2022 Grants

Australian Wildlife Conservancy

Project: Untied funding
Grant amount: $23,000

Australian Wildlife Conservancy is one of the world’s largest conservation organisations, delivering and influencing effective conservation across more than 12.9 million hectares in iconic regions such as the Kimberley, Cape York, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre and the Top End.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s vision is to see a world where Australia’s biodiversity is valued and effectively conserved by an engaged community. The Capricorn Foundation is providing untied support to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to continue preserving Australian animal species and the habitats in which they live.

Australian Wildlife Conservancy

Project: Partnership conservation land management on Dambimangari Country
Grant Amount: $80,000

The traditional lands of the Dambimangari People, Dambimangari Country in the north-west Kimberley, Western Australia, is an area of international conservation significance. The region includes a large proportion of the only area of mainland Australia to have suffered no animal extinctions since European settlement. It is home to some of the last remaining populations of species such as the Brush-tailed Rabbit-rat, the Kimberley Brush-tailed Phascogale and the Nabarlek.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting a landmark partnership between AWC and the Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation (DAC), to deliver conservation land management across 800,000 hectares of Dambimangari Country. Together, AWC and DAC will deliver land management operations – including fire management, feral animal control and weed control – informed by world-class conservation science and Indigenous knowledge, designed to increase populations of threatened and declining species and deliver socioeconomic benefits to the Dambimangari People.

BackTrack Youth Works

Project: Untied funding
Grant Amount: $45,000

BackTrack keeps kids alive, out of jail and chasing their hopes and dreams. Guided by a long-term, flexible and holistic approach to youth work, BackTrack helps young people reconnect to their community, engage with education and training, get work-ready and find jobs.

BackTrack recognises that every kid is different and will have different strengths and challenges. BackTrack celebrates these differences and designs a support program around a person’s unique needs. Support activities include but are not limited to: upskilling and employment opportunities, counselling, housing support and addiction support.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting BackTrack to fund overall operating costs to ensure they can continue supporting more kids to realise their goals.

Batyr

Project: Batyr @ RMIT partnership
Grant Amount: $50,000

Batyr is working to reduce the stigma surrounding mental ill-health and empower young people to reach out for support if they need it. Batyr does this by delivering a range of workshops with young people and educators across schools, universities and community groups.

Lived experience is central to the Batyr model, which is designed, delivered and driven by young people who have experienced mental ill-health. This ensures the voices of young people are championed and young people feel more inclined to share their story.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting Batyr to pilot the delivery of a range of programs at RMIT university.

Bridge It

Project: The Sanctuary
Grant Amount: $33,000

Bridge It is working to create solutions to homelessness and housing stress through the creation of ‘homes’ not houses, and connecting people to support within their home and the wider community.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting Bridge It to pilot ‘The Sanctuary’ program. This program is designed to support people with long histories of homelessness and psychosocial disabilities to access stable long-term housing.

Climate Council

Project: Untied funding
Grant Amount: $20,000

The Climate Council is Australia’s leading climate communications organisation. Their mission is to be a courageous catalyst propelling Australia towards bold, effective action to tackle the climate crisis.

Work produced by The Climate Council is evidenced-based and independent. This work is designed to inform public opinion and influence decision makers to take action at scale and elevate climate stories that shape the conversation on climate consequences.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting the Climate Council with untied funding.

Children’s Ground

Project: Ampe-kenhe Ahelhe (Children’s Ground)
Grant Amount: $50,000

Children’s Ground works within a community over a 25-year period to support First Nations people to address issues that perpetuate disadvantage including lack of access to education and employment opportunities. It builds on the ability, strength and culture of the communities of the First Nations people.

The Children’s Ground approach involves wrap around support and activities across 5 platform areas: Learning & Wellbeing, Health & Wellbeing, Community Development & Wellbeing, Economic Development & Wellbeing and Creative & Cultural Development & Wellbeing.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting early childhood learning in a towncamp outside of Alice Springs as well as work creating employment opportunities for community members to gain experience as educators.

Community Resources Limited (Green Connect)

Project: Untied funding
Grant Amount: $40,000

Green Connect is an award-winning, not-for-profit social enterprise based in Wollongong NSW run by community Resources Ltd. Green Connect employs young people, former refugees, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to do work that improves the community and the planet, across their many social enterprise businesses.

Green Connect manages an 11-acre farm in Wollongong NSW where they grow food using organic farming methods. Green Connect also runs a Zero Waste Service where they help businesses and events to reduce their waste. In addition, Green Connect operates two op shops that help keep items out of landfill and offer environmentally friendly gardening and landscaping services.

Each person employed at Green Connect is provided with training and support. Their experience at Green Connect can then be used as a springboard to find suitable, long-term, fulfilling jobs and careers.

Documentary Australia Foundation

Project: Standing on the Soilution
Grant Amount: $100,000 over two years

Film director and actress Rachel Ward is the last person you’d expect to join a farming revolution. Following the birth of her first grandchild, Rachel was confronted head-on by the impact of our climate crisis as the Black Summer fires descended on her farm. Faced with the realisation that she could no longer offset responsibility for the planet’s peril, she is discovering that across Australia, and around the world, a quiet revolution is underway.

The Capricorn Foundation has been supporting WildBear Entertainment and New Town Films’ production of STANDING ON THE SOiLUTION, in addition to an associated impact campaign aiming to inform, inspire, empower and activate audiences since 2021. The documentary will be released in early 2023.

Environmental Justice Australia

Project: Old Growth Forest Protection
Grant Amount: $20,000

Environmental Justice Australia is a national public interest legal centre that uses the law to empower communities to protect land, regenerate nature and safeguard the climate to achieve social and environmental justice.

The Capricorn Foundation is supporting Environmental Justice Australia to protect rare rainforests from logging. Logging in this specific region could have a disastrous impact on the surrounding ecosystem, including the habitat for endangered owls, potoroos and gliding possums.

Stars Foundation

Project: Expansion of Stars Program
Grant Amount: $50,000

Stars Foundation supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls and young women to attend school, complete Year 12 and move into full-time work, further study, or find alternative fulfilling pathways. The program model is based on strong, trusting relationships and tailored to support each child’s unique strengths and challenges.

Stars provides a diverse range of activities to support First Nations girls and young women to develop the self-esteem, confidence and life skills they need to successfully participate in school and transition into a positive and independent future.

The Capricorn Foundation is providing support to the Stars Foundation to expand programming to more girls, in more schools and locations.

STREAT

Project: Thyme Out
Grant Amount: $240,000 over three years

STREAT works to create healthy people and a healthy planet by working to ensure that homeless and disadvantaged young people aged 16-24 years are thriving in all parts of their lives.

Over 40% of the young people who participate in STREAT programs have had contact with the justice system and a grant was provided to STREAT to expand the support for these young people both within Parkville and Malmsbury juvenile justice centres and to develop more targeted interventions to support young people to exit the justice system. Primarily this is occurring through the STREAT café in Parkville.

The Capricorn Foundation has funded the Thyme Out project since FY2020. Despite the on-going challenges to face-to-face programming presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, juvenile offenders have transitioned into both STREAT’s intensive eight-week and six-month work experience program, with over 1,000 hours of support and training being offered to date.