Leverage & Broker

Once again, FRRR thanks our supporters – governments, businesses, individuals and philanthropic entities – for their generosity, sharing a common goal of investing in locally-led efforts to improve community wellbeing and building back better after disasters.

In total, we received $21.4 million in donations. The contributions range from multi-year partnerships for specific programs, to donations to our co-funded programs, support for specific community projects, contributions to our corpus and generous support for our operating costs.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of our partnerships with ANZ Banking Group and with Gardiner Dairy Foundation, but it was the first for our partnership with Nutrien Ag Solutions, who are delivering a community groups program with us. Suncorp too established a new program designed to support preparedness and recovery from natural disasters. CCI Giving extended our partnership for another five years, with an increase in funding to be granted to support mental health programs.

Other new partnerships included working with the NSW Government to support community groups that worked so hard during the pandemic to sustain their communities, and a generous multi-year commitment of $5 million from the Australian Government to support COVID recovery nationally. We greatly appreciate all of these large partnerships, as well as the small contributions from so many individuals, including those who contributed to our flood recovery appeal and those who generously donated to help us reach the $1.125 million matched funding requirement of the Future Drought Fund’s Networks to Build Drought Resilience program.

“FRRR is our eyes and ears on the ground … what’s happening right now; what’s going to be happening next year and three years down the track.”

The year in fundraising

2,366

total donations received

$21.4M

raised

$3.3M

largest donation

55%

returning donors

“It is an excellent service that FRRR provides. Many projects, such as this one, wouldn’t see the light of day without your generous philanthropy and once given the chance to make a start, these projects can go on to great success and have a positive impact on the lives of families living in the bush. Well done.”
Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association (Port Augusta branch) – TTTT recipient

These are just some of the generous donors who have partnered with us.

We thank each and every donor partner for their support.

Click here to expand and view our donors for the FY2021/22

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Fundraising Accounts

In addition to FRRR’s core programs and donor-advised Giving Sub-Fund programs, we also saw more than 526 donations via FRRR’s 38 Not-for-Profit (NFP) and 20 Community Foundation (CF) Fundraising Accounts, totalling $2.5 million. These donations all support projects that local community groups have prioritised to either strengthen their people or place, or support disaster recovery and preparedness.

Not-for-Profit groups like Deadly Science, who help First Nations communities access STEM education resources, went from strength to strength, raising $46,447 via 246 donations before they obtained their DGR status. The account that raised most funds – $502,920 – was The Next Economy, who work across all economic sectors to accelerate the transition to a climate-safe, socially just and regenerative economy. We expect donations across our Fundraising Accounts to continue to grow, thanks to new high potential accounts such as Diggers Foundation and Macdoch Foundation, which are among the seven new accounts signed this year. In total, 12 accounts raised more than $50,000 this financial year.

Community Foundations raised and distributed less funds this year, as bushfire recovery fundraising slowed. There is still a focus on community recovery for many community foundations, in terms of funds distributed, as well as fundraising across the Northern Rivers for flood recovery. The Australian Government announced in April 2022 that DGR-1 status will be extended to Community Foundations. While the finer details of this change are yet to be advised, FRRR has joined in celebrating this long sought-after change. The nature of the partnership between FRRR and Community Foundations is likely to evolve, however FRRR will remain a big supporter and champion of Community Foundations across rural Australia.

Supporting Northern Rivers disaster recovery

The Northern Rivers Community Foundation holds two Fundraising Accounts with FRRR – a general Community Fund, which they opened in 2017, and the Resilience & Regeneration Fund established in 2020 to respond to the increasingly frequent natural disasters affecting the region and the global pandemic. As of 30 June 2022, NRCF has raised $845,927 via these two Fundraising Accounts, and in 2022, distributed in excess of $162,000 from these accounts.

”The ability to fundraise to support NRCF’s operations and administration functions has been essential to achieve impact in the community.”
Sam Henderson, CEO

Ourschool connects students & alumni

Since 2019, Ourschool has worked with school staff and alumni to inspire and support current students through meaningful engagements in school-based alumni programs. They recently partnered with FRRR to fundraise, using a Not-for-Profit Fundraising Account to be able to offer tax deductibility for donations so they can deliver the program in more public secondary schools in Victoria.

The funds are used to build capacity and increase the number of regional schools receiving assistance from Ourschool. And it’s working, with the program operating in 14 schools, up from 10 in 2021.

Looking Ahead

Recent research with our donors and grant recipients has confirmed that FRRR’s value is far more than money. Looking ahead, we will continue to seek to grow the corpus and plan to launch new sub-funds particularly to help cover our operating costs, including our capacity building work and program delivery. We will also be launching a Small Grants sub-fund, as feedback also reinforced the value of FRRR’s core granting programs, such as Strengthening Rural Communities, which allows community groups to apply for funds for projects that they prioritise. In addition, we will ramp up our workplace giving offering and will be encouraging living gifts and gifts in wills.