Grant opportunities

Working for Women Program: National Women’s Alliances Grant Opportunity

Briefing session transcript - Wednesday 29 May, 2024

Speaker 1: Clancie Hall

Good morning everybody.

Its 11, just gone past 11:00 o'clock, so I'll get us started now.

I'd like to start by welcoming everybody to this National Women's Alliances Grant Opportunity information briefing.

My name’s Clancie Hall. I'm an Assistant Secretary here at the Office for Women in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

I'd like to start today's session by acknowledging that I'm coming to you from Ngunnawal country and pay my respects to the Ngunnawal people as traditional custodians of this land and also recognise other families and people with connection to the lands of the ACT and region.

I'd like to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.

I'd also like to pay my respects and welcome Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today and also acknowledge that it’s Reconciliation Week.

So I hope everybody is having an opportunity to do a cultural activity or a celebration, either in their workplace or in their local community.

We certainly are here at PM&C. Before I get started, just a few housekeeping things.

This session is being recorded, including any questions and answers, a recording and a transcript of today's information session will be posted online on GrantConnect in the coming days.

I also ask if people can just keep their microphones muted. My team is muting where we're receiving sound. But if you can, please try to stay muted, that would be appreciated.

We are hoping to have time for questions and answers at the end of this presentation, so I'd ask people if you can use the chat function in teams to submit your questions.

We are expecting more than 300 people to join us today, so that's quite a number of people and it's great to see that level of interest, but just so that we can appropriately manage the questions, the chat function is the best place for them.

I may not be able to answer all the questions today, either because of time or if we get some that are a bit complex, but we will answer all of the questions asked today and we will publish the answers online in our FAQ document.

So please feel free to submit those questions and we will get to an answer in the coming days if we need to.

So I'm joined in the room, as I said before, by my colleagues from the Office for Women. I'm also expecting to be joined online today by Amy Haddad from the Minister for Women's Office.

We are also joined today by Nick Sellers from OCM, who is our probity advisor on this grant round, and Nick will shortly provide an overview of the probity principles for this grant process.

As many of you would know, probity ensures that the processes and decisions applied to the grant opportunity are fair and equal, and we really appreciate Nick's professional advice in supporting us to do that.

So the agenda for today's session.

So as I said, we're going to be focusing on the specifics of the National Women's Alliances Grant Opportunity.

Overall today, the purpose of the briefing is to outline the program’s priorities and desired outcomes. We’re going to highlight the core eligibility requirements. We’ll describe the expectations for selection criteria and today’s session also provides you an opportunity for you to think about partnerships that you may like to form in in developing an application.

As I said, we have nearly 300 people registered, oh, I think a bit over 300 people registered for today's session.

I might just hand over to Nick unless I’ve lost him to give us a probity briefing. Nick, are you there?

Speaker 2: Nick Sellars

I’m still here Clancie.

Speaker 1: Clancie Hall

Great, over to you, thank you.

Speaker 2: Nick Sellars

Thank you very much.

Hello everyone, as Clancie mentioned, O'Connor Marsden has been appointed as the Independent Probity Advisors for this grant round.

So we'll be observing all aspects of the grant round, including the deliberations and the outcomes, and also commenting on the various materials that are produced to guide the process and any ad hoc advice required as well, to make sure the process is fair and transparent.

I just wanted to mention that as applicants or potential applicants, you also have some probity issues that you might need to think about.

So particularly in avoiding conflicts of interest with the people who will be making the decisions and assessing and evaluating the application. So what this means in practice is we would appreciate it very much if you don't lobby for a particular outcome. So whether that's directly via media or social media or by contacting, for instance, the department or the Minister’s Office directly to put your case. The proper way to put your case in the context of a government grant round is through the application process.

And when you see the Grant Opportunity Guidelines, you'll realise that you can also ask questions through the dedicated email link and that the answers to those questions will be shared with everybody in frequently asked questions as appropriate, so that everybody is operating from the same information base.

If you already have a business as usual relationship with the Office for Women, do your best to segregate that work. So the people who are working on your grant application might, for instance, be different to the people who are preparing the grant application.

So on the one hand, the grant application, on the other hand your business as usual, just to the extent that you can avoid mixing those things together.

