The Seahorse, Issue 35, September 2019

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CEO Craig Connelly thanks Candid for acknowledging The Ian Potter Foundation with an inaugural #OpenforGood award.

MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

A Bold Ambition I am pleased to announce two significant developments at The Ian Potter Foundation.

The first will affect all not-for-profits planning to apply for grants from The Ian Potter Foundation from Round 1, 2020, opening in early November 2019.

After a lengthy review by our grants management staff and consideration by the Board, the Foundation will implement revised funding guidelines aligned directly with our vision for a Fair, Healthy, Sustainable and Vibrant Australia. I foreshadowed this change in the previous issue of The Seahorse (#34 May 2019).

The Foundation’s Board of Governors believes these revised funding guidelines will lead to more impactful and catalytic grantmaking. Strong alignment of the Foundation’s vision with its grantmaking, combined with focused and narrowed funding guidelines will allow our

program management team to become ‘subject matter experts’, ensuring the Foundation Subscribe Past Issues Translate can engage and partner with not-for-profit sector leaders to achieve the greatest impact across a range of issues.

I look forward to seeing applications from the not-for-profit sector that meet the revised funding criteria. See details of the revised guidelines below.

The second development relates to an exciting new undertaking by The Ian Potter Foundation, in partnership with The Myer Foundation. Over the past year, The Ian Potter Foundation and The Myer Foundation have co-funded a study of significant issues affecting Australia’s freshwater systems to understand how philanthropic investment might transform the management of Australia’s freshwater resources, protect the ecological integrity of those resources and ensure Australia’s long-term water security.

This research, conducted by two leading research consulting firms, led to a key recommendation to establish a new organisation that is intended to be an independent, trusted source of water and catchment policy advice with a specific mandate to achieve improved management of Australia’s land and water resources that will benefit all Australians.

This recommendation was recently approved by the Boards of both The Ian Potter Foundation and The Myer Foundation. Both Foundations have committed $5m each to this project over a 10-year period, conditional on raising a further $25m in commitments. In the weeks and months ahead, representatives from both Foundations will seek co-funding support from prospective funding partners as we seek to establish this important entity with adequate funding support to sustain it for at least a 10-year period.

This is a bold ambition, in a highly contested and complex area. Consistent with The Myer Foundation’s successful planning that led to the creation of ClimateWorks Australia, both Foundations believe the evidence gathered as a result of an extensive and thorough research project conducted over the past 12 months presents a compelling opportunity for Australian philanthropy to establish an organisation that is intended to have a meaningful and lasting impact on the management of Australia’s most precious resource: fresh water.

The Ian Potter Foundation continues to be committed to supporting the best minds and research to address fundamental issues affecting the future sustainability of our environment and the lives of all Australians.

We are excited about this next era in the Foundation’s grantmaking as we continue to honour the legacy of our founder and benefactor, Sir Ian Potter, and his commitment that the Foundation make a difference to Australia.

Craig Connelly

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A scene from Little J & Big Cuz Series One. Image © Ned Lander Media 2016.

GRANTS ROUND UP

$13.25 million across 54 grants The latest funding round saw 54 grants totaling $13,250,550 awarded across five program areas. These will be the last grants made under the Foundation’s current program areas.

From Round 1, 2020 grants will be made under the new funding areas that are aligned with the four elements of the Foundation’s Vision for a Vibrant, Healthy, Fair and Sustainable Australia. For further information on the new funding areas see below.

Find out more about all this round's grantees on our blog or see the complete list in our Grants Database.

VISION + OBJECTIVES

New funding guidelines

The Foundation's Vision for a Vibrant, Healthy, Fair and Sustainable Australia informs our funding pillars.

New funding objectives announced At the September 2019 Board meeting, the Governors of The Ian Potter Foundation

approved the establishment of four funding pillars that align with the Foundation's Vision Subscribe Past Issues Translate for a Vibrant, Healthy, Fair and Sustainable Australia.

Vibrant – Arts and Culture Healthy – Medical Research Equipment and Public Health Research Projects Fair – Early Childhood Development and Community Wellbeing Sustainable – Environment What does this mean for grantseekers?

From Round 1, 2020 (opening in November 2019) all grants will be made based on revised funding guidelines which align with each of these funding pillars.

Not-for-profit organisations can apply for grants that meet the funding guidelines of the above areas. Major grants remain by invitation only.

Check the Funding Rounds page on our website to see when each funding area is next open.

Learn more

IN THE NEWS

Aspiring to be smart & healthy

(L-R) Craig Connelly, CEO of The Ian Potter Foundation; Andre Carstens, CEO of the Colonial Foundation and Orygen Board Member; Professor Pat McGorry, Executive Director of Orygen; The Hon. Premier

Daniel Andrews MP; The Hon. Martin Foley MP, Minister for Mental Health and Professor Duncan Maskell,

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Vice-Chancellor, the University of Melbourne at the opening of Orygen's National Centre of Excellence in

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Youth Health.

Orygen for better mental health Our CEO, Craig Connelly was delighted to be given a tour of Orygen’s new National Centre of Excellence in Youth Health, alongside Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, in late July. The opening marks a new era of research, education and service provision to young people experiencing mental health issues. Each year one million young Australians experience mental ill-health. This has direct consequences for their well-being, ability to complete education, establish social networks or relationships, and move into employment.

The centre provides Orygen with the facilities that will meet the task of delivering the innovative, positive approach for the prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

Orygen’s leadership and staff will be able to engage in cutting-edge research and policy development while delivering innovative clinical services, and evidence-based training and education to ensure that there is continuous improvement in treatments and care for young people.

