Caring for our Country

Funding

Caring for our Country Open Grants

Frequently Asked Questions

1. When is the closing date for applications?

Applications must be received by 5.00 pm (AEST) Friday 1 August 2008.

2. Who is eligible to apply?

You must be a legal entity to be eligible to apply for Open Grants 2008-2009. Eligible entities include:

Please note:
You cannot apply for new funding if you are an applicant or sponsor that has an overdue final report and/or acquittal for previous Commonwealth Natural Heritage Trust or National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality funding, including Envirofund and Coastal Catchments Initiative projects.

3. Do I need a sponsor?

If you are not an incorporated body or a legal entity, you must nominate a legal entity, such as a local government body, a regional natural resource management body or an incorporated community or industry group as your sponsoring organisation. Individuals, partnerships or trusts are not eligible to sponsor an Open Grant application.

You and your sponsor should agree on the arrangement for the distribution of the project funds.

For example, you both may decide that the sponsor will pass the funds directly to the applicant, or that the sponsor will retain the funds and pay suppliers directly.

4. What is the role and responsibility of the sponsoring organisation?

If your organisation sponsors a project, it will have contractual and administrative responsibilities.

The sponsoring organisation becomes the proponent and will enter into a contract with the Australian Government.

By signing the contract you will receive the project funding and become legally responsible for the project under the terms of the contract.

A sponsoring organisation must be a legal entity and must provide the signatures of two representatives on the project application form.

The representatives of the sponsoring organisation who sign the application form must be authorised to bind the organisation. A sponsoring organisation can sponsor more than one application.

A sponsoring organisation is responsible for keeping appropriate accounting records, monitoring the activities and results of the project, and submitting the final report within the specified timeframe in the same way as an applicant that does not require a sponsor.

5. How much funding is available for Open Grants in 2008?

Up to $25 million is available for Open Grants in 2008.

This funding is targeted at Caring for our Country’s six national priority areas, particularly those that will:

Projects under these priority areas that: address environmental and sustainable land management outcomes in remote and northern Australia; generate improvements to the national reserve system or coastal environments; or improve community skills, knowledge and engagement, will also be considered.

Caring for our Country Open Grants is encouraging larger scale integrated projects or programs or activities.

Smaller community grants are being offered under other Caring for our Country elements, such as Community Coastcare.

6. How much funding can I apply for?

Open Grants will provide funding from $80,000 to $400,000 (GST exclusive).

7. Will Open Grants fund the hire or purchase of equipment?

Cost should not be requested from Open Grants for the purchase, lease or acquisition of expensive equipment - the value for money and public benefit of these items will be very difficult to justify.

However, short-term hire of equipment will be considered for funding. Applicants are encouraged to borrow equipment, where possible, and use this as part of the applicant contribution to the project budget.

Where critical items cannot be hired this information should be incorporated into the budget justification.

8. How long do I have to complete the project?

It is preferable if projects can be completed before 30 June 2009, but projects that will be completed within 12 months will also be considered.

9. Can I apply for funding of a project that covers two of the priority areas above, such as sustainable farm practices and aquatic habitats?

Yes.

10. What types of projects are we seeking?

A range of projects will be required to contribute to the Caring for our Country national priorities. During 2008-2009 Caring for our Country Open Grants will support:

Projects should engage key stakeholders and must demonstrate how the project outcomes will be communicated and promoted.

We encourage you to still apply through this process if you are seeking a smaller amount of funding but have leveraged considerable investment from other sources.

For details on the range of activities supported see the relevant fact sheet.

11. What types of projects will not be funded?

The types of projects not eligible under Open Grants 2008-09 are:

11.1 What do you mean when you say projects that devolve grants are not eligible?

A devolved grant is when an applicant is seeking funds from a funding provider to pass onto a third party(s) for activities the applicant is proposing to decide on through undertaking their own separate call for applications using their own criteria and process, and where the funding provider has no say in what those funds are broadly being used for.

For the purposes of the Open Grants funding, a proposal will be judged to be devolving grants when an applicant applies for funds to distribute to or pay for activities to a third party when the outcomes, stakeholders, and broad project locations are not clearly defined, in the project proposal.

This does not include when an applicant employs a subcontractor to undertake a component of the project
activities eg employing a consultant to undertake a research component of the project.

12. Is there further information regarding the Sustainable Farm Practices projects?

Yes. See Questions 12, 13 and 14 following.

13. Sustainable Farm Practices - Innovative Practices

13.1 What is an innovative project?

For the purposes of these grants innovative projects facilitate continuous improvement and adoption of best practice “Innovation” is a practice, production technique, technology or product that has not been developed and/or adopted before or has been adopted only on a limited scale.