I'll let you know that the Minister will also be briefed on the probity principles for this grant round, so that if you are asking questions of the Minister or the Minister's Office, those questions will be remitted back to the department so that they’re answered in a transparent way.

The process will occur as quickly as possible. In the event that there's delays, you'll be informed if you have registered your interest in the grant application on GrantConnect. So it's really important that if you're interested in applying that you do register with GrantConnect so that you get all of the updates of frequently asked questions and any changes to the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

At some points, sometimes the department may need to contact applicants to clarify matters. That's a normal part of the process. It's not an early indicator of success or failure, and because you're contacted, doesn't mean you have an advantage, and because you haven't been contacted, doesn't mean you are disadvantaged.

It just means that in the department's view, with probity advice, we need to get some clarification. So if that happens to you, please respond as quickly as you can.

Finally, I just want to note that grant application processes aren’t an essay writing contests, you're not being judged on how beautiful or well crafted your application is. Obviously, the better prepared you are to put your case, the easier it is for the department to make judgments, but what we're looking for is merit that aligns to the policy, which is set out in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

So in other words, use the application as an opportunity to make your best case and set out your fitness for the task.

Finally, if you have a probity concern about anything during the process, please contact the department in the first instance and they will contact O'Connor Marsden

If external independent advice is required. But given time, I'll leave it there.

Clancie, happy to take questions at the end.

Speaker 1: Clancie Hall

Thanks, Nick, that's great.

OK, so moving on to the substance of the information briefing. Starting off with some information about Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality.

On the 7th of March, the Minister for Women Senator, the Honourable Katy Gallagher, launched Working for Women: a Strategy for Gender Equality.

The vision of the Strategy is to achieve an Australia where people are safe, treated with respect, have choices and have access to resources and equal outcomes no matter their gender.

The Strategy was informed by the voices of thousands of people and organisations across Australia, including our work in the Office for Women with the current National Women's Alliances.

The vision is guided by five priority areas where action is needed to progress gender equality in Australia. These are gender-based violence, unpaid and paid care, economic equality and security, health, leadership, representation and decision-making.

Each priority area is closely tied to one another and is underpinned by work on gender attitudes and stereotypes. So, for example, the Strategy recognises that women's safety cannot be separated from their caring responsibilities, their economic equality, health or involvement in decision-making.

The Strategy sets a framework for government action over the next 10 years to tangibly improve the lives of women and progress gender equality in Australia.

To support implementation of the Strategy, the government is continuing to invest in women's advocacy to hear the views of experts and the lived experience of women, and to inform the development and delivery of practical changes to improve gender equality to ensure effort is aligned to the Strategy’s ambition.

The current women's portfolio funding, which has been known as the Women's Leadership and Development Program, has been redesigned to form the new Working for Women Program.

The Working for Women Program is a key lever supporting the government's implementation of the Strategy and the reframe adjusts the objectives of the program to support the priority areas of the Strategy. Investment through the Working for Women Program aims to improve outcomes for women and gender equality in Australia, with a focus on addressing gendered attitudes and stereotypes and taking action across the five priority areas.

Onto the National Women's Alliances.

So as you would know from reading the Grant Opportunity Guidelines, funding of $10.88 million is available over five years from December 2024 to June 2029 to establish a network of up to six civil society organisations.

This funding profile represents a 25% increase in funding based on the funding levels for the current National Women's Alliances program.

This investment will ensure that women's voices in all their diversity inform the implementation of the strategy and expert strategic advice is delivered to government.

It's expected that successful organisations will leverage their existing networks and collaborate across Alliances to provide evidence-based, coordinated and intersectional advice to government on areas of most impact and influence to the Strategy.

Alliances will be expected to provide advice to government on both solutions and priorities for the issues affecting women in Australia, particularly those from groups that are traditionally marginalised.

So what's new and what's different in this grant opportunity compared to previous National Women's Alliances grant opportunities?

As many of you would know, the National Women's Alliances program has been funded for about 20 years by government and has evolved over time. With the release of Working for Women, we now have an overarching framework that sets out a clear and strategic vision for the government's ambition and outcomes for gender equality.

