We fund projects that help South Australians with disability be more included in their communities.
Your project can be:
- new idea
- an existing idea in a different setting
- improving something that has already been done.
Julia Farr MS McLeod Benevolent Fund has a new name – we are now the JFM Fund. In addition to our new name, we’ve also given our brand and website a vibrant makeover – we hope you like our new look!
We want to support South Australians with disability who have a great idea for creating new opportunities for people with disability to engage with communities of their choice. This could be a product that improves access to communities, or a new model of inclusion. Our grants will contribute towards the development, testing or launch costs of new products or services that support people with disability to take up active, contributing roles in communities and activities of their choice. This may include costs such as:
Your idea will set out to do one of the following:
We will support innovations to address the issues experienced by people with disability. Grant applications should do one of the following:
* These needs may change over the period of the strategy, depending on what the disability community tells us.
We will fund adults with disability who are resident in South Australia.
We also fund grants to organisations – please see our guidance and application form for grants to organisations.
The maximum grant for individuals is $20,000.
We will make multi-year grants, up to a maximum of 3 years.
Under this program, we will not fund:
Our focus on inclusion means we will not fund activities that involve segregated settings or segregation by stealth (e.g. so-called inclusive groups which primarily engage people with disabilities alongside a smaller number of non-disabled people). We will only consider projects where people with disability are the sole target group if the project plans to build the capacity of people with disability to participate as active, contributing members of communities.
We will not fund standard welfare services, disability supports, or activities that should be funded by government. This includes supports that should be funded under NDIS and individual advocacy services. We will not fund capital costs that should be funded by government (including local government) or by organisations, where these relate to meeting core accessibility requirements (e.g. ramps, accessible vehicles etc).
The Julia Farr MS McLeod Benevolent Fund (the JFM Fund) provides grant funding for projects to develop, test and grow innovations and new models in disability inclusion to advance the opportunities for people with disability to be active citizens in the life of their community. We are part of the Julia Farr group of social purpose organisations, alongside Purple Orange and inhousing.
We are governed by a board of trustees who include people with disability.
We were originally established through a gift in the will of Murdoch Stanley McLeod. Our trustees have a legal responsibility to honour the intentions of the will; to protect the ongoing financial sustainability of the JFM Fund; and to be thoughtful and considered in making decisions on grant applications, and in managing grants that have been awarded. We are committed to making our grant programs accessible, and to meeting our legal obligations. The questions we ask in grant applications and in grant management help us to ensure we use our available funds in accordance with our legal commitments.
We strongly encourage you to contact us before you prepare your grant application. We are very happy to discuss our grant program with you and your idea (or ideas) for a project. This can help you to focus on an initiative with a stronger chance of funding, and avoid spending time on an application with limited chance of success.
You can apply using the online form on our website. Alternatively, you can download a word or PDF version of the form. We will also accept applications via video or over the phone. Please let us know if you need any support in completing your application.
Please read through these guidelines before you start your application, so you have all the information you need available.
You will need:
Most of the questions have word limits. Please provide brief responses. We will ask you for more detail if we need it.
We do not have fixed deadlines for grant applications. We will continue to receive and consider applications throughout the year, as long as we have funds available to award new grants.
If you contact us before you prepare your grant application, we can tell you the schedule of our upcoming board meetings and discuss a timeline for you to submit your application.
This section of the guidelines provides detailed information on completing our application form. We have explained why we are asking the questions in this application to help you prepare your answers.
Why we ask the question
This helps us to know who you are, and to decide if you are eligible for a grant.
How to answer
Please provide the basic information requested.
This grant program is intended to support people with disability. We ask for basic information about your disability to check that you are eligible for the program. A brief summary is fine. You do not need to give us detailed personal or medical information. If we need additional information, we will ask you for it.
Why we ask the question
This helps us reference the project.
How to answer
You can use a name or a brief description for your project.
Why we ask the question
We need to know what your project will do and where you will deliver your project. We use this information to check if your grant application is eligible for our funding and if it is a strong fit with our funding strategy. We also want to understand the key activities of your project and any products or outputs your project will create. This helps us to test whether the project is likely to achieve positive impact for the disability community, and if it is value for money.
If you are awarded a grant, we will use this information to monitor grant progress.
How to answer
Provide information on what your project will actually do. Describe the deliverables or outputs from your project – this could include workshops, events, digital resources (e.g. video content, podcasts, apps), publications (e.g. research reports or toolkits) and prototype or test versions of new products.
You should describe the location based on where the activity will be delivered, or where the people who will benefit from the project live or work, rather than where you are based.
Why we ask the question
We want to fund ideas that address an identified need for people with disability and have the potential to make a meaningful difference to people.
How to answer
Please provide information about how you have identified the need for your idea. This could include:
Please describe the difference you think your project will make to people with disability, in terms of disability inclusion.
Why we ask the question
We want to understand where your idea is up to. This helps us to consider how our grant will help you move your idea to the next stage.
