INTERVIEW: City of Sydney grants

What funding does the Council offer?

OK, well, every council is going to be different. We’re a capital city council so we provide funding for our local community, which are our residents and ratepayers, community organisations. But we also provide funding for major events and activities that happen in the City. Most local councils obviously would just provide funding and grants for their local community activities because we are a local council and that is our key role. But when you’re a City council you also need to look at the bigger picture.

Is there anything specific about the Sydney Local Government Area (LGA) that is different from other metropolitan LGAs or regionals?

Yeah, definitely, the key thing that is different are the major events and activites that happen in the City of Sydney. We are the events site for say Sydney Festival, Writers Festival, the Biennale. That’s saying that everybody recognises in a capital City, and that’s something the City invests in heavily because it is a point of distinction for us.

There’s a distinction between your sponsorship and your grants. Now what types of funding do you offer other than grants?

OK, we give grants and sponsorship as you said. Grants we recognise as cash support to somebody, we don’t expect anything in return. A sponsorship, like any sponsorship, you get equal value back in return. That can be in the form of advertising and promotion as usually the case. We have 16 grants programs. Some of those are cash programs, some provide accommodation for offices and businesses, some provide use of our banner poles, and some provide use of our venues or our parks. Though we have a package of things we can offer people.

Now, as a percentage of money that you give out, what goes towards sponsorship and what goes towards grants?

It’d probably be about 50/50.

Really?

It’s different each year, depending on which organisations have applied obviously

What type of applicants do you usually get for grants?

That’s predominantly local community groups. From local history groups to disability groups, people working with the aged and community services. Particularly once they are relevant to the City of Sydney, a lot of the homelessness services, people living with HIV/AIDS, things which match what a City profile is.

What effect do your grants have on those who apply? What have you gotten back, and how have you seen the City change due to the grants you hand out?

Sure, that’s a really good question. That’s always a hard thing to measure. But we know, for a start, projects happen. The Writers Festival is a good example, I was just speaking to them then, the Writers Festival probably wouldn’t be able to happen without our support. With the exception of the major festivals, the money we provide is just for one-off projects. So if we don’t give it, that one-off project doesn’t happen. So we do see things occur simply because we’ve given money. We like to think that because of things we invest in, we are a more culturally rich City. So the arts and culture are vibrant and interesting. And also a lot of projects and programs are working with people in our community, particularly people who are disadvantaged, which wouldn’t occur otherwise. So that’s things like research into homelessness services, the provision of office accommodation for community groups, so really it’s a whole package of things.

What do you fund that is “identifiably Sydney”?

Ah, Mardi Gras. The one I can answer to you like that. That is 100% Sydney that we funded.

Although there are other parades, like in Melbourne there’s Midsummer.

The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is unique around the world. An event of that style and that size. So that’s very Sydney.

How does the City indentify and relate with something like the Mardi Gras?

With Mardi Gras, we’ve been onside right from the start. As it happens in the City of Sydney, it happens on our land. Up to the last year or so, we’ve been the only government sponsor, so we’ve been very heavily invested with them. We don’t see our relationship as just giving money. We work with them to help improve their event and support them. We have an ongoing relationship. So I would meet with Mardi Gras once every couple of months, so do my staff and colleagues. We don’t just hand the check over and walk away, we try to get involved and add lots of support where we can through our expertise and skills, or networking with all our events and organisations we fund.

What do you ultimately want to see grants do for the City?

A few things I guess, there isn’t just one thing. We want to see is help empower people in the City ot take action and responsibility, and develop the community themselves. We invest a little bit, the community gives a little bit as well, and that way the whole of the City grows.

How do you see that they help build their own community?

That’s exactly what we are looking for out of a lot of the grants. We are asking in a lot of grants for the community to match what we are giving. So we give say $5000, we expect them to match $5000 in volunteer labour. So we actually look at them as community development projects. I guess that’s probably the overall outcome we want, we want a better community. If the City is doing everything, then is not sustainable. You’ve got to invest to make things happen and, then you got to embed to keep things happening.

What would be an example of a group who then helped build their community? What have you seen over the period of time?

Off the top of my head, it’s hard to answer. Our community garden projects, we just funded a lot of those, and they’re just starting, so I can’t tell you one that’s ended yet. But that’s where we put the upfront cash to make them happen, but the community has to keep them going or else they don’t exist anymore. We funded a really good project a while ago, that was to do with working on the heritage boats in the harbour. It was a program where youth could go and work on these boats, but work towards a TAFE certificate. That project then got investment from the heritage boat owners, local business and TAFE and we funded it for three years. We don’t need to fund it anymore because we’ve invested enough to make it sustainable, and it’s now business, TAFE and the community who are putting in to run the project. I could give you hundreds. That’s the type of thing we look for with our projects.

Often I hear people say that they were not included in the process and preference was given to others. What are the factors that help you choose?

Ah OK, firstly to say, we always get more grant applications than we can pass. So there’s always going to be good projects we can’t fund. So that’s the first reality, we can only fund what we have money for. The second thing is, we look to fund projects that can benefit people who live in the City of Sydney. It’s simple but people forget: it’s our residents and ratepayers who have paid money to invest these grants. Unless our residents get something back, we’re not going to invest money in it. And that’s pretty blatant. We look for things that align with projects the City wants to do as well, such as community gardens. Cultural and community recognition in the aboriginal community is a really big project for us. What we knock out are things that aren’t sustainable, don’t benefit the City’s community, and have budgets that don’t add up. I mean, if you work in grants, you know what that is like. But generally what we do is look for things that support us, rather than knock other things out, if that makes sense.

