The Seahorse, Issue 31, May 2018

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His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd), Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia was delighted to meet the 2018 National Questacon Invention Convention delegates.

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Creativity leads the way It’s hard to believe it’s already May. This month we welcome our latest group of grantees, whose applications were approved by the Board at the Foundation’s first Board Meeting for 2018. It is a relatively small group of grantees this round as we reach the end of a period of reduced program area funding. Over the past two years, the Foundation has successfully managed the dual challenge of significant pre-existing multi-year commitments combined with the introduction in April 2016 of our Major Grants funding stream. This necessitated more stringent management of reduced program area budgets for a time, a situation that will change as we move into the 2019 fiscal year.

I recently reported to the Board that based on the current value of the Foundation’s corpus and taking into account approximately $52m of forward commitments the Foundation’s five-year available funding estimate approximates $77m. Of this total, program area budgets should receive at least two-thirds of this over the coming five years, despite the

very significant amount ($43m) of existing Major Grant commitments.

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Most satisfying for me when reviewing our latest group of grantees is the high quality arts organisations the Board chose to support. Despite having to temporarily manage a reduced program area budget, the Arts Committee, assisted by Louise Arkles (Arts Program Manager) and Dr Squirrel Main (Research Evaluation Manager), embraced the opportunity to consider the evidence of our past five years of Arts funding and implemented some focused and innovative funding guidelines.The result is six outstanding and diverse arts organisations are being supported with multi-year capacity building grants.

Earlier this year, I was fortunate to attend my third National Questacon Invention Convention. The convention is just one part of Questacon’s Smart Skills Initiative which the Foundation supported in 2014 with a five-year, $7.8 million grant. Yet again, I was extremely impressed by the innovation and lateral thinking demonstrated by an eager group of 14­-18 year old school students. This year’s convention participants focused on problem solving around the theme ‘Future Earth’. I was truly impressed by the ingenuity and creativity displayed by such a young group of students, who tackled a weighty topic with a mixture of creativity, flair and enthusiasm.

It is testament to the success of Questacon’s Smart Skills Initiative that on the last day of the Convention, delegates were able to present their prototype inventions to the GovernorGeneral, His Excellency General the Honorable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Ret’d). To see the faces of three 2017 convention participants, who had returned as mentors to the 2018 convention delegates, when they unexpectedly received the Governor-General’s medal was a gratifying experience. The Foundation regards the Questacon Smart Skills Initiative as a truly exemplar grant, successfully working to develop young students creative thinking and encouraging them to engage in studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Finally, I’d like to introduce a new staff member, Subhadra Mistry, our new program officer who will be supporting the program management team in the Education and Arts program areas as well as supporting The Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Please join me in welcoming Subhadra to The Ian Potter Foundation team.

Craig Connelly Chief Executive Officer

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Design Tasmania’s 40 Years/40 Designers exhibition 2016. Work in foreground Peter Adams Dehiscence, 2011, materials Huon Pine, beach stones. Image by Bruce Moyle, Joffre Productions.

LATEST GRANTS ROUND UP

70 grants, $2.4 million At the recent Board Meeting, applications were considered in the Arts and Knowledge & Learning program areas. Several additional applications which had been undergoing further development from previous rounds were also awarded grants.

Find out more about the new grantees on our blog or see the complete list in our Grants Database.

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IN THE NEWS

Grantees in the spotlight Sir David endorses decadel plan In April, the Australian Academy of Science launched its 10-year plan for taxonomy and biosystematics at Parliament House in Canberra. The decadel plan has received personal endorsement from Sir David Attenborough who contributed the foreword to the published report which outlines the importance of developing these disciplines. The process of discovery, documenting, naming and classifying species is particularly important in Australia which has an extraordinary high level of biodiversity but has only discovered and named approximately 30% of the continent's 600,000 predicted species.

“Documenting our biodiversity is important—for conservation, biosecurity, agriculture, human and animal health, and to understand the evolution of life on Earth,” said Dr Thiele, leader of the Expert Working Group at the Academy which produced the report.

If Australia doesn’t change its approach to documenting our biodiversity, it is likely to take about 400 years to document every plant, animal and other species. In that time, many will go extinct.

The Foundation is encouraged by the media interest generated by the launch of the report, having supported the development of the decadel plan with a $205,000 grant in 2017.

The recent article in The Conversation by Dr Thiele clearly explains why naming species (even after celebrities) is so important. The video of David Attenborough at the end is definitely worth a watch.

Questacon renews technology partnership with Samsung

Subscribe Past Issues Translate The Foundation congratulates Questacon on the renewal of their partnership with technology giant Samsung, which will further engage thousands of students, teachers and communities in practical STEM education.

In 2015, the Foundation made its largest ever Science grant of $7.8 million (over five years) to Questacon in support of the Smart Skills Initiative. The Initiative’s aim is to develop creative thinking skills and the desire to innovate in high school students and encourage them towards further studies in science and technology.

Smart Skills is multi-faceted and includes annual national conventions, regional conventions held around Australia, student maker workshops and teacher professional development workshops. In the first three years alone, the Smart Skills schools program has engaged more than 23,000 students, and more than 2,000 teachers from 290 schools across Australia.

Ticket to Work celebrates milestone In March, CEO Craig Connelly and Senior Program Manager Dr Alberto Furlan were delighted to attend a heart-warming celebration of the Ticket to Work school-to-work initiative for young people with a disability. This program was supported by the Foundation in 2017 with a $300,000 Health & Disability grant.

