Investing in Rural Community Futures
Investing in Rural Community Futures (IRCF) is a three to five-year, place-based program that works closely with grassroots not-for-profit (NFP) organisations and community groups supporting them to strengthen their operations and activities to be best placed to contribute to a thriving community.
Our aim is to enable NFPs in a particular place to be high-functioning, collaborative, and sustainable, so that they can fulfill their missions with greater impact. We focus on small to medium-sized NFPs and the program is intentionally flexible, progressing at the pace of the community. IRCF can support a range of priorities for NFPs, including but not limited to, governance capability and strategic planning, volunteerism, organisational systems and processes, and local partnerships.
Leveraging a proven program model incorporating a locally-based facilitator, community-led and informed funding, collaborative planning processes, and skill building opportunities, the IRCF program can be game-changing for rural communities to achieve positive change together.
The program began as a pilot in 2018 in three NSW communities – Leeton, Junee and the Nambucca Valley, thanks to the support of VFFF. Gathering momentum, it was then rolled out in Ulladulla, Batemans Bay, Nowra, Bay & Basin, and the Bega Valley, with generous support from Snow Foundation, the Community Enterprise Foundation of Bendigo Bank, and the Australian Government. In 2024, the program began in Colac, Maryborough and Swan Hill in Victoria, following an exciting collaborative funding partnership between Helen McPherson Smith Trust, The Ross Trust, The Jack Brockhoff Foundation and The William Buckland Foundation.
The key elements
These are the important program elements that together, we know, can strengthen NFP’s in rural areas to achieve long-term impact on shared priority areas within their community. IRCF provides the local NFP sector the opportunity to engage with each element, building towards a shared vision for the future and activation of ideas responding to the agreed goals set out in their unique Community Roadmap.
A key element of the program (as outlined above) is regular, multi-pronged evaluation activities undertaken over the life of the program. In each location, that work is undertaken by an external evaluation partner. The activities and the feedback received guide the refinement of the program and ensure a continuous evolution of the model.
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The Four Pillars of the IRCF Program
FRRR works with each participating community to develop a Community Roadmap, which defines their goals and priorities across four focus areas: People, Strategy, Efficiencies and Systems.
These four pillars guide the program and are the focus areas for investment to help strengthen organisational capacity, activate ideas and achieve community-led change. Each community develops goals relating to each area that align with its local needs and unique circumstances. The Roadmap is reviewed annually. An evaluation partner helps track progress and guide next steps.
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I have a question, who can I talk to?
If you have a question about the overarching IRCF program or how it could be implemented in your community,
please don’t hesitate to reach out:
Deb Samuels, People Lead
Ph: 1800 170 020 or Email: [email protected]
Insights from NSW partner communities
Recording the stories and voices of local people and leaders involved in the program is a fantastic way to share their experiences about what it’s like to be a partner community and what’s possible through the program.
Click on the picture to watch a short four-minute video.
If you’d like to learn more, we have recently launched two Impact Reports sharing insights from our first three NSW pilot communities (Leeton, Junee, and Nambucca), as well as our NSW South Coast communities: