Foundation aims to deliver $80k grants

GEELONG Community Foundation is calling on local residents to experience the joys of its P500 giving circle program.

P500 is a fundraising initiative where people are asked to donate $500, which is split evenly between the foundation’s corpus and being given as a grant to a local community organisation.

A community grant of $80,000 can be achieved in 2024 if the giving circle can reach its target of 300 donors.

Grant opportunities will be open for small and medium-sized community organisations for grant streams including Food and Emergency Support, Health, Resilience and Connection, Education and Employment and Environment and Sustainability.

Geelong Community Foundation program manager Amy Waters said P500 had made a significant impact on the local community since its inception.

“We are in the final days of fundraising for the 2024 grant with a target of 300 donors – each contributing $500 – clearly in sight.

“If we can reach our target, the grant amount will be our largest ever of $80,000.”

Historically, the P500 grant has been awarded for a community wellbeing project and past winners have included Wombat’s Wish, Geelong Youth Engagement and Feed Me Bellarine.

Last year’s grant recipient Tiny Dots Early Intervention said the P500 scheme had been life changing.

“This grant has meant that we have been able to work with Geelong’s childcare educators to learn to identify children with developmental differences so that parents can quickly, and easily, discover if their child needs an assessment,” founder Laura Harvey said.

“Without the impact of this grant, it could take years for a child’s developmental difference to be identified and for parents to know they need help.”

Applicants for the grant must deliver a project within the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe, Surf Coast Shire, or the southern part of the Golden Plains Shire.

Projects can be delivered over a one or two-year period.

From the applications recieved, three organisations will be shortlisted, and donors will then vote on who should receive the grant at a Pitch & Vote night.

For more information, head to geelongfoundation.org/grants/philanthropy-500-grant