The City of Gold Coast has established funding programs to support community organisations to meet changing community, social, environmental, and economic objectives.
The Discretionary Grants Program is allocated funding each financial year to support community organisations to deliver projects primarily intended to benefit a particular divisional area and its residents.
Funds administer under the Discretionary Grants Program are considered discretionary funds pursuant to the City’s Community Grants Policy and s202 of the Local Government Regulation.
Funding available
In 2022-23, each Councillor, including the Mayor, has $33,777 available to allocate to projects with a community purpose and applications from $250 to $10,000 are welcomed.
An entity may only submit one application to the Discretionary Grants Program per financial.
Applicant requirements
Applicants must:
- operate within the Gold Coast Local Government Area
- be an entity that carries on activities for a community purpose
- incorporated association
- company limited by guarantee
- endorsed by a State or Federal body
Applicants must not:
- be an individual
- be a commercial business
- be an informal or unincorporated community organisation
- be an ineligible applicant
- Volunteer Rural Fire Brigade
- political advocacy group or provide political donations
- government body (excluding primary and secondary schools)
- chamber of commerce or industry association
- have an outstanding debt or overdue acquittal
Project requirements
Projects must:
- benefit residents of a particular division
- be completed within the 2022-23 financial year
- have an adequate level of public liability insurance
Projects must not:
- be an individual benefit
- personal costs (salaries, fuel etc)
- gift vouchers
- uniforms
- care packs or hampers
- participation subsidies
- be used for repayment of a debt
- be for the sole purpose of fundraising for transfer to a third party
- be for capital projects on Council owned or controlled land
- have commenced prior to remittance of funds
Notice of availability
This notice is issued 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 2022 |
14 June 2022 |
$506,655 |
$506,655 |
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: $506,655 |
Other community purposes: $33,777 |
Acquittal requirements
All projects must be acquitted using the Community Grants Policy Project Acquittal report as soon as practical, but no later than 30 June 2023.
Community Grants Policy Project Acquittal report(PDF, 104KB)
Any unspent or unacquitted funds must be returned to the City.
Written permission must be obtained from the City in order to vary the project (date, scope etc) from which grant funding was provided.
How to apply
Applications for the 2022–23 Discretionary Grants Program have now closed and successful organisations have been notified.
The Discretionary Grants Program is offered once a year with applications opening late August. Opening dates will be published on this page in the 2023-24 financial year.
The application form will be available on this web page when the round opens.
Notice of allocation
Notice of successful grants and community groups will be updated once allocations are made.
See our funded discretionary grants report for information about the recipients of these funds:
Contact us
Discretionary Grants Program
Email: CommunityGrants@goldcoast.qld.gov.au
Our Councillors
Web: cityofgoldcoast.com.au/councillors
You can subscribe to our quarterly grants eNewsletter