Funding Centre FAQs
A comprehensive list of frequently asked questions covering fundraising, grants, subscription, and how to use the Funding Centre’s tools and services.
About the Funding Centre
The Funding Centre is the best place to go to get information on grants and fundraising in Australia.
Members' benefits include:
- Access to Drafter, your AI grant writing partner
- Access to Australia's best grants database
- Receive customised newsletters, updates and alerts
- Curate grants on a personalised dashboard
- Manage grants processes, tasks and timelines
- View activity on a personalised grants calendar
- Store applications, reports and acquittals centrally
- Enjoy full access to fundraising help and tools
- Single and multi-user membership options to best fit your needs
Read more about the history and purpose of the Funding Centre
The online database is Australia's most comprehensive and accurate, and the EasyGrants newsletter has been the most-loved tool of Australian grantseekers of all sizes and types for over 25 years. The Funding Centre's newsletters, help sheets and tools really do work to help you build a stronger, more sustainable organisation.
“It is simple and easy to use. The EasyGrants newsletter is brilliant! I’ve been using it for over 20 years now and can’t live without it.” - Jo Rowntree, the Shepherd Centre
Our most recent tool added to the Funding Centre is Drafter, your AI grant writing partner. Drafter is a grant writing tool integrated into the Funding Centre to help community groups, councils, businesses and grant consultants create stronger grant applications, faster. It was created with the grassroots not for profit grantseeker in mind – a no fuss, easy to use AI tool that centres around your unique cause and organisation.
“Drafter saved me time getting the basis of my grant application together, what Drafter produces with 90% of the way there, it didn’t take much. editing to get a good final result” - Gavin Watson, South East Volunteers
The Funding Centre is an initiative of Our Community, a world-leading social enterprise that provides advice, tools and training for Australia's 600,000 community groups, as well as services for business, government and the general public.
No. We're a privately held social enterprise that provides several valuable services to the community sector, as well as to businesses, government and the public.
We believe that a business can be both commercially sustainable and community focused. In fact, we know that to be true – we've been around long enough to prove it!
Read more about the history and operations of the Our Community Group
The amount you're charged will depend on what type of organisation you are (not-for-profits generally pay less) and how many users you want to include in your subscription.
No, you do not need to purchase a Funding Centre subscription to apply for a grant.
A Funding Centre subscription provides access to a grants database (along with a host of other features including email alerts, a monthly newsletter and grant management tools) with information about grants that are available. Each Funding Centre grant record contains links to the native site of the funder offering the grant, where the applicant can then commence their application.
Please refer to the funders website for how to apply for the grant opportunity.
Yes, you sure can. We offer a 14-day free trial of the Funding Centre so that prospective subscribers can explore the features and benefits of subscribing.
Regrettably, we're not able to provide free subscriptions. In fact, most of our subscribers are from small, volunteer-based organisations.
We understand Not for profits and schools operate on a shoestring budget which is why we provide a discount for these users. In addition to this, we offer a 14-day free trial of the Funding Centre so that prospective subscribers can explore the features and benefits of subscribing.
Subscriptions entitle users to 12-months access to the Funding Centre. We do not provide pro-rata refunds should you require less than 12-months access.
If you are leaving your role and your subscription was paid for by your employer, you can contact us to request the subscription be transferred to another employee.
We welcome the submission of information from grant providers. We will use the information provided to create a listing for your grant programs in our database, accessible to Funding Centre subscribers.
Find out how to list your grant on the Funding Centre
To learn more about they types of grants we list, read our grant listing eligibility criteria.
The Funding Centre database is updated daily through research from various sources, including our sibling enterprise SmartyGrants, federal, state, and local government websites, GrantConnect, sector member bodies, and philanthropic organisations.
While we strive to capture all available grants, we may occasionally miss some. If you spot a grant we've overlooked, click the “Add Grant” button on your Grants list. This will notify our team, who will review and add the new grant program or round.
No, Our Community does not provide grants. Funding Centre is an online grants database and newsletter service which lists grants currently available.
Using the Funding Centre - Email alerts and EasyGrants newsletter
View the newsletter schedule to find out when you can receive your first issue of EasyGrants.
Once your first monthly newsletter has been sent, you can download it from your account at any time via Newsletter.
