Community Resilience Innovation Program

This program seeks to support a broad range of community-led projects designed to increase all-hazard disaster preparedness and build community capacity and resilience.

The objectives of the program are to:
- Foster ways to effectively engage the local community in creative, community focussed activities that build local capacity and capability for disaster resilience.
- Develop effective partnerships and build networks between local community organisations, councils, businesses and emergency services agencies.
- Share knowledge and lessons learnt about approaches and models through project evaluation.
- Support initiatives that can be integrated into current business and maintained in the longer term.

The program has a limited budget and not all applications can be funded.

Eligible applicants include:
- Non-government organisations including not-for-profit organisations and local community groups
- Local Councils
- Government agencies with emergency management responsibilities
- Unincorporated community groups auspiced by an organisation that is eligible to apply in their own right
- Local units/brigades of an emergency service through their parent agency

Applicants who are not a government emergency management agency are required to provide a letter of endorsement with their application from a government agency with emergency management responsibilities.

Eligible projects include those that:
- Are designed to increase all-hazard disaster preparedness and build community capacity and resilience.
- Are based on collaboration and partnership between local community organisations and emergency services agencies.
- Are designed to respond to the specific needs and characteristics of the local community.
- May involve the entire community or be tailored to the needs of particular groups, such as people identified as more vulnerable to disaster events.
- Should be completed within 12 months to 24 months.

The main assessment criteria include:
- Program aims and objectives
- Capacity and capability to deliver the project
- Effective project evaluation

Please refer to the website for the complete list of the assessment criteria.

The following are ineligible for funding:
- For-profit organisations, including small business.
- Applications that seek support for supplementing, increasing or continuing ongoing service delivery, or for funding the core business of the organization.
- Applications that request recurrent/ongoing program funding.
- Projects that duplicate existing services.
- Applications that seek funding for work already undertaken or that will commence before funding decisions are made.
- Applications that seek funding for projects which produce commercial outputs.