Discretionary Grants Program

The Discretionary Grants Program allocates funds each financial year to support community organisations to deliver projects with a community purpose. Funding for this program is allocated via one round per financial year.

Funds administered under this program are considered to be discretionary funds pursuant to section 109 of the Local Government Act 2009 and section 202 of the Local Government Regulation 2012.

Discretionary funds are allocated by a Councillor at the Councillor's discretion. Under this policy, a Councillor may use their budgeted discretionary funds only to allocate a grant to a community organisation for a community purpose.

Who can apply?

Applicants must:

be a community organisation
operate within the Gold Coast
have an adequate level of public liability insurance for the project (where appropriate)
not be an ineligible applicant.

Ineligible applicants are defined under Council's Community Grants Policy.

Project requirements

Applicants must:

be able to demonstrate that the project is for a community purpose
have applied for funds in the way stated in the availability notice
deliver a project with a defined outcome that will benefit residents of the Gold Coast
complete the project within 12 months of the date of remittance of funds.

Notice of availability

This notice is issued in pursuant to 201b(4) of the Local Government Regulation 2012.

Date of availability notice*	Date of Council Budget Adoption	Total amount budgeted for the financial year as Council's discretionary funds	Prescribed amount for Council for the financial year	Total amount of discretionary funds budgeted for the financial year for councillors to allocate for each of the following purposes:	Amount of discretionary funds budgeted for use by each councillor for the financial year for each of the following purposes:
1 July 2021	23 June 2021	$550,320	$550,320	Capital works of the local government that are for a community purpose: $0	Capital works of the local government that are for a community purpose: $0
				Other community purposes: $550,320	Other community purposes: $36,688

Community organisations may apply for the allocation of discretionary funds via the Councillors' Discretionary Grants Program.

Acquittal requirements

All projects funded by the Discretionary Grants Program over $500 must be acquitted within 8 weeks of project completion or 12 months from the date of remittance of funds (whichever is earlier).

Any unspent or unacquitted funds must be returned to Council.

How to apply

Applications for the 2021–22 Discretionary Grants Program have been fast-tracked to allow funds to flow to community organisations as part of the City's second COVID-19 support package.

Apply via SmartyGrants

Applications will open on Monday 16 August 2021 and will strictly close at 11.59pm Sunday 29 August 2021.

You can subscribe to our quarterly grants eNewsletter. It details grants and funding available to Gold Coast community organisations.