document)