The Seahorse Issue 45 December 2022

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Signing off

In the last edition of The Seahorse (#44), I announced my resignation from the Foundation. In preparing for the transition to a new CEO, I have been reflecting on my journey as CEO over the past seven years. Since becoming CEO of The Ian Potter Foundation in October 2015, my team and I have focused on ensuring the Foundation is a truly strategic grantmaker that positively impacts those our funding seeks to support.

With the benefit of hindsight, being strategic has manifested primarily in our approach to grant-making, including an increased emphasis on creating an operating environment and due diligence processes designed to identify grantseekers worthy of substantial, untied, multi-year support.

This resulted in the Foundation narrowing its focus to six program areas, allowing our program managers to become 'subject-matter experts' with each program manager concentrating on a single program area. Similarly, within each program area, funding guidelines were narrowed and clearly articulated to our community of grantseekers. Funding guidelines have been placed on a 4–5 year review cycle, with internal evaluation capability assisting us to assess the merits of maintaining, fine-tuning or changing our approach in each nominated program area to tackle key issues.

Multi-year funding is now the norm for the Foundation (aside from single-year medical research equipment purchases), with the average funding duration increasing from 13 months in 2015 to more than 36 months in 2022.And finally, in 2022, more than 50% of grants awarded (by value) were for core funding support.

The portfolio of grants across the Foundation's active grants is now clearly defined as one of the following:

Project grants that support specific programs or projects (including capital and infrastructure grants) for a pre-determined period

Capacity-building grants that help organisations increase their ability to do more in a particular area. For instance, a charity might receive a capacity-building grant to help it build its fundraising capacity These grants are for a process rather than a project

Research grants that typically fund IPF's Healthy Research projects and IPF's Sustainable Research projects

Operating or core funding grants that provide ongoing untied financial support to an organisation. Such grants fund general operating expenses at the discretion of the organisation.These are highly sought by not-for-profit organisations but are hard for them to find.

I am incredibly proud of the journey I have assisted the Foundation to navigate during my tenure. I hope that in some small way, my efforts have taken us along a path to being a more effective, impactful and engaged funder working in true partnership with our grantees and the broader philanthropic community, ultimately, to create a fair, healthy, sustainable and vibrantAustralia for as many people as possible.

Craig Connelly

GRANTS ROUND UP

$4.9 million across eight grants

In the most recent funding round (Round 3 2022), $4,876,463 in grants were awarded, of which $1,626,463 will be paid this financial year

These included $3 million across five multi-year Public Health Research grants and one capacity-building grant to theAustralian Environmental Grantmakers Network (AEGN). While in the Vibrant pillar,The Ian Potter Cultural Trust was awarded $226,463 for emerging artist grants and the TarraWarra Museum ofArt was awarded $50,000 to assist with the development of art education programs.

Read more

NSW extends care to 21 years

Anglicare VIC is excited that after seven years of advocacy and campaigning, every government inAustralia now acknowledges that ceasing to provide support to young people in foster or other state care at 18 is just too young. In early November, NSW Minister Maclaren-Jones announced that NSW will extend care to 21 years for all young people from February 2023. NSW is the last state to commit to raising the age of support for children in foster, kinship or residential care.

This now means that all states and territories have policies to allow young people to continue to be cared for until they are 21 years of age.

The Ian Potter Foundation supportedAnglicare VIC through a $100,000 grant towards its campaign to achieve this most significant outcome for young people in out-of-home care.

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ROUNDS  Get the low-down

FUNDING

Upcoming Info Sessions

The next funding round opens on 6 March 2023 for Community Wellbeing and Early Childhood Development Expressions of Interest (EOIs).

Prior to this, we will be running Information Sessions where the program managers will talk through the specific funding objectives and hold a Q&Asession to help grantseekers determine if they should submit an Expression of Interest.

Welcome Workshop for new Public Health Research grantees

In early February 2023, we will be holding a Welcome Workshop for the latest recipients of Public Health Research grants (December 2022). Grantee contacts will receive an email inviting their staff to attend a virtual workshop.

Grantee news

EC Defence books win award

Grantee news

Our Yarning books launched

Project lead Dr Marg Rogers with one of the award-winning storybooks she has written for children in military families.

Our Yarning library is launched!!!

OurYarning is a free digital library of culturally relevant education resources

Early Childhood Defence Programs at the University of New England has won a national award for 'Distinctive Work' in the Council of Humanities,Arts and Social Sciences award for 2022. The program has been recognised for creating 12 free, online research-based children's storybooks created from the narratives of Australian children and their families from the defence and veteran community. The books build children's resilience to deal with the stresses of military family life or when their parent gives their physical/mental health in service. For the first time,Australian young children's narratives from defence and veteran families have been voiced, enabling them to see their lives reflected in young children's literature.The books are being used by OpenArms (Department of VeteranAffairs), and the research team is also looking to adapt the book for use in other countries.

Learn More

Grantee news

Giving children the EDGE

The Educational and Developmental Gains in Early Childhood (EDGE) study is being carried out byThe University of Melbourne's REEaCh Centre in partnership withThe Front Project, working closely with the Victorian Department of Education and Training, for a five-year evaluation of the state-wide roll-out ofThree-Year-Old Kindergarten in Victoria.

created by and forAboriginal andTorres Strait Islander peoples.

OurYarning aims to address the disproportionate impact of illiteracy and low education attainment among Aboriginal children and young people by providing access to stories and reading material that mirrors their own, varied experience of the world and their diverse identities acrossAustralia.

Partnering with communities, authors, and storytellers acrossAustralia, Library forAll is creating 500 books written byAboriginal people forAboriginal children, putting learning in their hands. Delivered with offline and off-grid technology, this library will help pave the path of literacy attainment acrossAustralia to unlock educational opportunities for the next generation.

Reading is the foundational skill that sets a child up for success throughout their literacy and learning journey. Confident young readers become engaged lifelong learners.The gift of story is a powerful and bonding way of ensuring children learn about the world in which they live –and gain the literacy they need to learn and thrive as they grow older

The OurYarning collection is free, and readily available via Google Play and Apple Store

The evaluation runs from 2022–2026, delivering interim findings at regular intervals.

Find out more fromThe Front Project's CEO, Jane Hunt, and Professor Patricia

Eadie fromThe University of Melbourne in this short video.

The Ian Potter Foundation office will be closed from Friday 23 December until Monday 9 January 2023. The staff of the Foundation wish all our not-for-profit partners and counterparts in the philanthropic sector a safe and happy festive season. We look forward to working with you all in 2023.

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.

We acknowledge theTraditional Custodians of the land on which we work. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present.

Copyright © 2022 The Ian Potter Foundation, All rights reserved.

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