These smaller grants enable advocates to participate in ongoing government, regulatory, or industry decision-making processes.
Participation Grants will be made to a not-for-profit or established research organisation to help them advocate for household and/or small business energy consumers in a specific decision-making process.
Grants are capped at $40,000 (ex GST) with smaller limits for specific activities:
- Travel at cost (to a regulatory or policy decision-making forum or consumer-convened workshop or conference) – max. $1,000
- Workshops at cost – max. $10,000 (to cover venue hire, catering, etc)
- Submissions – max. $35,000
- Technical expertise to support a submission – max. $25,000
Examples
- Travel interstate to attend AER public forum
- Using organisation’s internal resources to draft a submission
- Engaging a consultant to provide targeted technical expertise to a submission
- Convening a workshop with advocates on an issue or to build advocacy capability
When can I apply?
Participation Grants are open for applications from 13 October 2021.
How will my application be assessed?
- It is a current or forthcoming policy/regulatory process
- Clear advocacy outcome
- How the chance of success is improved by your organisation’s participation
- Benefits to household and/or small business consumers
- Value for money
Is this the right grant for me?
Participation grants are not intended to be used to support larger programs of sustained advocacy. For this reason, there are some limitations on how often they can be accessed. If your project requires more extensive or ongoing support, please consider applying for another grant category.
- An organisation should not have more than two participation grants active at any one time.
- A review will be triggered if an organisation has received four grants – or grants totalling $75,000 – in 12 month period.
How do I apply?
These grants are accessed via a new, streamlined application process that is wholly-online and does not require approval from ECA’s Board.
This will deliver a quicker turnaround between application and decision (2-3 weeks).
- Fill in a simple online form outlining your view of impact made through contribution
- Attach any documentation, e.g. submissions, evidence reports, workshop outputs
Co-contribution and administrative overheads
We expect that an organisation’s contribution would be in line with the size of the grant sought and its resources, recognising that community sector organisations can have limited capacity to make a financial contribution.
An important consideration in assessing a grant application is its value for money. We therefore expect administrative overhead costs to be minimized. When included, those costs will be closely scrutinized.
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