13.2 What issues should Innovation Practices projects address?

Projects should clearly explain the natural resource management outcomes that will be achieved by the proposed innovation.

Projects can address a range of production and resource management issues including; animal production, crop production, restoration of productive capacity, management of organic waste, nutrient use efficiency, reducing farm greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and sustainable production, water quality, and salinity.

13.3 Who can apply?

In addition to general eligibility requirements, we are seeking other “not-for-profit” groups or businesses with links to natural resource management and/or the agriculture, food, aquaculture or forestry (or related) industries.

14. Sustainable Farm Practices - Understanding Impacts and Priority Setting

14.1 What are the requirements of the Australian Government?

The Australian Government is seeking to partner industries with a commitment to identifying and owning the impacts that current practices are having on natural resource assets and providing environmental services.

Projects under this theme will evolve as a partnership with government and will have the endorsement of key industry leaders.

An agreed independent facilitator/coordinator will be appointed to oversee the research and consultation phase and to inform the priority setting phase.

14.2 What issues should Understanding Impacts and Priority Setting projects address?

Successful projects should include one or more of the following elements; Data collection and review, stakeholder consultation, analysis and priority setting.

15. Sustainable Farm Practices - Industry Monitoring and Reporting Practice Change

15.1 What are the requirements of the Australian Government?

The Australian Government is seeking to support Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks that will complement and enrich wider program monitoring and evaluation and that are consistent with existing frameworks and data collection standards.

15.2 What type of project activities will be supported under Industry Monitoring and Reporting Practice Change?

It is expected that projects under this theme will involve one or more of the following elements: context research that will allow industry to identify the link between practice change and natural resource outcomes; the development of a Monitoring Framework that will identify data collection and reporting activities; and an implementation phase that will include Measurement, Monitoring and Reporting practice change.

16. How many applications can I submit?

There are no limits to the number of Open Grant applications an applicant or sponsor may submit.

However, where an applicant or sponsor submits a number of similar applications, the collection of projects may be assessed competitively against other larger-scale projects rather than as individual grant applications.

17. If I have already applied for Caring for our Country funds (For example under Community Coastcare, National Reserve System or Working on Country) can I still apply for this Open Grant round?

You are able to apply for funding if it is a new project, but you should not apply again for funding of the same project.

18. How much detail should I put in the budget?

All budget items should be reasonable and justifiable. You should include justification to support the costs indicated in the budget. All cost should be GST exclusive.

You must ensure that all project costs are included in the budget. The value for money of an application will be assessed on the budget requested and the other contributions indicated.

If permits or licenses, or cultural heritage searches or surveys, will be required as part of the project then you must ensure that all of these costs are incorporated into the budget.

You can show other contributions to the project in the budget table, including cash and in-kind support from the applicant, sponsor, other community groups, local businesses, state or local governments, regional bodies or other community organisations.

Please note that there will be no opportunity to request additional Open Grant funding for items that were not included within the original application budget.

Ensure that all budget calculations are correct as any errors will be the responsibility of the applicant and there will be no further Open Grant funding to account for these errors.

All costs must be exclusive of GST.

19. What do you mean by value for money?

All costs indicated within the project budget should be reasonable and justified. Provide evidence to support the costs with your application in the form of a quote, invoice or a description of how costs were estimated.

You should demonstrate that the chosen methodology is the most cost effective option.

For example, fencing and revegetating a wetland may be more cost effective than reshaping the land with earthmoving equipment, and may be just as effective as an erosion control measure.

As value for money as evidenced by demonstrated public benefits and secured leveraged investments are Open Grants evaluation criteria, the extent of other cash and in-kind contributions to a project, including from the applicant and sponsor, will be considered in the grant assessment and its competitiveness against other applications.

Funding may be offered above the level of the applicant contribution, particularly where the environmental outcomes are high and the applicant has made a genuine effort to offer a reasonable level of in-kind or cash contribution.

20. Do I need to provide quotes?

You do not have to provide quotes for all budget items.

However, all costs indicated within the project budget should be reasonable and justified.

You should provide evidence to support the costs with your application in the form of a quote, invoice or a description of how costs were estimated.

21. Who will assess the applications?

Applications will be assessed by an independent panel comprising members with relevant skills and expertise.

Final decisions on Open Grants 2008-09 funding will be made by the Australian Minister for the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

22. When will the funding be available?

This will depend on the number of applications received. Notification of successful projects will be as soon as possible following assessment.

23. Where the guidelines specify projects must be completed by 30 June 2009 or in 12 months, when does the 12 month period start from?

The 12 month period means 12 months from the date that the grant is approved by the Ministers. Although applications for projects that can be completed in 12 months will be considered, projects that can be completed before 30 June 2009 will be given priority. It is expected that successful project applicants will be notified by October.  Priorities for future Caring for our Country funding will be outlined in the Business Plan to be released in September.

