St George Foundation Opens Grants to Assist Children

St George Foundation is calling on community organisations focused on providing better futures for children to apply for grant funding of up to $50,000 each.

The foundation said grants would be awarded to smaller community organisations that “worked to improve the future for socially, economically or physically disadvantaged children”.

Since its establishment by St George Bank in 1990, St George Foundation said it had partnered with more than 800 organisations across Australia “to grant more than $25 million to improve the lives of Australian children”.

In the previous grant round St George Foundation awarded a total of $400,000 in funding to a variety of organisations, including Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation, a support organisation for children affected by Sanfilippo Syndrome.

Founder of Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation Megan Donnell said they were “overwhelmed” to receive a $42,500 grant from St George Foundation, which allowed them to fund their Identify, Inform and Involve project.

“There is currently no treatment or cure available to children diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome. Thanks to the funds from St George Foundation, we are a step closer in progressing clinical research into finding an effective treatment to combat this devastating disease,” Donnell said.

Head of St George Foundation Vanessa Barry said: “We are so proud to provide organisations like Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation with much needed funds to help improve the quality of life for children.

“From providing educational programs to help youth at risk, to implementing support programs to help children who are diagnosed by rare diseases, these are just some of the types of programs St George Foundation supports.

“The charities we fund attract little assistance from the government and are not able to generate significant fundraising income of their own. We want to support the awesome work they do for children in our community.

“I encourage community organisations who focus on helping provide a brighter future for disadvantaged children to apply for funding.”

To be eligible for funding, an organisation must:

• focus its efforts on Australian children under the age of 18 years;
• be located in NSW, ACT, QLD or WA;
• have a gross annual revenue of less than $3 million;
• receive less than 40 per cent of its income from recurrent state, federal or local government funding; and
• be endorsed as a deductible gift recipient (but not another ancillary fund).  

Applications are open now until 29 September 2017.

Caption: Swimming student Sawyer Langan Stark with his Dad and Rainbow Club Instructor Nikos Vasilellis. Rainbow Club wer awarded a $40,000 grant by St.George Foundation earlier in the year, in order to provide swimming lessons across  for children with disabilities at local pools across NSW. Photo Credit Ken Leanfore