A total of $280,000 in grants covering Creativity, Arts, Community Development and the Environment have recently been approved by Northern Beaches Council. The programme sees successful organisations and individuals receive up to $10,000 to support initiatives and projects that take place before December 31, 2021.
Grants issued for Community Development totalled $97,566 and Creativity and Arts $95,250.
The selection stage was made even more difficult this year, according to Mayor Michael Regan, due to the huge number of applications received for grants, which he said far exceeded the budgeted allocation. He added:
“We received more than $1.8 million in eligible applications to come from an allocated budget of $280,000, so it was super competitive. We were only able to fund about 20% of the eligible applications. There were many quality submissions, so some difficult decisions needed to be made.”
Mayor Regan said the high level of responses could be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had pushed up demand for many of the community's activities and programmes, especially those relating to the creative sector, support services and mental health.
Services such as these have often been a focus of community-based brochure printing campaigns aimed at boosting awareness about their availability.
The council's programme for Community Grants has been running since 2018.