This provides a well-defined focus for the Alliances to direct and target their effort. Under this grant opportunity, funding has been increased by 25% on current funding levels and indexation will be applied annually. Agreements are also being offered over a five year period, which provides more stability than shorter term agreements that have been used in the past.

This open competitive selection process provide an opportunity for organisations to submit applications for activities to support driving progress under Working for Women, and that fit within the available funding profile.

In line with the increased funding profile and longer term agreements, performance expectations will also be refined. These changes will ensure that Alliances are sufficiently resourced to fulfil performance expectations, attract and retain required expertise, and it will also provide continuity over the first five years of implementing the Working for Women Strategy.

Collaboration between Alliances is a central feature of this grant opportunity to ensure that advice is intersectional and prioritised. These changes are informed by feedback from consultations across government and key stakeholders.

They're also informed by the recommendations from the recent evaluation into the National Women's Alliances program and also the recommendations of the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce.

Grant opportunity outcomes.

So the Alliances, through this grant opportunity, will be engaged to provide gender expertise and solutions to government, bringing the views of the women's sector and gender experts together to drive progress on the Strategy’s outcomes, and also to present solutions and priorities for issues affecting women in Australia, which are informed by consultations with women, particularly women, who are traditionally marginalised from traditionally marginalised communities, and women's organisations. Government will use this advice to inform policy and make strategic decisions to further drive gender equality.

Applicants can apply to represent one or more of the following National Women's Alliances themes. So gender-based violence, economic equality and leadership, First Nations women, migrant and refugee, and culturally and linguistically diverse women, women living with disability and women living in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia.

Individual organisations can apply to represent one or more of the themes.

Consortia applications must be applying to represent multiple themes.

So the grant activities under this opportunity.

Alliances will be expected to engage directly with networks of women in all their diversity, the women's sector and gender experts to inform strategic advice to government. This includes consolidating research, gender expertise and the voices of women to use as evidence to inform advice to government.

Alliances will also be required to actively and regularly collaborate across Alliances to drive progress on the Strategy’s outcomes at key milestones in the policy development cycle. This includes developing policy submissions, participating in government consultation processes, providing one cross-Alliance pre-budget submission per year, which captures advice and solutions to improve outcomes for women.

Where it is agreed with the Office for Women and aligns with the priority areas of the Strategy, Alliances will also work with and complement other government advisory bodies.

OFW will work with successful applicants to co-design and develop activity work plans to implement the intended outcomes of this grant opportunity. This includes activities relating to cross-Alliance collaboration, which is a central feature of this program.

It's important to note that this co-design on the activity work plan will happen after grant agreements are signed and this ensures that Alliances are funded to undertake this work with Office for Women. An agreed activity work plan is generally the first deliverable of your grant agreement.

Additional information regarding the types of activities that may be funded under this opportunity are outlined in Section 5 of the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

So funding for this grant opportunity.

As I've already mentioned, up to $10.88 million is available over five years from the 2024/25 financial year to the 2028/29 financial year. The total funding available per financial year is outlined on the slide on screen now and is as follows:

Overall funding for:

• year 2024-25: $1.39 million
• year 2025-26: $2.37 million
• year 2026-27: $2.37 million
• year 2027-28: $2.37 million
• year 2028-29: $2.37 million
• total funding is $10.88 million.

Funding per theme for

• year 2024-25: $0.23 million
• year 2025-26: $0.40 million
• year 2026-27: $0.40 million
• year 2027-28: $0.40 million
• year 2028-29: $0.40 million
• total funding per theme is $1.81 million.

You cannot apply for more than the available funding per financial year.

$1.81 million is allocated per theme.

There is no limit on the number of themes you can apply to represent, however, funding cannot exceed the amount of available funds.

So for example, the funding limit for an applicant applying to represent two themes is $3.62 million.

So applications must include a budget table that provides an indicative breakdown of costs across the entire five year activity period.

The budget table in your application is an important way for us to understand how you intend to allocate funding across activities.

We understand that the costs within your application are indicative and Office for Women will negotiate a final budget with successful applicants.

In preparing your budget table, ensure your items align with the relevant activities outlined on the slide and in Section 5.1 and 5.3 of the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.

This includes costs associated with policy submissions, government consultation processes, coordination and collaboration between Alliances, and consultation opportunities conducted by Alliances.

