Financial Support
Community gardens cost money to construct and to maintain. The amount required varies dramatically across gardens according to their size, scale of activities and the skill base and volunteer time of their members.
Financial sustainability is critical to maintaining a vibrant and viable community garden. The best way that you can ensure your garden has sufficient income to cover your costs is to develop diverse funding streams to support the garden, including:
- Memberships
- Donations
- Grants
- Partnerships (with Local Councils, government agencies, community organisations and businesses)
- Earned Income
- Special Events
By not relying on one or two sources of income, you are more likely to be able to achieve financial self-sufficiency. For tips to assist you in successfully funding your community garden, check out Funding Your Community Garden.
Grants Available for Community Gardens in WA
The diverse range of activities and potential benefits on offer in community gardens, means that gardens potentially 'fit' into many grant categories - from waterwise gardening to positive ageing, waste management to unemployment training, tackling obesity to community art. This can be both a blessing and a challenge for your garden; it means you will need to spend some time identifying which grant opportunities might be relevant to community gardening, as well as weighing up the potential benefits of different grants versus the 'costs' in terms of time and energy associated with applying for them.
To give you a taste of the diversity of grants you could apply for, here is a selection of those that community gardens in WA have been successful in obtaining in recent years:
Local Councils
- City of Swan - Swan Community Funding Scheme (Collaborative Grant)
- City of Subiaco - Community Development Grants
State Government
- Lotterywest - Project Grants and other categories
- Department of Environment - Community Grants Scheme (waste-related projects)
- South West Development Commission - Regional Development Schemes and Royalties for Regions
Federal Government
- Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) - Investing in Community Education and Training (ICET)
- Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs - Volunteers Grants Program
Community Organisations
- Australian Open Garden Scheme - Community Gardens Grants
- Community Arts Network WA (CAN WA) - Catalyst Community Arts Fund (Create category)
- Council on the Ageing WA (COTA) in partnership with Lotterywest and Department of Communities - Seniors Week Community Grants Program
Philanthropic Organisations
- Ian Potter Foundation
The WA Department of Local Government produces a useful online directory of grants for communities and local governments in regional and metropolitan WA. Our Community's monthly EasyGrants e-newlsetter is another good source of up-to-date information on current grant opportunities. For a low annual subscription fee, you can have someone else do the work of finding out what grants are available to WA gardens. For more information on EasyGrants, visit the Our Community website.