Please note, EasyGrants lists are static, for the most up to date information search the live database . Update your grant alert settings to receive new grant programs and rounds as they become available in your inbox.
To access grant records in the Funding Centre database, you will need to be logged into your account.
If you aren’t automatically diverted to the Funding Centre log in page, click the orange “Log in” in the top right hand corner.
Please note: We don't permit sharing of passwords or accounts – if you require more than one user, we suggest upgrading to a multi-user subscription.
The Funding Centre has over 40 grant categories to help you find the grants you are looking for. To ensure you get to see all the grants that you might be eligible to apply for, we nominate one primary category for each grant on our database, as well as secondary categories where relevant. For example an Arts Grant targeted towards female artists may include the Primary category of Arts and Culture and the Secondary category of Women.
Your personalised newsletters will include any grant that has been given either a primary or secondary categorisation that fits your profile, but it will only be listed under its primary category heading.
You can opt in to receive grant alerts daily, weekly or never. Changing the settings for your email alerts will not affect the frequency of the monthly newsletter.
EasyGrants Newsletter is a customised newsletter. If you have only selected one or two categories in your settings your newsletter will be limited or this may be a reality of your sector.
You can customise your settings to suit your needs:
I don't want to see alerts about a certain grant. Can I stop receiving them?
Your grant alerts are filtered by your preferences and your grants list. We suggest checking both of these.
We aren't able to exclude specific grants from your alerts (we try to keep things simple).
Yes, there may be individual grants available to help. Filter the Funding Centre by provider, we suggest exploring opportunities from:
1. Your local council - most offer sports grants to help with individual or team travel costs.
2. You can also check through state sports institutes and the Australian Sports Foundation.
There are a number of grants available for disability programs to encourage all-abilities programs, sports, education, and equipment. In the database, select “People with disabilities” from categories to find what's on offer.
Yes, there are grants available. In the database, select “Start Up” from categories to find what's on offer.
Windows users can use screen-reading software to read the EasyGrants newsletter PDF. Two of the most commonly-used are JAWS and NVDA.
Using the Funding Centre as a member
Explore our Help Resources for members for video tutorials, help sheets and webinars. It includes everything Funding Centre members need to know, from setting up your account, optimising your search and drafting your next application.
We are always creating and refreshing our help resources for members. Get in touch if you can't find what you're looking for or would like to request a new resource.
Your Funding Centre Dashboard gives you a brief overview of your grants list, grant alerts, application drafts and upcoming tasks and deadlines at a glance.
It’s all designed to help you stay organised, save time, and give your grant applications the best chance of success.
When you log in to your Funding Centre account, you will be taken directly to the dashboard. If you are already logged in, you can access the dashboard by clicking the orange dropdown button at the top-right of the page and selecting 'Dashboard' or clicking on the 'home' icon in the left-hand navigation bar.
You can archive grants that you no longer want to track.
- Go to your grants list and locate the grant you want to remove
- Select the "Options" drop-down button to the right of the grant and select "Archive"
That’s it – the grant will no longer appear in your grants list.
In the top left-hand side of the dashboard homepage, click the purple 'Current' drop-down button and select 'Archived'.
This will take you to a page showing all grants you've previously archived. To reinstate a grant to your current grants list, click the black 'Reactivate' button in the right-hand column.
To go back to all of your current programs, click the 'Archived' drop-down button and select 'Current'.
- Visit the grants database to find a grant.
- Click the star icon to the right of the grant name to add it to your dashboard. You can also add the grant from the summary information page.
Watch: How to save and track your favourite grants
- Click the 'Add Grant' link at the top of the 'Grants List' page. This will take you to the 'Add Grant' page.
- Once you have entered all of the required information, click 'Create' at the bottom of the screen.
- You will be redirected back to your grants list, where your grant will have been added
From your Grants list, you can edit a grant by clicking the 'Options' drop-down button in the right-hand column of the table and selecting 'Manage grant'. This will direct you to the edit page where you can:
- Set yourself tasks and keep track of key milestones to continually improve your grantseeking.
- Add or update a project title so you can sort by project or program
- Update the grant status status (i.e. watching, draft, applied, approved, declined)
- Record amounts requested and granted
- Upload and store important documents to each grant record, including PDFs of any documents submitted through a linked SmartyGrants account
- Attach tasks to grants and choose which ones you’d like displayed on your dashboard
You can either:
- Search for the program by name using the 'Search current list' tool at the top of the dashboard page, or
- Use the sorting icon at the top of each column to change the sort order by Project Title, Grant round/Funding Provider, Round Status, Closing Date, Status, Amount Requested or Task.
