Has anyone had success with the gambling & community benefit grant?

Reader question:

Has anyone been successful in receiving the gambling & community benefit grant?

How many times had you applied before you were successful?

How many times have you applied for the grant for the same project?

Here are some experiences from our Facebook community when applying for the gambling & community benefit grant:

Our local Playgroup has received two of their grants over the years.
We submitted an application and were successful the first time
We have got this in the past. I think it is just better advertised and has a lot more applicants than it did say 5-10yrs ago.
It depends on the $ amounts of the grant too. I got 10k and 8 months later 35K… it will be another 2 years before we are eligible for another grant over $35k.
Our high school and primary school were both successful in securing grants with the fund. You may need to look at the wording used and whether the projects you want to fund are within the scope. Are you able to fund some of the project yourself and have you put that in the application? Have you told your story well? Are you able to demonstrate how the project will benefit your organisation and others if possible? We provided information to show how the funding would benefit, not only ourselves but others too.
We applied twice in 2015 and were successful on the 2nd try, receiving our funding in 2016 for a new prep playground. We applied again last year and we’re successful again (much to our surprise!) for a refurb of our Tuckshop which will be done this Easter holidays.
Keep trying! I’ve done probably 10 applications and got 3 grants across different organisations. I got a large grant recently and our organisation had a substantial $ for the project. I have project plans, quotes etc ready to go. I know last round they asked for additional information part way through the process too.
We were successful for the first time in a few years at the start of 2017. It was the 2nd time we had submitted that application. We had had other applications refused also.
We have been successful many times with this grant, for a variety of projects and varying amounts. The last round was the first time we didn’t get it first go. This is a very popular grant and they get thousands of applications. We paid a professional grant writer $400 to rewrite/resubmit our unsuccessful application. So fingers crossed it pays off. We are asking for $35k for a $75k project so $400 seemed reasonable to pay.
Don’t get disheartened. Chat to your local council or politicians about getting help in writing your application. You could be missing key points or not selling your project well enough. Keep trying.
We submitted our first application last year for a cold room for the tuckshop and were successful.

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Originally published 11 September, 2019