NSW WLRM Food Donation Education Grants
By MRA Consulting Group
The NSW EPA has released its first round of Food Donation Education grants under the $337 million NSW Government Waste Less Recycle More initiative (WLRM).
The new grants are open to councils, NGOs, community groups and NFPs. They offer funding to deliver projects that increase the efficiency and capacity of food relief organisations to collect and redistribute high-quality surplus food, to reduce the amount of organic material going to landfill. The new grant funding is summarised below:
| Eligible applicants | Project requirements | Funding per applicant | Closing date |
| Local councils, groups of councils, non-governmental organisations, community groups and not-for-profit organisations | Projects should Meet one of the three project themes: donor engagement, awareness-raising, collaboration.* What will be funded? What will not be funded? |
$5,000 to $200,000, 100% of project costs, but a maximum of $100,000 / year.
Co-contribution is encouraged but not required. |
November 22, 2017 at 5pm |
*See table below for an outline of the project themes.
^Applicants must demonstrate how the employment will deliver on project goals. Staff who are already employed to deliver the proposed activity are not eligible.
| Theme | Description | Example |
| Donor Engagement | Projects that work with potential donors, such as supermarkets or other generators of surplus food to increase opportunities to identify and recover food before it ends up in landfill. | OzHarvest engaged and educated 20 Woolworths supermarkets’ staff in the Sydney area, implementing three different behaviour change intervention strategies around best practices in food donation at retail level. The three different engagement methodologies were tested and trialled over a ten-week period with the effectiveness of each intervention compared and analysed based on two measures – volume and consistency of donation. |
| Awareness-raising | Projects that increase the awareness of the problem of food waste and encourage increased donation through increased understanding of the opportunities and need in a local community | FoodCare Orange in partnership with Netwaste brought together for the first time all food donation stakeholders in the NSW Central West region to test whether increasing local awareness around food waste will increase the number of businesses becoming active local food donors. The project delivered a campaign called ‘Food Rescue Central West’ to encourage businesses, individuals, food manufactures and growers to donate excess food to local community groups for redistribution. |
| Collaboration | Projects that bring food relief agencies together to work more efficiently and effectively in a region to recover more surplus food, maximise the use of equipment and resources and help more people in need | Food rescue organisations in the greater Newcastle area came together to identify the regional needs and opportunities and investigate the formation of food hubs to create economies of scale. Two food donation forums, held in Newcastle and Gosford, showed that while there is a general consensus that partnerships with other organisations and shared infrastructure may achieve greater social outcomes and greater diversion from landfill, there are key barriers to overcome to generate partnerships. |
MRA has submitted more than 150 successful WLRM grant applications to date, winning more than $40M in funding for our clients.
MRA can provide a one-stop shop to maximise your chances of success. If your Council is interested in any of the above grant programs, please contact us at info@mraconsulting.com.au or on (02) 8541 6169.
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