Landmarks & milestones

NGV Contemporary milestones

The Victorian Government and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) have announced the winning design for NGV Contemporary -Australia’s soon-to-be largest gallery dedicated to contemporary art and design.Amultidisciplinary team led byAustralian architectAngelo Candalepas andAssociates will create this new Victorian landmark that will have more than 13,000 square metres of display space for art and design, including exhibition galleries and an expansive rooftop terrace and sculpture garden with stunning vistas of Melbourne.

In December 2020, the Foundation announced its support for NGV’s ambitious $200 million philanthropic fundraising effort for NGV Contemporary with a $20 million Major grant.The hope was that this early commitment would galvanize further funding commitments from a variety of community members and philanthropic foundations who share our desire to further expand Melbourne andAustralia’s culturally vibrant and diverse arts sector

Therefore, the Foundation was pleased to hear the recent announcement from the Fox

Education Benalla celebrates 10 years

TomorrowToday has just published a report to mark the First 10Years of the Education Benalla Program which tracks the progress and achievements of this “whole of community” effort.

Together with other funders, The Ian Potter Foundation was an early supporter of Education Benalla. Philanthropy could easily have looked the other way in 2009 and 2010 whenTomorrowToday applied for funds to start rolling out the Education Benalla Program. However, this program’s approach was different to what had been seen elsewhere. It was multi-faceted and well researched. It was also compelling particularly because it was a local community organisation proposing a local solution that potentially could be an example to benefit many other disadvantaged areas.

Education Benalla was recently the subject ofABC Radio’sThe Conversation Hour which featured Liz Chapman OAM, former Education Benalla Convenor, explaining the program’s background, its challenges and successes.

Play & Learn Together launched

Play & Learn Together is a new portal created to satisfy a need for quality, evidencebased early childhood learning resources, available freely and online. Developed by Early Start at the University of Wollongong with partners Early ChildhoodAustralia and PlaygroupAustralia, the platform was launched in March and was supported by an Early Childhood Development grant from the Foundation in 2020.

Play & Learn Together features curated content designed to support families and carers with young children’s learning in the home environment, with a focus on evidenceinformed, play-based learning and the family’s role in early development.

Early Start CEOAnita Kumar states, “Resilience is needed now more than ever, and play can be an integral pathway to support children’s wellbeing and development. Through this free platform we hope to support children, families and educators in creating fun, home learning environments focused on play-based learning.All the activities are underpinned by the latest research, and connect to the Early Years Learning Framework and WHO guidelines.”

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