Funding to support advisory services to lift small businesses’ digital adoption

You can apply if you:

• have an Australian business number (ABN) or Indigenous Corporation Number (ICN)
• are registered for the goods and services tax (GST)
• are a trading corporation where your trading activities form a sufficiently significant proportion of the corporation’s overall activities as to merit it being described as a trading corporation; or are a substantial and not merely peripheral activity of the corporation
• address all assessment criteria, including all sub-criteria, in section 6 of the grant opportunity guidelines.

and are one of the following entities:

• an entity incorporated in Australia (including incorporated not for profit organisations, registered charities and companies limited by guarantee)
• an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (Cth)
• an incorporated trustee on behalf of a trust.

You can’t apply if you are:

• any organisation not included in section 4.1 of the grant opportunity guidelines
• an organisation, or your project partner is an organisation, included on the National Redress Scheme’s list of Institutions that have not joined or signified their intent to join the Scheme
• an employer of 100 or more employees that has not complied with the Workplace Gender Equality Act (2012)
• an individual
• a partnership
• an unincorporated association
• a trust (however, an incorporated trustee may apply on behalf of a trust)
• a Commonwealth, state, territory or local government body (including government business enterprises)
• a non-corporate Commonwealth entity.

Partner with other organisations

You can partner with one or more other organisations that also meet the eligibility criteria. But you must decide who the lead organisation is.

The lead organisation must fill out the application form.

If we give your group the grant, the lead organisation:

• signs the grant agreement
• is responsible for making sure your group follows the rules in the grant agreement.

You must complete your project by 29 March 2030.

Your project must:

• be located in Australia in one of the selected service areas
• provide advisory services on digitalisation to small businesses that improve, support and enhance small business’ digital competency and adoption including but not limited to the priority digital capabilities listed in section 5.3 of the grant opportunity guidelines
• be additional to any ongoing business as usual small business advisory services
• include eligible activities as outlined in section 5.1 of the grant opportunity guidelines
• meet the service requirements as outlined in section 5.2 of the grant opportunity guidelines.

You can apply for a maximum grant amount as outlined below for each service area:

• $8.819 million for Area 1 - New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory
• $7.371 million for Area 2 - Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia
• $8.946 million for Area 3 - South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

You can use this grant funding for:

• labour costs and contract expenditure
• labour on-costs and administrative overhead
• travel
• purchase of minor infrastructure equipment such as computers, laptops and phones
• costs involved in the purchase or upgrade/hire of software and ICT hardware to support project delivery or project support like online booking and data collection systems
• translating and adapting project materials
• communication and promotional materials
• job advertising and recruitment costs
• staff training
• financial auditing
• preparing project reports.