No Interest Loan Scheme Report

Tracey Peace

NILS delivered in partnership with Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand. Demand for NILS loans during the 2021-2022 FY increased over the previous financial year.

4 Baby items

No Interest Loan Scheme redesigned to meet changes needs of community:

Community Gro has been partnering with Good Shepherd to deliver NILS since 2012. During this time we have supported many hundreds of individuals and families to access the program. During 2021 partner organisations, community networks, and clients were given the opportunity to provide feedback to Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand (GSANZ) on the NILS program, with a particular focus on how the program could be enhanced to reduce barriers experience by clients and to meet the diverse needs of our community. In response to the feedback, GSANZ announced a redesign of the NILS program to be rolled out from July 2022. The aim of redesigned NILS program is to help to improve client experience and a focus on making the program more easily accessible, flexible and realistic as possible to meet community needs.

Summary of changes to the NILS program:

• Increased loan amount (up to $3,000)

• Increased repayment term

• Expanded loan purposes

• Increased income threshold for eligibility

• Changes to required documentation to help remove barriers for applicants

• Streamlined policy/process for repeat borrowers and top-up loans

• Additional loan products/policy – NILS for DV, NILS for Cars and NILS Natural Disaster policy

Building financial literacy through the Financial Resilience program (Queensland)

In December 2021 the Queensland Government announced $4 million in funding for a pilot program to provide an additional 20 financial resilience workers across Queensland, through a joint initiative with Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand.

Good Shepherd will partner with neighbourhood and community centres at selected sites throughout Queensland to deliver the financial resilience project. In June 2022 it was announced that Community Gro had been selected as one of the participating partners. Community GRO will work closely with GSANZ over the next 18 months to deliver the Financial Resilience Program. It is hoped that the outcomes of the pilot program will evidence the need for the program to continue to be delivered beyond the pilot program.

The free program will support individuals and families who are experiencing financial challenges to increase their skills and capacity that will lead to long term financial wellbeing and success and reducing their risk of falling prey to predatory lending and other unscrupulous practices.

The benefit of delivering a financial resilience project through neighbourhood and community centres is financial resilience workers are guided by strong local knowledge and connections to other local support services.

These are the summarised financial statements for the year 2020-2021. Copies of the complete financial audited statements are available.