For your changes to be recorded on the 'Manage Grant', click the edit on either Application Details or Tasks then select either the 'Save Changes' or 'Save & Close' buttons.
This refers to the amount of money you are hoping to receive. This can be added or updated, by editing the Application Details from the Manage Grant page.
You can add unlimited attachments to an application by editing the Application Details. The file format must be in DOC(x), XLS(x), JPEG, PNG, PDF and TEXT format. The largest file size you can attach is 10 MB.
Click 'Save Changes' or 'Save & Close' to save any changes you have made.
If you have made changes but haven't saved, you can click on 'Cancel' button to discard your changes or refresh the page to go back to your original record. If you have made changes and clicked save changes or save & close there is no 'undo' button – you can not revert saved changes.
You can sort your grants list by any of the column headings. Click the heading to switch between ascending or descending order.
Archived grants cannot be deleted from the Grants list. An archived grant will remain hidden on the archive page unless you choose to reactivate it.
We employ robust measures to mitigate risks and safeguard sensitive information from potential threats. Your uploaded files are encrypted in transit and securely stored on our cloud-hosted servers, and any unauthorised access is strictly prevented, ensuring your data remains confidential and protected at all times.
SmartyGrants is Australia's most-used and best-loved grants administration system, and, like Funding Centre, is an enterprise of Our Community.
Connect your SmartyGrants account to your Funding Centre account to bring your grant applications across automatically. Here's how:
- Log into your Funding Centre account and navigate to your grants list
- Click 'Connect to SmartyGrants' link on the right-hand side of the page . You will be taken to a SmartyGrants login page
- Sign in with your SmartyGrants credentials (note: these may be different to your Funding Centre credentials)
Once you have signed in, your SmartyGrants applications and acquittals will appear in the Funding Centre table.
You only need to connect to SmartyGrants once. Once you're connected, your Funding Centre grants list will automatically sync every time you log on. Any new grant interactions you have in SmartyGrants (e.g. if you apply for another grant or submit a report) will automatically appear on your dashboard.
Each time you reload your Grants List it will automatically sync with your SmartyGrants account.
No. Once you have connected your Grants List to your SmartyGrants account, you are not able to disconnect.
No, you can only connect your dashboard to one SmartyGrants account.
The Funding Centre Tasks page allows you to see all tasks you have set in one place. Upcoming, completed and overdue tasks appear alongside round application due dates and status of corresponding grants. The charts shown at the top of the table provide a visual overview and can be used to filter tasks in the table by task status and grant status.
As an example, you may want to see only overdue tasks for grants that you are watching. Select “Overdue” on the tasks chart, and "Watching” on the grants chart. The table will filter out all other tasks, except for ones that you are watching and have overdue tasks set against.
Go to the 'Manage Grant' page of the grant that you want to record a task against. Underneath the 'Tasks' heading, click the 'Add New Task' button. Here you can give your task a title, due date and description. You can mark the task as complete by selecting the checkbox to the right.
Your dashboard shows the three upcoming grant deadlines and/or tasks with the closest dates. If you have multiple tasks associated with a grant, they’ll appear based on their due dates.
The table can be filtered in two ways:
- By clicking on a section of the chart. This will filter out all other sections and only display information about the selected section in the table below.
- Click on the heading of the section that you want to filter from the table, which is located at the top of the donut chart. A strike will appear through the heading and it will be filtered out of the table below. To reverse this action click the heading once more.
You need to set a task for a grant for it to appear in the Task table. Go to your Grants List to start adding tasks to grants.
The grants calendar is an essential tool for keeping your grants organised and your tasks on track. It includes grant deadlines and tasks, including upcoming and overdue tasks.
When you add a grant to your grants list, its round and/or EOI dates will appear in your calendar.
When you archive a grant from your grants list, this will remove it from your calendar.
You can filter the calendar by round open or closing date, EOI open or closing date and task status. Select the tick box located underneath the category that you no longer want to see to remove it from the calendar view.