Watch the tour

LOCK TECH a winning combination Some kids just like to build stuff. They’re the ones who gravitate to blocks or Lego at playgroup or primary school. Skip forward to high school, and where are the opportunities to design, to make, to build? That’s where Questacon’s Smart Skills Initiative aims to bridge a gap for many young people who are born designers, innovators and inventors.

Two such young innovators are Ryan Falconer (Year 10) and Lachlan Carboon (Year 11) from Galen Catholic College in Wangaratta. Both attended the 2019 National Invention Convention at Questacon in Canberra in January this year and have gone on to win the People’s Choice prize at the Startup ShakeUp Pitchfest.

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Love is in the air at the Australian Academy of Science In early September, Questacon hosted a new type of event on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science – an Adults-Only Science forum with The Ian Potter Foundation’s Governor Professor Brian Schmidt and star of The Bachelor Matt Agnew.

The event was a great success with a record number of tickets sold. Feedback on social media since indicates young women are being inspired to follow in Matt’s footsteps and pursue STEM. The event was streamed live on Facebook where you can watch these two self-confessed geeks as they discuss their passion for science and why they believe STEM

is the gateway to solving many current problems.

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Skip to 8:45 for the start of their mind-blowing conversation.

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The dawn of a new relationship with alcohol Hello Sunday Morning’s Daybreak app is helping people change their relationship with alcohol. Now government-funded, Daybreak was recently rated one of the best health apps

by VicHealth. This month, Hello Sunday Morning published their latest evaluation of the Daybreak program led by the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University. The evaluation, conducted with 793 app users, found that three months use of Daybreak was associated with: 1. a reduction of average alcohol consumption from 37 drinks per week, down to 17 2. an improvement in psychological distress measures from the mild/moderate range to the normal/well range 3. a reduction in 'days out of role' (impairment of the ability to fulfil daily responsibilities) from 3.5 days to 0.5 days over the three-month period.

Interviewed in The Age (4/9/19), Dr Robert Tait of Curtin University's National Drug Research Institute, said there is “no ‘silver bullet’ in treating addictions” but he believes Daybreak has the potential help the 400,000 or more Australians experiencing alcohol problems.

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SECTOR ENGAGEMENT

Open for Good

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In good company In late May, The Ian Potter Foundation was honoured to receive, the inaugural #OpenForGood Award from Candid, alongside the Rockefeller Foundation and the C&A Foundation, at the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) conference in Seattle, USA. Unfortunately, our CEO Craig Connelly was not able to attend in person but he did send a short video message thanking Candid for this acknowledgement.

The #OpenForGood Award is designed to recognise and encourage foundations to openly share what they learn so other philanthropic organisations and the not-for-profits they fund can all become collectively smarter. The award is part of a larger #OpenForGood campaign which started in 2017 as part of Candid's (Foundation Center) GlassPockets initiative.

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Grantee Learnings - soon available as a podcast We recently updated all our Grantee Learnings documents. The revised documents can be found in our Knowledge Centre under Grantee Learnings. However, we’ve realised these documents are lengthy and lack much of the context that really tells the story of our grantees’ learnings.

So, we’re gathering four of our NFP partners to record a panel discussion on what they’ve learned along the way about establishing a Social Enterprise.

This panel discussion will form one podcast episode in a pilot mini-series of four episodes

that we will release in November. Our hope is that these podcasts prove popular and a Subscribe Past Issues Translate series focused on philanthropy and the not-for-profit sector will develop. Our podcast partner is ThinkHQ, who are keen to hear from philanthropic foundations and NFPs about ideas for more episodes. We know the sector has much to share for the benefit of both funders and NFPs.

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Grantee news

The Ian Potter Performing Arts Centre opens

The new Ian Potter Performing Arts Centre at Monash University opened in May with an evening of performances showcasing these new state-of-the-art facilities which include the latest acoustic design and technology.

Monash University has built a significant new cultural hub not only for the University but for the wider community. In this video, Paul Grabowsky, Executive Director of the Monash Academy of Performing Arts, explains how the new venues have been designed to enhance the audience experience and will raise musical performance to a new level.

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Grantee awards

Grantee awards

Dr Dominic McAfee wins Tony Roach Prize

In August, The Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage announced Dr Dominic McAfee from the University of Adelaide as the winner of the Tony Roach Prize in Marine Environmental Science.

The prize is in memory of Dr Tony Roach and his long career and contributions to marine science in New South Wales. The prize is given to the best paper by a young scientist on any aspect of marine or estuarine environmental science, for research done in NSW. The winner receives a cash award of $1500. Dr Dominic McAfee was awarded the prize for his paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

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Taronga Institute Past Issues

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Congratulations to the Taronga Institute of Science & Learning on winning two architecture awards. The new institute won the 2019 Learning Environments Australasia Award for New Individual Facility over $8 million and the 2019 Australian Institute of Architects (NSW) Award in the category of ‘Educational Architecture’.

Christie Centre

Staff News

Welcome back Nicole and thanks to Rikki

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We’re delighted to welcome back Nicole Bortone to the role of Program Manager for the Fair – Early Childhood Development funding area. Nicole will be returning on 9 October, on a part-time basis.

The Governors and staff of the Foundation would like to thank Rikki Andrews for her contribution in managing the Education and Alec Prentice Sewell Gift grants while Nicole was on maternity leave.

We have all valued Rikki's calm and considered approach to grant

Mildura’s Christie Centre’s Aroundagain social enterprise were the proud runner up of the National Disability Services’ Supported Employment Excellence Award for 2019.

management. We looking forward to keeping in touch and working with her on future endeavours.

This a national award and a great achievement.

We produce this quarterly e-newsletter to keep our friends and associates up to date with all the news and recent grants made by The Ian Potter Foundation.

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