Since March 2020 Covid-19 has negatively affected the landscape for charities in many ways:

  • Some are unable to deliver services they are contracted to deliver due to the many restrictions.
  • Some are seeing, or expect to see, greater demand for their services.
  • Some have lost income from cancelling fundraising events
  • Often they have few cash reserves to tide them over a tough financial period.
  • Some will see a reduction in fundraising due to donors also feeling the pinch.

In response, Impact100 WA have modified our approach – for 2020 only.

While our aim remains to provide high-impact grants that will make a significant and measurable difference to an under-served cause or population, our intention in 2020 is to help ensure that the smaller not-for-profit organisations in our community are well placed to continue providing widespread benefits into the future.

How we will do this:

  1. We plan to fund a number of $50,000 grants in order to support more not-for-profits through these turbulent times.
  2. We are introducing greater flexibility around how the funds can be spent (applications may address immediate response needs or recovery needs, as well as projects).
  3. We are shortening our timelines to bring the grant date forward to August (see summary below) while still allowing for our strong due diligence.
  4. Recent past winners are also invited to apply – these are the organisations we know and love and we want them to survive.
  5. We are restricting applicants to WA-based organisations only.
  6. Donor involvement (eg. focus area groups, site visits, assessment events) will still happen but online (at least until the lockdown situation eases).

Adjusted timeline:

  • 29 May – Applications due.
  • 8-21 June – Focus Area Committees assess and reduce application numbers to 15-20.
  • 22 June-10 July – Site visits completed.
  • 22 July – Assessment event for all donors to reduce application numbers to 8-10.
  • 12 Aug – Presentations and voting event (now it will actually be a dinner) to choose winners.
  • October – If possible, we will hold an actual event to come together and celebrate.

For further details, please feel free to download our 2020 Application Guidelines document and check out our Grants FAQ page