Eleven not-for-profit capacity building projects have today been announced as the recipients of Community Sector Banking’s 2019 Social Investment Grants – worth a total of $350,000.

“We were again overwhelmed by the number of worthy applicants, making the choice of recipients extremely challenging. It also highlights the not-for-profit sector’s immense need for more funding,” said Andrew Cairns, CEO of Community Sector Banking, Australia’s specialist not-for-profit banking service.

“This year we put a clear focus on capacity building. The eleven successful projects were chosen because of their vision to create a sustainable and positive impact for the community,” said Cairns.

Community Sector Banking is providing more grant funding to not-for profits than ever before, supporting eleven projects at a total of $350,000. Since 2014, the Social Investment Grants Program has now invested $1.2 million in the not-for-profit sector.

The annual Social Investment Grants Program is directly funded by Community Sector Banking’s Social Investment Deposit Account, which gives people the opportunity to support their community just through doing their everyday banking.

2019 Social Investment Grant Recipients include Cool Australia Trust, an online platform and education resource hub that will be enhanced to reach more teachers and students with engaging curriculum content and professional development courses, and Foodbank South Australia, a food hub point of sale system that will be upgraded to improve the accessibility for volunteers, efficiency for clients and connectivity between hubs.

Also recipients are Weave Youth Community Services, a client database developed to help measure and communicate outcomes and impact as an open source application available to other NGOs, and Autism Behavioural Intervention Association, an instructional design capability brought in-house to develop training in response to demand for autism knowledge, skill, understanding, and interventions.

Don Dunstan Foundation, The Co-Lab space will be turned into a collaborative working environment with the right training, resources and systems to support project delivery, and KYDS Youth Development Service, a new clinical measurement and evaluation system will be implemented, and website rebuilt to improve reporting, communications and engage more young people.

Other recipients are NSW Council of Social Services, Pets of the Homeless, Story Factory, Two Good Foundation Ltd,  and Volunteering Sunshine Coast.