You can connect your Funding Centre grants calendar to your external calendar (e.g., Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar) to stay updated on grant deadlines. Activating the feed means key dates will be in your external calendar so you don't have to be logged in to Funding Centre to know about your grant activities and updates.
Step 1: Get your iCal feed URL
- Log in to your Funding Centre account.
- Navigate to your Grants Calendar.
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Click the Activate button.
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Select the grant activity types you want to include (e.g. open rounds, tasks).
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Copy the iCal feed URL that appears.
This is your personal calendar feed. It updates automatically when your saved grants or tasks change.
Step 2: Add the iCal feed to your calendar app
Choose your calendar app and follow the official instructions to subscribe to a calendar using a URL:
- Google Calendar - scroll down to "Use a link to add a public calendar"
- Microsoft Outlook (Web) - "Subscribe to a calendar" section
- Apple Calendar (Mac)
- Apple Calendar (iPhone/iPad)
For other calendar apps, check their support documentation or contact their help desk.
Once you have added your grant calendar to your external calendar (Outlook, Google, etc), the calendar is read-only, so you can’t edit or share individual events. If you want to share a task or grant deadline, just copy the details or use the grant link in the event description.
Your grant information will remain in the external calendar after your subscription expires, however the information will remain static and will not be updated with new round information. If a user renews their Funding Centre subscription following an expiration period, any grant information that was previously added to their external calendar will once again update automatically through the dashboard.
The iCal feed can be disabled once it has been activated. To deactivate, click on the Deactivate button at the bottom of the calendar. If you deactivate the feed, it will not remove any previously transferred data from your grants calendar but will prevent any new information from syncing.
No. The iCal feed is one way from the Funding Centre grants calendar to your external calendar. To edit a record in your external calendar you will need to edit it on the Funding Centre grants list.
We introduced the save search feature to save you time and manage multiple searches.
- On the search grants page, enter the filters for the search you'd like to conduct.
- Click "Search" to see results.
- Next, click the "Saved Searches" button at the bottom of the search box, and select "Save Search".
- Give the search a name to identify the search description and click "Done".
You can save multiple searches and locate them by selecting the "Saved Searches" dropdown button. You can remove a saved search by clicking on "Saved Searches" and selecting the red 'x' located next to the saved search.
About fundraising
To survive and thrive in a changing world, a not-for-profit organisation must develop a fundraising plan that rests on the seven pillars of fundraising: Grants; Donations; Crowdfunding; Membership/Alumni; Events; Sales; Community-Business Partnerships (Sponsorships).
Many organisations run into trouble because they only have one or two sources of funding, or because they only have two or three people really involved in raising money. If any of the sources or any of the people go away, the organisation will likely find itself in trouble.
The key to sustainability is to pull from as many pillars as possible at once.
There are many dozens (probably hundreds or even thousands) of ways that a not-for-profit organisation can raise money, but in essence all of these can be boiled down to fit under one of seven headings:
- Grants
- Donations
- Crowdfunding
- Membership/Alumni
- Events
- Sales
- Community-Business Partnerships (Sponsorships).
Your aim should be to draw income from as many of these pillars as possible.
You can do some internet searching and ringing around to government and community development officers and peak bodies, but that's really just a stop-gap. If you want a steady stream of information about grants, delivered to you in an easily digestible format, on a timetable that suits your needs, become a member of the Funding Centre.
A Funding Centre subscription gives you access to Australia's most comprehensive grants database, Drafter (your AI grant writing partner), customised email alerts and a monthly EasyGrants newsletter.
GiveNow is Australia's first and best giving platform, providing donation and social fundraising tools for not-for-profit organisations. Like the Funding Centre, it's an enterprise of Our Community.
You can set up cause pages on GiveNow to collect donations directly from your donors. You can also encourage your supporters to create a CrowdRaiser™ - a page that individuals or teams can set up to raise money for your organisation. These are typically for events like birthdays, fun runs or personal challenges.
Funding Centre's sibling enterprise, Institute of Community Directors Australia, has produced a series of relevant compact courses, providing practical online training that can be completed at your own pace.
We've produced a handy index of the permits and permissions relating to each state and territory in Australia. Here you can find out what you need to do in order to stay inside the law when collecting donations from the public in your state, along with details about raffle permits and other fundraising restrictions.
Copyright, disclaimer, privacy and security
We worry about security as much as you do. We take all reasonable steps to ensure the security of the personal data we hold from such risks as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.