For consortia applications, an additional budget table must be submitted with your application on the attachment that's provided. And that additional budget table is to provide a breakdown of funding allocated between the lead organisation and consortia members.

Onto eligibility.

Applicants must meet the eligibility requirements outlined in Section 4.1 and 4.2 of the Guidelines to have their application considered.

Section 4.1 outlines the entity types that are eligible to apply, and Section 4.2 describes the requirements to have an established membership base and to demonstrate a connection to the themes you will represent.

These eligibility requirements have been designed to ensure that each theme is appropriately represented and that Alliances have the expertise required to inform the implementation of the Strategy.

This means consortia applications will need to further demonstrate within their application that they have the diversity and expertise required within their arrangement to adequately and equally represent the themes they are applying for. It's important to note that all members of a consortia must also meet the eligibility requirements.

So I have been talking a little bit about consortia applications. So consortia arrangements are where two or more organisations come together to deliver as part of a partnership or a group. Under these arrangements, there'll be a lead organisation that will submit the application and form the legal relationship with the department. They will have the responsibility for signing and meeting the obligations of the grant agreement.

You may wish to connect with other participants that are online in this information briefing today to explore opportunities for coming together as a consortia.

If you're interested in forming a partnership or reaching out to people that are online today, you can put your contact details into the chat to connect with other organisations. However, for privacy reasons, Office for Women cannot pass on people's details that are registered here today.

Under this grant opportunity, consortia applications are encouraged and they provide a unique opportunity for cross-collaboration and collegiate partnerships.

Consortia can maximise economies of scale, improve geographic coverage and take advantage of diverse expertise.

They may also help address potential capacity limitations of smaller organisations to meet the grant agreement objectives and comply with Commonwealth grant requirements such as governance and financial capability. Consortia is a way for multiple organisations to use their resources together and deliver more cohesive and effective activities.

Consortia partners must have a diversity of expertise across the themes applied for, and that may include specialist women's organisations, gender equality organisations, peak advocacy organisations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and community sector organisations that are led by represent or have an expertise in working with diverse communities, such as those lists outlined in Section 4.2 of the Guidelines.

Applicants who apply as the lead of a consortia are not able to apply as an applicant in their own right. Applicants who are a member of a consortia application can apply as an applicant in their own right.

So if you're applying as a lead organisation, you cannot then submit a single application for your organisation.

However, if you are a member of a consortia application, you can also apply in your own right.

A consortia letter of declaration must be signed by all members of the proposed consortia on the template provided, and attached to the application submitted by the lead organisation.

You must have a formal agreement in place with all consortia partners prior to the execution of a grant agreement if you're found suitable in this grant opportunity.

As you'll be working closely with your consortia partners over the life of the agreement, we encourage you to understand the obligations and requirements of your consortia arrangement.

This may include seeking independent legal advice prior to the execution of the grant agreement.

Onto the assessment criteria.

So the assessment criteria for this opportunity are outlined in Section 6 of the Grant Opportunity Guidelines. These are the criteria that will be used to assess how your organisation or partnership as a National Women's Alliance can contribute to the government's commitment to gender equality in Australia, and more specifically, implementation of Working for Women.

Character limits apply to the criteria responses. So just note that this is not a word count, it's a character count, so it includes all the letters and spaces. So please consider this when drafting your answers.

You'll note that the assessment criteria is detailed and clearly set out the expectations for responses. We want applicants to demonstrate their capacity and capability to implement the Strategy’s vision throughout the criteria, rather than just quoting back to us or reiterating content from Working for Women.

So criterion one has a 35% weighting, so that means it will make up 35% of the final score of your application. Within this criteria, we are looking to understand how the work of your Alliance will support the vision of the strategy and align with the priority areas. Applicants should describe the activities that your Alliance will undertake and how they align with each of the priority areas for the Strategy.

Your response should demonstrate how the activities proposed will progress the Strategy’s overall outcomes, and outline how both the government and Australian women will benefit from your work.

We want to understand how your Alliance will engage and work collaboratively across other Alliances and partner organisations to provide advice that is cohesive and intersectional, and that elevates the voices of women in Australia.

You should also include information about how your Alliance will consolidate and use evidence in your advice to government.