How to answer
Describe how your project is taking a different approach to disability inclusion. It would be useful to include information on any research you have done to identify existing approaches to inclusion and to explain how your project is different. If you are scaling up an innovation you have already tested, or customising an existing approach to a new context, it would be good to explain what you’ve learned so far, and how you will be adapting these approaches to reflect that learning.
Why we ask the question
We want to fund projects that look at new or different ways of improving disability inclusion and/or changing attitudes to disability.
How to answer
Describe the work you’ve done so far to develop your project idea. For example, it might be a completely new idea, or you may have already tested the idea with others, done some design work or built a mock-up or prototype.
Why we ask the question
We have a limited grant budget so we need to ensure your project offers value for money. We also want your project to succeed, so we will check if your budget includes enough funding to deliver your planned activities. If you are applying for less than the total project costs, we also want to know you have the remaining funds, so that you can deliver the full project.
If you are awarded a grant, we will ask you to report project expenditure against this budget.
How to answer
You can ask for a grant of up to $20,000. You can ask for all of the grant to be paid in one year, or you can spread it over 2 or 3 years, depending on the planned activities for your project.
Please provide some information in the budget around what you expect to spend your grant on (e.g. professional fees, materials, marketing).
If you have used your own spreadsheet to develop your project budget, you can send us this, rather than completing the budget in the application form.
If you are applying for less than the total costs of your project, please explain how you will fund the difference.
Why we ask the question
We ask for referees so we can check you are who you say you are, and to get some other perspectives on your grant idea.
How to answer
Provide contact details for referees who know you and are familiar with your idea. These should not be members of your family or household. They might include organisations you work with.
Please complete all sections of the application form.
If you have any questions on the application form, or suggestions to improve our application form or these guidelines, please contact us at grants@juliafarr.org.au.
We will review your application and let you know if we have any additional questions for clarification.
Assessment: Your application will be assessed by our team.
Decision making:
Each project is assessed on its own merits, and will be considered relative to other applications, particularly where we have more applications than we can fund.
We work to manage any conflicts and perceived conflicts of interest.
We will email you to tell you whether your application has been successful or not.
If you are awarded a grant, we will send you our standard agreement and we will work with you in developing the schedule to the agreement. This is based on the information in your grant application and includes the purpose of the grant, payment and reporting schedule. Once we have both signed the agreement, we will ask you to invoice us for the first instalment of your grant.
We will agree your grant payment schedule and reporting arrangements as part of your grant agreement. The schedule will depend on the value and length of your grants. We may pay smaller grants in one or two instalments. For larger grants, you will be asked to provide progress reports and receipts for grant expenditure on a quarterly basis, to show you are spending the grant as intended. We usually pay grants quarterly in advance, linked to satisfactory progress reports and evidence of grant expenditure. We will ask you to send us an invoice for your grant payment, following our review of your progress report and receipts.
You can choose to spread your grant in equal instalments, or you can vary the amount to reflect the costs of different stages of your project.
You will also need to send us a final report and a summary of your grant expenditure, following the completion of your grant.
We recognise the reality of delivering a project usually differs from the plan. We encourage you to tell us about any changes you need to make to your project.
In most cases we will agree changes that are consistent with our values and funding objectives, within the original purpose of the grant and within the agreed amount of funding.
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We fund projects that help South Australians with disability be more included in their communities.
Your project can be:
Your project could help improve things like
You need to do a project that the disability community has said they want.
Who do we fund?
We fund adults with disability who live in South Australia.
We do not fund projects that exclude people with disability in any way.
Applying for funding
You can talk to us about your ideas before putting in your application.
You can apply using the online form on our website. Talk to us if you want to apply in a different way.
These are the question we will be asking in the grant application.
Question | How to answer |
1. About you | Tell us
|
2.1 Project name | Tell us the name or short description of your project |
2.2 Project description | Tell us what your project will actually do and where you will do it.
It could be things like
|
2.3 The need for your project and the difference it will make | Tell us about what the disability community wanted.
What difference will your project make to people with disability? |
2.4 Innovation in inclusion | How is your project taking a different approach to disability inclusion?
Include research you have done on this topic. |
2.5 Your project so far | What work have you done so far to develop your ideas? |
3. Your project budget | You can ask for a grant of up to $20,000.
The grant can be paid in one year Or You can spread it over 2 or 3 years. Tell us about your budget. What things do you expect to spend your grant on? |
4. Your referees | Referees are people we can contact who
Tell us their contact details. They should not be family members or people you live with. |
If you have any questions about filling out the application, email:
What’s next?
We will read your application and contact you if we have more questions.
Our board will think about if your project will improve disability inclusion and fit our values. They will make the final choice about if we should fund your project.
We will email to tell you if we have said yes or no to your project.
If you are given a grant we will give you a standard agreement. This is a document that needs to be signed by you and us.