What percent out of the number of applications you get, meet or to say do not meet the criteria?

Look, probably two thirds meet the grants criteria, but we’re only ever able to fund a third. So, you know, the reality is, even if you meet all of the criteria, there maybe another project that gets funding other than yours. We also try to create a balance across the City of Sydney. So not all of our projects are in Kings Cross or all in Glebe. Sometimes people miss out just for that reason. In the cultural area, we try and fund across art forms. So we don’t have 60 poetry projects. So it’s always a bit of a balance.

What’s the best type of application you’ve received? What has stood out?

First, budgets add up. That’s a big one for us, because we need to know our money is going somewhere adequately.

It is filled out to a proper accounting system, or there’s thought put into it?

Thought put into it. We’ve got a kind of funding template people can fill out. We make it as simple as we can. But a lot of people don’t realise the basic thing that your income needs to match your expenditure. Now to me, if you can’t figure that out, you can’t run a project. So we look for things like projects that are clearly written that make sense. I can’t tell you how many applications we get that don’t tell us when and where they are doing a project. And then of course, those who thought about what the City might be interested in. So have they had a look at what our priorities are? Have they spoken to one of my staff about the project? So, have they made an attempt to think about the fact that we are a funding agency, and therefore we have priorities as well.

Is there a difference between first time applicants and those who applied before?

No no. You get first time applications that are fantastic, and you get people we speak to every single year about their application and it still doesn’t improve.

That’s interesting. Any other typical mistakes made in applications?

The two big ones are budget and not remembering that we don’t know every single thing about your project. You may know you are planning to run it in Jubilee Park in Glebe, but unless you tell us that in the application form we don’t know. And that’s a fatal flaw to forget we don’t know everything.

How does funding from State Government affect funding?

We love to see people getting funding from other organisations as well, because that means we’re not the only funder. And the reality is local government has no responsibility to provide grants. It’s something we do optionally, so we don’t like to see people solely relying on City of Sydney funding because we’re not obliged to do it, and we may decide not to do it. That’s obviously not going to be the case with this council, it’s incredibly supportive, but councils change so people need to realise that we’re not necessarily always going to provide money. So we love to see other forms of support coming in. I speak to my state government counterparts, and to some extent our federal people. We all work together.

Does the way in which the state government funds the actual council then …

Councils generate their own income, but there are times of course where we’re making more or less money, and if the councils aren’t in a great financial position, it’s obviously not going to give grants, are they. That’s an extra cost. At the moment, City of Sydney is in a very sustainable economic position. We have a Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, who is very supportive of community, so we’re able to give a lot of grant money. But if we were running out of money ourselves, obviously the first thing to go is something we don’t need to do. And our ratepayers would rather us invest it in parks and picking up their rubbish, than invest in grants. Other councils in the past have been very interested in ‘the high arts’. And that’s where they would fund, and that’s each councils’ right to decide. Because the public have voted them in on those priorities.

When people ring up, what are the standard questions they ask?

Where do I get an application form from? When do the grants close? And then they ask about what are our priorities for funding? Which is reasonable enough. While our grants are open, we meet with people and talk to them about their application, so we try to be very open about it as well. We’d rather them put in a good application, than knock themselves out.

Let’s briefly come to the sponsorship side. Do you view them differently to grants?

No, pretty much the same. It’s all the same unit. The only difference in sponsorships is that the City invests in them to some extent, because we get the benefits back. It’s not just for goodwill. So, we might invest in a festival for instance, because we know we will get publicity about City projects through doing that. But that’s different criteria we will put in their funding agreement. We treat them the same, if that makes sense, in terms of our relationships.

What documents do you usually recommend for applicants to read?

From our perspective, we ask them to read Sustainable City 2030, which is our blueprint for the future. Depending on which grant form they are applying for, they might look at the social plan or the local action plan. So it’s different depending on which they apply for. But basically, we suggest they look at the relevant City policy or plan, so they have a sense of what to look at.

Do people do that?

Ah, the good ones do. And of course, as I said before, ones the align to what we’re looking for are more likely to get funding. So yeah.

So it sounds like those who put the energy and time into it stand more of chance of success.

Absolutely right Eric. Of course, they’ll always end up doing more.

Finally, do you have any further funding advice or tips?

I think, remember that there are lots of priorities for people, so your project may not get funded, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad project or organisations don’t respect your work, it might just mean it’s not a priority for that year, and people sometimes take it a bit too personally. I think it’s also remembering it’s not just cash. But our staff can help give you advice on your project, or can put you in touch with people or they can put your flyers in our libraries. There’s numerous other things we can do. So it’s always worth staying in touch with people all the time, not just for the money. Because we see ourselves as giving more than that. I think people get very focused. Of course, you want money for project, but they get very focused on that and forget that you can have a very good and strong relationship with us, without necessarily just getting cash, and we’re really supportive of ways that are not just cash. That’s probably my number one tip.

Thank you for the interview!

Great questions Eric! I hope you get some great information out of this

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