So criteria two makes up 35% of the final score of the application. It asks you to demonstrate how your Alliance will engage with women in all their diversity to meet the objectives and intended outcomes of the Alliance Program.

In this criteria, we want to know about your organisation's current membership base and your existing relationships with relevant stakeholders, experts, and community groups.

Applicants should describe the theme or themes and women their Alliance will represent, and include details about your expertise of, and demonstrated connection to those themes.

Your response should include details on how you will ensure women in all their diversity, including the voices and priorities of women who are traditionally marginalised, will be captured and represented in your advice to government.

This includes how you'll incorporate diverse representation in decision making, design, and implementation of your solutions.

All Alliances are expected to operate with an intersectional approach.

So you are encouraged to consider how your Alliance will engage with women in all their diversity, including young women, older women, LGBTQI+ women across your work and themes that you represent.

We also want you to provide details about how you will ensure that your Alliance’s engagement with networks and stakeholders will be culturally appropriate and trauma-informed. This is important for all Alliances.

Criteria three, this one has a 30% weighting on the final score of your application. In this criteria, we're looking to understand the details about your management approach.

This criteria helps us understand whether your organisation or consortia can meet the requirements and obligations of receiving Commonwealth funding, including governance, financial viability and risk management.

In your response, you should include your risk management and financial capabilities, such as whether your organisation or consortia is financially capable of managing the amount of funding requested. Do you have the organisational structure and resources in place, or have the ability to scale up and use consortia arrangements or your networks to successfully deliver the Alliance activities?

Smaller organisations who have not previously received government funding or funding of this level are strongly encouraged to consider how they can provide assurance to government that you can meet these requirements.

As a requirement set out in Section 8.2 of the Guidelines all applicants will also be asked to provide financial data from the last two years’ profit and loss statements and balance sheets where appropriate, to assist our assessment.

We also want to know about your organisation's governance structure, including relationships of consortia, if that's relevant. This includes an outline of the key staff who will manage or deliver the Alliance activities, their roles, relevant experience, skills and qualifications.

If there's a board, what is the composition and expertise of the board? Providing evidence of the success or strengths of any previous women's advocacy or current working relationships, if that's relevant. What the benefits are of your arrangement and how they will successfully represent your nominated themes and how you’re Alliance will build and/or maintain credibility with relevant stakeholders and work effectively with government to deliver your activities.

So what does a good application look like?

It's one that meets the eligibility criteria in full, clearly and fully responds to all the required selection criteria in the correct section of the application form.

It clearly articulates how the themes you represent are connected to and support the priority areas of the Strategy.

Provides convincing evidence and data to show how proposed activities will be successful.

Clearly identifies how the proposed activities leverage what is already being delivered and complement or expand existing activities to achieve the program objectives.

Has considered how engagement will ensure diversity and inclusion of all women and demonstrates a strong governance framework, including financial capability and risk policies, commensurate with the level of funding being applied for. For consortia applications, the application also needs to clearly explain the partnership model, contributions and governance structure.

So the timeline for this grant opportunity is up on the slide there and outlined below:

• Assessment of applications: July-August 2024
• Approval of outcomes of selection process: September 2024
• Notification to applicants: September-October 2024
• Negotiations and award of grant agreements: October-November 2024
• Earliest start date of grant activity: December 2024
• End date of grant activity: June 2029

So the grant opportunity opened on the 21st of May and it will remain open for six weeks, closing on the 3rd of July.

We anticipate that grant agreements with successful recipients will be in place by December 2024 and the first payment will be made in the 2024/25 financial year, shortly after grant agreements are signed.

That brings us to the end of my presentation.

So while I can't provide individual guidance on developing your application, I hope this presentation has provided some clarity on what to consider in your application and what outcomes we are looking for.

I'll just take a moment and I'll just mute myself and turn my camera off while I quickly check with my team about questions asked in the chat.

As I said at the start, I'll do my best to answer as many questions as I can, but if I'm not sure or the question’s a bit complex, we will just take our time to make sure that we get that information right as opposed to providing anything that might be a bit misleading. So just give me a couple of minutes to chat to my team, I'll check some of the questions in the chat and see what we can answer now. Thank you.

