In 2022, the Australian Ethical Foundation Visionary Grants program will continue to support early stage projects that have the potential for large impact in the fight against climate change.
Our Visionary Grants program works alongside our Strategic Grants program to ensure we can support a wide array of high impact, effective and innovative climate projects and solutions.
This page outlines our specific funding focus areas, eligibility criteria, application process details, our assessment approach and other relevant items. Please read through it all before submitting an Expression of Interest. Successful EOI's will be invited to complete a full application.
The details
| Expressions of Interest | 22 August – 13 September 2022 (5pm AEST) |
| Full Application |
28 September – 21 October 2022 (For successful EOI applicants only) |
| Grant Size |
$20,000 - $100,000 |
| Organisation Structure |
Applicants must have an ABN, an Australian bank account and be a not-for-profit organisation with relevant documentation to prove it. |
| Preference | We will prioritise support to early stage projects that need funding for validation or scaling. |
| Project Timings |
Projects can run for up to 2 years. |
| Location |
Organisations must be based in Australia, but can have their operations conducted overseas. |
Focus areas for funding
Your project must align to one of the following focus areas to be eligible for funding. Focus areas are informed by leading climate research, notably Project Drawdown, to align our funding to effective climate solutions.
Stopping sources of carbon
Australia is a global leader in the export of fossil fuels and livestock agriculture, so it’s important we shift domestic energy policies, energy creation and food supply towards cleaner solutions - while ensuring this process is equitable and empowering for all. We also need to ensure emissions from other important sectors, like transport and buildings, are rapidly reduced.
We’re seeking initiatives in the following areas:
- Adoption of new forms of energy production (eg. renewables, storage, community energy development)
- Sustainable food systems and land use (eg. reducing food waste + miles, increasing plant-rich diets and alternative proteins, protecting natural ecosystems*)
- Waste treatment (eg. recycling, methane digesters, waste-to-energy, composting)
- Adoption of alternative and new forms of transport (eg. EV's, bicycles, walkable cities, transport efficiencies)
- Enhancing material efficiencies and building sustainability (eg. smart buildings, reduction in HFC's, bioplastics, water management, clean cookstoves and biogas)
Supporting carbon sinks
Temperate and tropical forests (green carbon) and seagrass meadows, tidal marshes and mangrove forests (blue carbon) sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon. They also provide vast biodiversity benefits for the planet, supporting most ecosystems that underpin life on earth.
We’re seeking initatives in the following areas:
- Protection and restoration of land sinks and the ecosystems + biodiversity they support (inc. tropical and temperate forests, grasslands, peatlands, First Nations environmental tenure and cultural practices)
- Protection and restoration of coastal sinks, oceans and the ecosystems + biodiversity they support (inc. coastal wetlands, mangroves, salt marshes, seagrasses, plastics)
- Human engineered carbon sinks (inc. biochar, carbon capture)
Empowering women and girls
Securing gender equality and advancing women’s wellbeing is the leading solution to addressing climate change. When levels of education rise, access to reproductive health care improves and women’s political, social and economic empowerment expand, women can control their family size and lives, curbing population growth and building healthier, more inclusive societies.
We’re seeking initiatives in the following areas:
- Improving access to education (inc. affordability, overcoming health and safety barriers, making schools more girl-friendly)
- Improving access to healthcare
- Securing women's rights to voluntary, high quality family planning (inc. sexual and reproductive health services)
- Supporting smallholder agricultural women farmers
Other areas
Alongside funding direct projects specifically targeting the issues outlined above, we will also consider applicants using the following methods to drive broad systems change across our focus areas outlined above:
- Strategic climate and nature litigation
- Advocacy campaigns and policy engagement
- Community organising, community engagement and community empowerment
- Research projects and communication of new methodologies and technologies
How we assess grants
We utilise our impact assessment framework to assess all grant applications. Please read through it before applying.
When assessing all applications, we apply a comprehensive impact framework to measure the potential impact of each project. We have designed our application forms to draw out answers relating to our impact assessment framework.
Please note, the assessment framework provides an overarching methodology to our assessment and may not be applicable across every application. The information outlined below is to provide you with a better understanding of our assessment process to assist with your application.
Specifically, our core areas of assessment (where applicable) are as follows.
1. Theory of Change
This includes a demonstrated understanding and application of things such as: the ecosystem the charity is operating within, whether the causal issue is being addressed, how the intervention generates impact and positive change, how the offering has been co-designed with other stakeholders and beneficiaries, what partnerships have been developed with key players and if there is a clear mission and vision to the work being undertaken.
2. Project outcomes
This includes a demonstrated understanding and application of things such as: a structured and considered methodology (measurement framework) to measure impact, a holistic process of collating impact data, an ability to communicate the impact being generated and an adaptive and iterative process to learn and grow from the impact data.
3. Expertise
This includes things such as a relevantly skilled management team/founder/governance board, an adaptive culture of learning, sharing information and innovating, a shared set of beliefs/values to provide guidance and formal organisational structures that ensure the longevity of the project/organisation.
4. Effective impact
This includes things such as how vitally important the issue is in relation to other impact areas, the ability of the project to be widespread or scaled for greater positive impact, the amount of direct positive benefits or potential future benefits generated from the project and how efficiently funds are utilised in the project.
