The Wicking Trust has opened a national grant round focussed on ‘Bringing death back into life’ – investing in excess of $6 million over the next three years.
The Trust, established in 2002 by John and Janet Wicking is Australia’s most significant charitable trust investing in people, programs and research that improve the quality of life and death for older Australians.
The ‘bringing death back into life’ grant round aims to:
- Create more open conversations about death and dying – increasing death literacy,
- Support older Australians to prepare for and plan for dying and death,
- Facilitate more connected and coordinated formal and informal care networks, and
- Enable better access to information and expertise that connects older people to the support they need, when they need it.
“John and Janet Wicking were generous in life and in death. They were committed to a path of dignity in ageing and in dying,” said Equity Trustees Ageing Well Portfolio Lead Susie Meagher.
“By partnering with organisations working to ‘bring death back into life’ we hope to honour their wishes and legacy and begin a long and inclusive conversation with Australian communities.”
To ensure the granting reflects the funding needs and understands the barriers of the sector, the Wicking Trust convened a roundtable with 24 leaders from across Australia, all working to improve the experience of dying, death and grieving for older Australians.
The co-design approach was aimed at convening collaboration, pushing creative thinking and bringing philanthropy into a ‘listening and learning’ space.
The grant round has two funding streams – the first is aimed at supporting grassroots, community-led organisations that understand the needs of their communities and reflect those needs back into their programs. This community-led grant program is where organisations and the community take the lead, so dying, death and grieving are brought back into life.
The second stream is about backing collective problem solving – supporting working together and differently, to change the conditions that contribute to the challenges older Australians experience at end of life.
Called the Developing Solutions Program, it aims to build the capacity of organisations and partnerships to nourish existing systems, not dismantle them, for example by considering work that contributes to conversations and stories about death, dying and grief becoming more common.
“Funding will be available for Australian organisations with a focus on improving the experience of dying, death and grieving for older Australians and their families and carers,” added Meagher.