DTE Community Development Fund 2023/24
Background:
Confest is an alternative lifestyles festival held annually each Easter, at Woorooma, near Moulamein NSW. Down to Earth Cooperative (DTE) is a force for social change, and the organisation responsible for Confest. DTE also has a property between Deniliquin and Mathoura (Bylands), which is currently home to an ecology project. More information about Confest, DTE, and the Bylands project can be found at www.dte.coop and www.confest.org.au.
The DTE Community Development Fund (CDF) was founded in the spirit of saying thank you to the local community in the places where DTE’s projects are facilitated. The project aims to support community groups located within a 100km radius of either of the Down to Earth properties to develop and achieve their goals for their local community. Using the CDF, we aim to foster connection within local communities through the sharing of knowledge, the bringing together of people, and through creating small changes within the community.
Process:
In November 2019, I hosted an initial meeting for the CDF project, at Riverina Remedies in Moulamein. This meeting was attended by myself, and Robin (DTE Director), as well as representatives from three local groups seeking funding, a representative from a group of local farmers seeking a platform to speak about water issues, and four community members who expressed an interest in participating in or following the progression of the CDF. Of these ten attendees, five including myself and Robin volunteered to form a committee to execute the CDF project in 2020, under the name ‘Confest Community Grants’. Robin specified that his role would be to oversee the committee, and he would not be actively participating in decision making processes.
I sought involvement from DTE members, and had two briefly join who had to later leave due to other commitments. Eventually DTE director Kathy Ernst volunteered to participate in the project, making it much easier for me to liase with DTE members via Confest Committee (CC) and Organising Committee (OC) meetings.
The first task undertaken by the newly formed CDF committee was to overhaul the application form written in previous years. We changed the catchment area to a 100km radius of either DTE property and increased the maximum funding amount from $1500 to $3000. We looked at community grant application forms from other organisations and added quite a lot of detail to the breakdown of how projects would be funded and how funds would be spent. We also added an acquittal requirement, to ensure we would receive data on how successful the CDF had been, as well as giving us information to share amongst the relevant communities and networks.
A decision was made to keep one year’s worth of CDF in the bank in case of extreme circumstances, and to seek applicants to receive the amount remaining from the other year. It was estimated that there would be about $12000 to spend from one year, as we believed that $2 had been taken from each ticket. We later learned that this amount had been dropped to $1, so we had a little less than $6000 to distribute this year.
Once the forms were completed, the project was advertised via Facebook, in buy swap sell and noticeboard groups for the local area, as well as in the Moulamein Wongi town newsletter. I had initially intended to distribute posters in all of the towns within the catchment area, as well as contacting all local media, however the committee felt that this may lead to excessive applications which would be difficult to manage with our limited funding. I also found that I did not have the time or energy to undertake this extensive advertising campaign on my own.
Applications opened on 01/01/2020, with a closing date of 01/03/2020. We received 10 applications in total, from the following community groups: Moulamein Community Development Association, Moulamein Men’s Shed, Moulamein Art Gallery, Koondrook Lawn Tennis Club, Barham Local Health Trust, Moulamein Preschool Inc., Golden Rivers Theatre Group (2), and Moulamein Country Women’s Association (2).
The application form was a Google Document, which could be reached via a link on a Weebly website, and sent via email. Paper applications were also accepted. It is noted that several applicants had difficulty with the process of locating, printing, filling, scanning, and sending the forms. It would be preferable to use a fillable online form in future (we did have plans to do this this year but it did not eventuate).
RESULTS
The received forms were digitised and sent to CDF committee members, at this stage myself, Robin, Kathy, and two local community members – one from the Swan Hill area, and one from Deniliquin. We each individually reviewed the forms, then met via zoom to discuss our preferences. It was unanimously decided to give funds to the following projects, as the committee felt that they were of greatest benefit to the community:!
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These selected projects were presented to a DTE meeting by Kathy, and approved for funding. I sent letters of approval and rejection to all applicants, including terms of acquittal to those who were successful. I made a poster announcing the successful recipients and shared it on facebook – in the Confest group, as well as the page made specifically for the CDF project. This received positive feedback, especially from Moulamein locals.
The funds have now been sent to the recipients. We have received an acquittal statement and photograph from the BLHMT but are yet to hear back from the other two groups. The write up from BLHMT has been published on the CDF page at www.dte.coop,
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The Down to Earth Community Grant Programme is about saying thank you to our local community. The funds aim to support other non for profit organisations develop and achieve their goals for their local community.
Funds are available for communities around Moulamein including Denilliquin, Barham and Swan Hill who meet the eligibility criteria.
The funding project aims to foster connection within local communities through the sharing of knowledge, the bringing together of people and through creating small changes within the community.
Grants up to $1500 in value will be considered.
Getting help
If you require assistance completing this application form please contact us here