To be eligible for a community grant, the applicant must be a registered legal entity, such as an incorporated organisation. To find out more about eligibility, read our Grant Guidelines here:

Community Grants Guidelines

If you are an informal group or individual, your application can be submitted by an Auspice organisation.

You will need to have an Auspicing organisation if you are applying for funds and are not an Incorporated Entity. The Auspicing organisation acts as the "parent" organisation. The “parent” organization takes financial responsibility for funds and handles the project budget.

You will need to have a signed agreement with your Auspicing organisation before you start. The Auspicing organisation needs to provide you with their full details as part of the grant application.

You can contact the Grants team at the City with any questions relating to Auspicing arrangements: grants@Bendigo.vic.gov.au

We try to assess smaller grants quickly. They are usually issued to successful applicants 4-6 weeks following submission. Our Medium grants can take around 4–6 months to decide, due to several assessment stages. We will keep you informed of where your application is sitting in the assessment process.

You may not always receive the full amount requested for your project. When this happens, we will communicate with you to explain the decision.

Yes, if the applications are not for the same project and meet our eligibility criteria. Be sure that your group is able to meet the requirements of the grants you apply for.

Read more about what is eligible in our Grants Guidelines on the City’s Community Grants webpage:

Community Grant Guidelines

We recommend you have these things ready before you apply:

• The name of the Strong Communities Officer you spoke with about your grant.
  
• ABN or Auspice Agreement
• Annual Report, if applicable
  
• Completed Budget
• Insurance Certificate of Currency, if applicable
  
• Letter of agreement from your lease/landowner, if applicable
  
• Quotes or purchase orders
• Any other letters of support
• Any newspaper clips, short videos or photos, charts or other evidence, if applicable

If you are not successful in your application, you will get an email that outlines the reason. The most common reason applications are unsuccessful is due to eligibility.

Be sure to read our Grant Guidelines for both organisational and activity eligibility. You can apply again, but you will need to show that you have read and responded to the feedback.

We aim to share grants fairly across the community, so you will need to show us how you plan to fund activities once the grant is spent.

Yes, we publish a list of previous successful grant recipients on our webpage: Community Grants page

Get in touch! You can call a Strong Communities Officer on 1300 002 642 or email grants@Bendigo.vic.gov.au

We can meet with you and talk you through the application process.