2024 survey results: Trends and takeaways from Funding Centre subscribers
Posted on 31 Mar 2025
By The Funding Centre team
In late 2024, we asked our members to complete a short survey on their experience as a grantseeker and Funding Centre subscriber.
We are grateful for our engaged membership and thank all 97 members who completed the survey. We're constantly striving to improve our platform, and your insights will help shape the future of the Funding Centre.
The survey drew 97 responses from our subscribers across various sectors and organisation sizes. Not-for-profits were heavily represented, with 91 percent of respondents identifying their organisation type as NFP. This is reflective of our membership base, which consists mainly of not-for-profit grantseekers. 29 percent of respondents categorised themselves as a small organisation (less than $250k) and the most represented sector was community development (18 per cent of respondents).
Successful grantseekers apply often
On average, the respondents applied for 19 grants with the average success rate of 35 per cent. Sometimes the best advice is the most obvious: so apply, apply, apply! We know not-for-profits are short of time and resources. That’s why we’ve produced tools and resources to help you apply for and win grants. Our newest help sheet explains how to use Boolean logic in the keyword field in the Funding Centre to optimise your grant search and save time.
Successful grant success is diverse
The survey highlighted 5 organisations with a success rate of 100%.
Each of these organisations were small not for profits (under $250k) and spread across sectors community development, children and family, homelessness and housing, and health. The data did not show a correlation between organisation size and success rate. Interestingly, the results of a 2018 analysis by Our Community, the Funding Centre’s parent organisation, examined 2012 Australian grantseeker data and found that hiring a grant specialist did not improve an organisation’s likelihood of winning.
Your grantseeking performance could be affected by sector trends
A number of respondents told us that the lack of grants on offer in their sector was a major constraint. Grant trends evolve based on economic conditions, government priorities, technological advancements and social issues. For example, 20 years ago you would have been hard pressed to find a grant for an environmental project, but today, grants related to the environment represent the third highest allocation across all categories in our database. Use the Funding Centre Grant Benchmarker tool to compare your organisation to the wider grantseeking community.
How to stay a step ahead
Keep on top of grant updates by checking your My Settings in the Funding Centre and updating your interests, newsletter opt-in and alerts. Our tip: set your grant alerts to “daily” if you are part of a sector that attracts grants only rarely. Even if you select “daily”, we will alert you only when grants match your preferences, so you won’t miss a grant. Watch this short tutorial on how to adjust your account settings.
The most common challenge grantseekers face is lack of time and resources
36 percent of respondents mentioned lack of time and/or resources as their biggest barrier to finding and applying for grants. When we asked “What was your biggest challenge in 2024 as a grantseeker?”, respondents said:
- “finding time and resources to locate grants”
- “multiple grants closing at the same time with large application forms”
- “As our organisation are all volunteers who work full time, it cuts down the achievable time frame to get a grant in on time by a long way.”
How the Funding Centre can help
This year the Funding Centre will be hosting ongoing online series designed to help you to get the most out of your membership. Whether you’re new to the platform or a seasoned user, these sessions are a great place to ask questions, discover new ways to efficiently find and manage grants, stay updated on new features, and connect with other grantseekers. Register for the next online information session or watch previous sessions.
The Funding Centre members are innovative – we loved hearing your ideas!
We asked survey respondents what new capabilities and features they would like to see as part of the Funding Centre. We’re always keen to hear how we can best support you in doing all the wonderful work you do.
We’re working through your suggestions, scoping out what's possible and what would be most valuable to all our members.
Thank you again to all our survey respondents and happy grantseeking for 2025!