Funding to improve community capabilities that provide economic and social benefits to regional and remote areas
Building Better Regions Fund – Community Investments Stream – Round Five
What do you get?
Grants of $5000 to $1 million to cover 50% or more of eligible project costs.
Who is this for?
An incorporated not-for-profit, local government agency or body or non-distributing co-operative.
Overview
The $1.38 billion Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF) supports the Australian Government’s commitment to:
- drive economic growth
- build stronger regional communities into the future.
For Round Five a total of $200 million is available, with $100 million dedicated to tourism-related infrastructure projects.
On 8 October 2021, the Government committed an extra $100 million on top of the $200 million initially announced under Round 5 of the highly successful BBRF to fund 298 projects across the country.
The Community Investments Stream will fund new or expanded local events, strategic regional plans, or leadership and capability strengthening activities that provide economic and social benefits to regional and remote areas. Infrastructure projects are not eligible under the Community Investments Stream.
For most projects grant funding will be up to either 50% or 75% of your eligible project costs. Your location will determine the percentage of grant funding you can receive.
You may apply for a partial or full exemption to your cash contribution if you can demonstrate that you are experiencing exceptional circumstances.
For small projects with a total grant amount of equal to or less than $20,000, grant funding will be up to 100% of eligible project costs.
Your project will need to deliver economic and social benefits to a regional or remote community.
Eligibility
What are the eligibility criteria?
To be eligible you must have an Australian Business Number (ABN).
You must be one of the following:
- an incorporated not-for-profit organisation
- an Australian local government agency or body as defined in the glossary of the grant opportunity guidelines
- a non-distributing cooperative.
We can only accept applications where:
- your project is located in an eligible location as outlined under section 5.2 of the grant opportunity guidelines
- you can provide evidence of how you will provide your share of the project costs.
For more information on eligibility please refer to the grant opportunity guidelines.
You are not eligible if you are:
- a for-profit organisation
- an individual, partnership or trust (however, an incorporated trustee may apply on behalf of a non-for-profit trust organisation)
- a Commonwealth, state or territory government agency or body (including government business enterprises) with the exception of those organisations referred to in section 4.1 of the grant opportunity guidelines
- a university, technical college, school or hospital
- a Regional Development Australia committee
Infrastructure activities as defined in Appendix B of the grant opportunity guidelines are not eligible for the Community Investments Stream. If your project involves infrastructure activities you should apply under the Infrastructure Projects Stream.
Your project must be in an eligible area. You will need to show this in your application by providing the latitude and longitude of your project location.
Our mapping tool will help you determine your project location and its eligibility.
Use the Building Better Regions Fund map tool.
Applying
How do you apply?
The Building Better Regions Fund – Community Investments Stream – Round Five is closed to applications.We assess your application against the eligibility criteria and then against the assessment criteria. Only eligible applications will proceed to the assessment stage.
The amount of detail and supporting evidence you provide in your application should be relative to the project size, complexity and grant amount requested. You should define, quantify and provide evidence to support your answers. The sample application form displays character limits.
We provide recommendations to the Ministerial Panel on which projects to fund. The Ministerial Panel will make the final decision.
We will only consider funding applications that score at least 60% against each assessment criterion, as these represent best value for money.
- Assessment criterion 1: Economic benefits of your project for the region (15 points).
- Assessment criterion 2: Social benefits of your project for the region (15 points).
- Assessment criterion 3: Capacity, capability and resources to deliver the project (5 points).
- Assessment criterion 4: Impact of funding on your project (5 points)
We may make an initial payment on execution of the grant agreement. We will make subsequent payments as you achieve milestones in arrears, based on your actual eligible expenditure. Milestone payments are subject to satisfactory progress on the project.
Note that if you request an upfront initial payment, we will request additional financial information from you, to verify your organisation is unable to cover the costs associated with your project without that initial grant payment.
We set aside at least 10 per cent of the total grant funding for the final payment. We will pay this when you submit a satisfactory end of project report demonstrating you have completed outstanding obligations for the project.
Payments will be made by direct credit into a nominated bank account.
Need help?
Let us answer your question over the phone, email or live chat.
- Phone:
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Open Hours:
Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm across Australia
- Website:
Grant recipients
Learn who are the successful applicants of round 5
Learn who are the successful applicants of round 4
Learn who are the successful applicants of round 3
View the successful applicants from round 2
See the successful applicants receiving a grant from round 1
Information session
View the webinar facilitated by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and Regional Development Australia (RDA) Central West which focuses on:
- what the Australian Government wants to achieve from BBRF Round 5
- program guidelines
- assessment process
- what makes a good application stand out from the rest.
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