The Paul Ramsay Foundation today announced development funding of $150,000 for each of five new initiatives to help tackle the cycle of disadvantage in Australia.
The funds are made available through the Foundation’s Peer to Peer program, run in partnership with Philanthropy Australia, which brought together ten innovative Australian not-for-profits to use problem solving methodology to help break the cycle of disadvantage.
Based on peer review, five of these proposals have received $150,000 each with further capability support to be provided over the next year to develop the remaining initiatives.
In total, almost $1 million has been allocated by the Foundation to support organisations taking on new and exciting projects in their early stages of development. The five organisations are:
- Hands Up Mallee is working in Northern Mallee, Victoria seeking to bring together local leaders and services to improve health and education outcomes for young families in the area.
- Burnet Institute is seeking to help address the issue of recidivism and work with key sector stakeholders including people with lived experience to design programs that address the root causes of re-offending.
- Good Cycles is a social enterprise that provides employment to young people in Liverpool, NSW at risk of entrenched unemployment and contact with the criminal justice system.
- The Benevolent Society will co-design and implement a program to provide parenting support to vulnerable young parents who have been in out of home care.
- The Fitzroy Legal Service and the University of Melbourne will create a new model for supporting the decision making of people with disability to improve their participation in the justice system and achieve greater control and agency in their lives.
The CEO of the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Professor Glyn Davis AC, said that this new approach is just one of the ways in which the Foundation will help break the cycle of disadvantage.
“The Foundation is committed to working with grassroots organisations large and small to help break the cycle of disadvantage in Australian communities.
We are in the early stages of a new focus on supporting under-resourced communities in the most effective way possible,” Professor Davis said.
The Paul Ramsay Foundation’s Peer to Peer Program is a devolved form of philanthropy that involves peer organisations in decision making.
