2019/2020 Annual Review – Highlights
The 2020 financial year was a memorable one for FRRR, in more ways than one. It was a record year for FRRR both in terms of donations and grants awarded.
Donor Support
FY2019/20 was a record year for FRRR, as we raised $24.8M thanks to the generosity of more than 34,200 unique donors.
Most donations during the year were in response to the Black Summer bushfires. FRRR received more than $10 million directed to granting programs to support bushfire recovery.
A further $4,192,662 was also donated to FRRR’s new Disaster Resilience and Recovery Fund (DRRF). The fund was launched in Canberra August 2019 at an event hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister. The funds are invested, and the earnings will be used to ensure we always have funds available to support communities in the event of a natural disaster or to fund preparedness activities.
Granting to Communities
In this 20th year of operations, FRRR awarded 874 grants totalling $14,933,901. Unsurprisingly given the effects of the ongoing drought and bushfires, nearly a third went toward project activities to build community resilience (32%), closely followed by promoting individual and community health & social wellbeing, at nearly 18%.
Community Fundraising
FRRR continued to partner with not-for-profit organisations and community foundations to support their fundraising. In total, after administration fees, $1,895,648 was raised via these accounts. There were 53 FRRR Fundraising Account partnerships, with 42 accounts actively fundraising during the year. More than $1,609,570 was distributed to 31 different accounts to support community-led initiatives.
The 2019/20 financial year was a record year, on many levels.
applications
assessed
(up from 1,478)
awarded via
874 grants
(up from 677)
raised from
34,201 donors
(up from 623)
requested to support
projects valued at $88M
For more details on our performance, download the PDF report.
“What our community values most about FRRR is its belief in the power of people to build our communities,
and that FRRR takes a risk on emerging projects and opportunities –
thank you and Happy Birthday!”
Red Earth Community Foundation
Geographic Distribution
As in previous years, most of the funding was distributed on the east coast, which aligns both to the national population distribution but also reflects the location and preferences of most of FRRR’s donor partners.
Most funds went to NSW ($6,266,275 via 279 grants), followed by Victoria ($3,536,394 via 254 grants). Pleasingly however, we saw an increase in the number of grants awarded in all states.
In particular, there were more than double the number of grants awarded to Tasmania and the Northern Territory, an 80% increase in SA, and a 26% increase in WA.
Most funds awarded went to outer regional or rural areas (41%), with 26% going to remote or very remote areas (excludes distributions made via fundraising accounts).
