About Grants to End Homelessness
Grants range from $5,000 to $50,000.
1. All potential applicants are strongly urged to contact the Mercy Foundation on 02 9911 7390 to discuss their projects prior to submitting their application. Please call the Mercy Foundation as early as possible, prior to the submission date.
2. Grants are available for seeding initiatives, services, projects, advocacy and research that will contribute to the goal of ending or preventing homelessness. The focus this year is ending or preventing women’s homelessness. The Mercy Foundation also prioritises projects that end chronic homelessness.
3. The Mercy Foundation prioritises projects that require seed funding and have potential to help build capacity and to create structural and systemic change and have capacity to continue after the funding period.
4. The Mercy Foundation supports housing first, rapid rehousing and permanent housing solutions combined with appropriate support to help end homelessness and sustain housing.
5. Projects that initiate and collaborate through strategic partnerships among funders, policymakers, business leaders, government, housing and service providers are well regarded.
6. Outcomes need to demonstrate that the project has contributed to ending women’s homelessness or contributed substantially to increasing knowledge about pathways into and out of ending homelessness (thereby increasing our understanding of how to intervene early and end homelessness).
7. Applicants must be a legal entity (incorporated association or company) or be auspiced by an appropriate organisation. Preference will be given to small and medium size organisations.1
8. The Mercy Foundation must be satisfied that the applicant organisation has the competency and capacity to implement the project.
9. If successful, organisations will be required to provide a copy of their Safeguarding Policy as a condition of their funding.
Grant Eligibility
Applications are accepted from not-for-profit community-based groups or organisations (not individuals) within Australia. The Mercy Foundation will only accept one application per organisation in any given year.
· Organisations applying for funds must have a visible and accountable management structure that includes community representatives.
· Organisations applying for funds must be not-for-profit and therefore exempt from income tax but are not required to have Deductible Gift Recipient status.
· Applications are accepted for projects run wholly within Australia by organisations based in Australia.
· Criteria for suitability of projects to apply for grants are derived from the aims and objectives of the Mercy Foundation and the criteria for the grants programs.
· Applicants must demonstrate a capacity to implement the project.
· Applicants must display competency in the field of the projects or have included appropriate capacity building in the project design.
Ineligibility
The Mercy Foundation does not fund:
· Individuals
· The core operating costs of an existing organisation or project on-costs
· Vehicles
· General fundraising appeals
· Food parcels, crisis or emergency responses to homelessness
· Deficit funding
· Projects that will rely on recurrent funding from the Mercy Foundation
· Other grant-making foundations
· Projects that do not meet the identified criteria and priority goals of the Mercy Foundation
· Projects located overseas
The Grants to End Homelessness program attracts a high volume of applications. All applications are assessed in line with the grants criteria and prioritised. Unfortunately, due to funding constraints, we are unable to fund all applications that meet the criteria. Please call our office on 02 9911 7390 if you have any questions regarding the Grants to End Homelessness program.
What Projects will be funded?
Projects that focus on ending and preventing women’s homelessness especially chronic homelessness are priority areas for the 2022 – 2023 program. We prioritise projects that provide lasting solutions to people’s homelessness.
Grants range from $5,000 up to $50,000, with grants likely to be averaging $20,000 – $30,000.
Chronic homelessness is defined as an episode of homelessness lasting 6 months or longer or multiple episodes of homelessness over a 12 month period or more. People who experience chronic homelessness are likely to have ‘complex needs’, which usually means that they have one or more of the following:
- developmental disability
- traumatic brain injury
- serious physical health problems
- history of abuse or trauma
- mental illness
- mental disorder
- psychiatric disability
- addictions.
The Mercy Foundation acknowledges that the majority of people experiencing homelessness in Australia do not have high or complex needs. They simply need access to affordable housing and some supports may be required. People experiencing chronic homelessness are likely to have additional support needs.
Applicants must be able to specify measurable outcomes from the initiative. Those outcomes will need to show that the project has contributed to ending chronic homelessness or contributed substantially to increasing knowledge about the pathways into and out of homelessness – thereby increasing our understanding of how to prevent and how to end homelessness. All applications will need to outline their evaluation strategy and make clear how such outcomes will be measured.
Applicants must be a legal entity, such as an incorporated association or company. If not, the applicant will need to be auspiced by an appropriate organisation.
Unfortunately at this time, the Mercy Foundation is unable to fund services or projects which require recurrent or indefinite funding.
This grants program does not support food programs or short term or crisis responses to homelessness.
Note that successful grant recipients will be required to provide a copy of their Safeguarding Policy prior to the commencement of funding.