Alright, so I think the team have been responding to a number of questions in the chat and as I said at the start, we will answer all questions that have been asked today and they will be published in the frequently asked questions document that will be continually refreshed on GrantConnect.

And Nick pointed out at the start of the session why it's important to be registered for updates through GrantConnect, so that you're aware when new information becomes available.

But we do have a few questions that I can have a go at providing some clarity on today.

Questions

So there was one question about what constitutes a membership base? For an Alliance does this have to be a financial membership arrangement?

And the answer to that is no, it doesn't have to be a financial membership base.

We're very aware that civil society organisations are constituted in a vast different array of ways, and that memberships come together in different formats.

So what our request is on with the membership base, is we're trying to understand organisations’ connections with the theme that you are applying to represent.

So if you're applying to represent First Nations women, for example, we want to understand, what is your connection with First Nations women communities?

Do you have an existing network of people that you work with?

Whether that's a formal membership where people are kind of signed up and pay a membership fee, or is that in a different way that you have a network of people associated with your organisation which is providing your connection with that community. So I hope that helps clarify that question.

We have a question about why can lead organisations in a consortia only apply once?

And the reason for that is that an individual organisation can only submit a single application to this grant opportunity.

When you are the lead organisation, you are effectively submitting that application on your name. It is registered against your organisation as being your application.

So that's the reason why you can't submit two if you're a lead organisation, because it would be seen to be a duplicate application.

So as I said, that's the same for individual organisations. They can't submit multiple applications.

We've had two questions which kind of go to each other a little bit. One was about whether all the themes need to have a national reach and the other question was about in a consortia arrangement, whether there can be overlapping expertise of consortia members?

So what I would say there is our expectation is that all themes have a national reach.

How you form that in your application, or in your consortia, is a matter for each individual application.

But for example, if you have a consortia that includes applying for the theme of women living in rural, regional and remote communities, we would expect that you to have a national reach in being able to represent women who have had that lived experience.

So we're not looking for just a, you know, South Australian-centric experience of living in a rural, regional and remote area. We are looking for that theme to be able to have some outreach across the community.

And the question about overlapping again.

If you have organisations in your consortia that have similar or some crossover in their expertise, that's not a problem for us. What we would be looking for is the way that the funding is distributed across the consortia arrangement and ensuring that, as I said before, it's $1.81 million per theme.

So you can't allocate more than $1.81 million to each individual theme.

So you would need to look at how you were allocating funding across your consortia members to make sure that you were being equitable to all the themes in that arrangement.

There was another question that asked about the context or the setting for the gender-based violence theme, and whether that includes different types of impacts or different types of violence?

So for that and for all of the themes really, I would refer you to Working for Women, the National Strategy, which talks about government’s outcomes and ambitions across the five themes. And that really does demonstrate where government is seeking to put focus and emphasis to tackle those priority areas.

So I would refer applicants to that if you kind of need further information on context or parameters of those themes.

Wrap up

I think that's all the questions we're in a position to answer right now, but as I said before, we will answer all the questions.

We will do that, including the ones that I've just spoken about now, we will do that in the FAQ document.

I think we've also had questions about whether we will share the slide deck.

We will publish the slide deck, we'll publish a transcript of today's presentation and also a video recording if for some reason you want to watch me over again so that you can refer back to this information as required.

As Nick said at the outset, if you have other questions that come up while you're preparing your application or potentially in response to something that I've said today, please contact the Community Grants hub.

That information is on the screen now and below:

• Call the Community Grants Hub on 1800 020 283
• Email support@communitygrants.gov.au

That is the appropriate mechanism for channelling questions through to us and they make sure that they are appropriately registered and that they get answered accurately and really quickly.

Again, just reiterating what Nick said, please don't contact the Office for Women directly about the grant opportunity as it's really important that we use this grants process, the Community Grants Hub, to funnel all the questions and enquiries through.

So I'd like to thank you all for your interest in this grant opportunity. Thank you for taking the time to come to this information briefing. I do hope it was useful.

We're really open to feedback as well from people about the presentation and about how useful this kind of format of information sharing is. On that note, I might close the session today.

We will publish the questions as quickly as we can and we look forward to seeing your applications.

Thank you very much