This event marked a significant milestone for the program which has now helped 1,000 young people find work. The occasion was also attended by Victorian Minister for Industry and Employment Ben Carroll who spoke highly of the program and the clear benefits the program brought to its participants. National Disability Service Chief Executive Ken Baker and Ticket to Work participant Julian McAlpine were also interviewed on Sky News articulating why this program is so vital in assisting young people with a disability make the transition from school to work.

RMIT NanoBioSensing Facility announced as finalist Congratulations to the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility at RMIT on being a finalist in the Akzo Nobel Image Chemistry Challenge. The NanoBioSensing team is one of 20 finalists (and the only one from Australia) that will now participate in a three-day event in June at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden where they will be supported by RD&I and business development experts to further develop their business ideas and concepts.

The RMIT NanoBioSensing Facility received a 50th Anniversary Commemorative grant ($500,000) from the Foundation in 2014.

PROGRAM AREAS

Changes and review

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The Foundation’s Board has recently reviewed the funding objectives relating to the Health component of the Health & Disability program area. This review is part of the Foundation’s ongoing evaluation of all its program area funding objectives since 2015.

Effective immediately, the following guidelines will be in place for Health & Disability: The Foundation prioritises funding for innovative programs that improve health outcomes for the Australian community through large-scale public health initiatives and/or enhance employment opportunities for people with a disability. Applications for this program area are considered once a year by the Board of Governors. Large-scale multi-year projects are encouraged.

Funding objectives The Foundation will support projects that seek to: Improve health outcomes for the Australian community through public health initiatives with a particular emphasis on mental health, Indigenous heath and health in rural and remote areas Encourage innovative approaches to increasing employment opportunities for individuals with disability.

International Learning & Development program under review The International Learning & Development program (ILD) was formally instated in 2017.

ILD grants are intended to allow senior staff of NFPs the opportunity to undertake overseas travel in the form of a study tour or internship to visit like-minded organisations, learn from international best practice and upon return disseminate learnings throughout the relevant sector. To date, only seven grants in this area have been approved. A preliminary evaluation of these grants indicates that they are still not achieving their goal of increasing NFP sector knowledge as was intended.

Therefore, the Foundation will close this program area in Round 2, 2018 in order to conduct a more rigorous review of ILD’s effectiveness. Results of this review will be presented to the Board in late 2018 and a decision made regarding the future of this program area.

OUTREACH

Sector Engagement

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Pitch Perfect workshops hit right note

More grantee learnings published

Throughout March, the Foundation held its annual series of dissemination workshops for grantees. This year’s Pitch Perfect workshops focused on data communication tools and pitching and presenting skills.

We have now published further grantee

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learnings covering the Environment & Conservation and Science program areas. This document can be found on the Grantee Learnings page within our Knowledge Centre on the Foundation’s website.

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Lumin launched

Squirrel's kernel of truth

Congratulations to ThinkHQ on the launch of Lumin, a new online resource for NFPs needing cost-effective communications training resources for their staff. The Ian Potter Foundation was one of several organisations from the philanthropic sector to be consulted during the product’s development.

Although currently on maternity leave, the

NFPs can see previews of the various training courses before subscribing. The website also has some freely available

indefatigable Dr Squirrel Main is still spreading the word about what makes good grantmaking – evaluation. Squirrel was recently interviewed by Matthew Schulz for the Australian Institute of Grants Management. The article provides further insights into how evaluation is key to ensuring impactful grantmaking. It also focuses on how The Ian Potter Foundation is working towards sharing learnings from its grantees as well as the lessons it’s

videos of leaders in the philanthropic Subscribe Past Issues sector talking about the importance of communications for NFP organisations when trying to attract funding or community support for their activities.

Our CEO, Craig Connelly, is featured in Lumin's Expert Insights video series.

learnt as a funder.

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“It’s important to be a team player and think of the sector as a whole,” Dr Main says.

The bottom line: good measures help us all.

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Upcoming event

Darwin-bound in August The Program Management team will be hitting the road again this year to meet with not-for-profit organisations across all the sectors the Foundation supports.

In August our team, including our CEO, will be heading to the Northern Territory with stops in Alice Springs and Darwin.

We will be holding our annual Grantseeker Information Forum in Darwin on Thursday 30 August at the Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin Hospital.

The Forum runs for the morning providing an opportunity for grantseekers to meet, learn from and ask questions of our program management team. The morning will include sessions on specific program areas as well as sessions on setting KPIs and good evaluation practices run by our Research & Evaluation Manager Dr Squirrel Main.

Welcome

New staff member We warmly welcome our newest staff member, Subhadra Mistry, to the Foundation team.

Subhadra has a background in arts and cultural management and is taking up the position of Program Officer supporting the Arts and Education program areas. She will also be providing support to The Ian Potter Cultural Trust.

Subscribe Past Issues Closer to this date, we will be advising

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those interested on how to book a spot or sign up for the webinar. In the meantime, however, please sign up to our event mailing list to ensure you receive all the event and booking information.

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Harper has arrived!

We're delighted to announce the safe arrival of baby Harper. Congratulations to our colleague Squirrel Main and her partner Elke. Harper is also the new much loved baby sister of Daniel. Need we say, the whole team finds Harper 'unbearably' cute!

We produce this quarterly e-newsletter to keep our friends and associates up to date with all the news and recent grants made by The Ian Potter Foundation.

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