24. Does land tenure affect Caring for our Country funding?

Land tenure is not an issue for the Caring for our Country Open Grants. However, you will need to obtain the approval of the land holder(s) or land managers to undertake works on their property, as per the guidelines available at: http://www.nrm.gov.au/funding/open.html.

25. Can I apply for funding of less than $80 000?

In the Caring for our Country Open Grants round for 2008/09, we will only be funding projects between $80 000 and $400 000. Small groups may wish to work together in partnership to develop a larger, more strategic project. The first Caring for our Country Business Plan will be released in September this year, and will outline funding opportunities beyond the 2008-2009 Open Grants. The Community Coastcare Grants are seeking applications for small grants up to $50,000.  These guidelines are available at http://www.nrm.gov.au/funding/coastcare.html.

26. What percentage of funding is allocated for administration?

We do not allocate a percentage for administration costs under the Caring for our Country Open Grants. Reasonable administration expenses should be factored into your budget for the delivery of the project. They should be clearly shown on the "Indicative Project Budget" sheet attached to the application form.

27. What percentage of in-kind contributions is required, or does Open Grants wholly fund projects?

We encourage you to explain any in-kind contributions in the 'Budget justification' section (8.1) of the application form. You should also list these in-kind contributions in the 'Other Contributing Organisations' section (8.2) of the application form. For more detail, please see the guidelines available at: http://www.nrm.gov.au/funding/open.html. There is no requirement that in-kind contributions match the amount of funding being sought, but in-kind contributions may be taken into consideration by the panel when assessing applications, particularly the value for money.

28. I am having problems opening and saving the form. Why?

Problems in opening and saving the online form are usually because applicants do not have a version of Adobe Reader above version 7.1. If you have an outdated version of Adobe Reader, please download version 7.1 or above from: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html 

If you are still having problems, we recommend you type longer responses into a word document, and then copy-paste them into the form. The online version needs to be completed in one go if you do not save it.

29. Is scientific research eligible?

Yes, funding for scientific research is eligible in the Open Grants, but it should clearly demonstrate outcomes in the Caring for our Country national priority areas.

30. Are irrigation efficiency projects eligible under the Sustainable Farm Practices priority area?

Project activities that relate to improving irrigation and water use efficiency are not eligible under the Caring for our Country Open Grants.  Please see: http://www.environment.gov.au/water/programs/off-farm/  for further information about funding for irrigation efficiency grants.

31. Can I attach supporting information? How much can I include?

You can send us hard copies of supporting documents for your application. It is important that you keep this additional information short and concise, to enable the assessment panel to consider it in the time they have available.  Please ensure you reference your applicant identification number on any hard copy documents sent, so these can be assessed with your application form.

32. Do public lands need to have sign off for works if the land manager (e.g. council, agency) is a partner in the project?

Yes, the signature of the manager of public land is required if the project is being undertaken on this land, regardless of whether or not the land manager is a partner in the project.

33. In section 6.1 of the form, how far back do we need to go with funding sources?

Please include details of any Australian Government funding from the last five years.

34. Can we make an application with several joint-companies/groups? Or do we need to identify one for the purposes of the Open Grants?

Caring for our Country Open Grants eligibility requires that contracting arrangements are made with, and funding is paid to, a single entity. You are able to specify partner agencies in section 5.6 of the application form, but one entity must be the ‘lead’ for a funding agreement.

35. Can I apply for funding from the Open Grants for the salary of a project coordinator?

There is nothing to exclude applicants from seeking funding to employ people to undertake coordination or project activities. You will need to clearly outline how you have calculated the salaries in the Budget Justifications section. Applications will be assessed for value-for-money, and the ability to deliver measurable outcomes.

36. Can I apply for funding to control Cane Toads?

Yes, projects which increase community awareness of the threat of Cane Toads, and engage communities in on-ground actions for controlling the spread of the Cane Toad, will be eligible in the current Open Grants round. For example, the use of physical control measures through community campaigns to trap and dispose of cane toads will be considered.  Community based groups who can demonstrate existing capacity to conduct on-ground Cane Toad work can apply on their own or in partnership with other relevant organisations. Please note: Caring for our Country Open Grants projects are for funding between $80 000 and $400 000, please refer to the guidelines for further information.

37. Where can I get further information?

Guidelines for Applicants provides further detail on Caring for our Country funding including criteria and assessment.

Guidelines for Applicants can be found on the Caring for our Country website www.nrm.gov.au

For enquiries call the Caring for our Country toll free hotline on 1800 065 823

Fact sheets

Further information

Other sources of funding

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