We want to ensure that all of our customers can interact with us with complete confidence online.
- We've created a secure transaction environment for commerce on the internet. Our e-commerce system uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to ensure your experience is safe, sound and secure at all times.
- TLS/SSL locks all information passed from you to us in an encrypted envelope. This makes it almost impossible for it to be intercepted by an unauthorised party, as long as your browser and local network support the use of encrypted data transmissions.
- TLS/SSL is the system used by all reputable e-commerce sites. The industry standard for encryption technology, TLS/SSL is compatible with all major browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and more.
If you have comments or questions regarding our security, please contact service@ourcommunity.com.au
Any time we ask for financial information from an individual or an organisation we use industry practice and protocols. All such information is encrypted when transferred over the internet using certificates from Thawte, an industry leader in internet safety. Your browser will show a green bar with our name "Our Community Pty Ltd" whenever an encrypted TLS/SSL connection is in use, which confirms that your data is being transmitted securely and you're transmitting it to us.
All account and profile information located on our website is password-protected to provide additional security. All transactions conducted on our site are treated with the privacy and respect that all such transactions deserve.
For more information on our security measures, refer to Our Community's privacy policy.
If you have comments or questions regarding our security, please contact service@ourcommunity.com.au
We're committed to protecting your privacy. Establishing a trusting relationship with our users is both good manners and good business.
The Funding Centre is bound by Our Community's privacy policy. Our policy covers all key areas to be considered when managing an ethical and appropriate privacy relationship.
If you have comments or questions regarding our privacy statement, please contact service@ourcommunity.com.au
Our template policies may be reproduced and altered without restriction by any not-for-profit community organisation for any non-commercial purpose.
Any Our Community and Funding Centre online help sheets that are not taken from a password protected area of the website/s may be used or reproduced* for any non-commercial purpose as long as:
- You obtain permission first by emailing service@ourcommunity.com.au – please include information about what sort of organisation you are (e.g. not-for-profit; consultant working for a not-for-profit; government agency; etc.), and what you wish to use the information for. Please also provide a copy of or link to the material you would like to use; and
- Any print article you create contains a small credit line "courtesy of www.ourcommunity.com.au", and any online use contains a direct link to the www.ourcommunity.com.au website; and
- Reproduction or use of Our Community's original material by a government body or consultant does not involve wasteful duplication – we prefer that you link to the material on our website, rather than moving it to your own.
*We recommend that you link to rather than reproduce our online materials. We update our content regularly to take account of legislative changes and to refine and improve content. If you copy the information, you take a snapshot of information available at that time; if you link to it, you'll ensure you always have access to the latest version. Please note the disclaimer below.
Important Note: We generally do not grant copyright clearance for reproduction/use of any of our materials for written/online guides that are produced by consultants for a fee. If in doubt, please contact us by emailing service@ourcommunity.com.au.
DISCLAIMER: Information provided through the Our Community website and publications is intended as a guide only. Neither Our Community Pty Ltd nor its staff or representatives are responsible for any actions taken by, or losses suffered by, any person on the basis of, or in reliance upon, any information in the newsletter, or for any omission or error in this information service.
The EasyGrants newsletter and Funding Centre Alerts are copyright Our Community Pty Ltd.
No part may be reproduced by any process other than for the purposes of and subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act. EasyGrants newsletter, and Funding Centre Alerts are available only to Funding Centre subscribers and must not be redistributed for any purposes other than discussion among a not-for-profit fundraising committee.
Peak bodies and local, state and federal government agencies are advised that Funding Centre newsletters and alerts are not to be redistributed through any membership structure. For information about promoting funding opportunities to your grantseeking community, visit SmartySearch.
Like many other Our Community initiatives, the Funding Centre is built around a self-sustaining social enterprise model. Our paid products and services help to subsidise the free or reduced-cost ones. We aim to reach as many groups as possible so we can make our tools as cheap as possible.
Our newsletters take a lot of time and knowledge to prepare; the grants landscape requires daily monitoring, the fundraising articles and help sheets are researched and written by experienced fundraisers and journalists.
For these reasons, copyright will be rigorously enforced.
If you know someone who could use the information provided by the Funding Centre, please encourage them to become a member.
Yes. Feel free to spread the love (just not the newsletters and email alerts).