New directions for trust funding: Strengthening families and communities

Some leading philanthropic trusts and foundations in Australia, like those in North America, are increasingly interested in moving away from a reactive funding model in which they merely respond to requests for funding to a more proactive model in which they develop, in collaboration with those in the field, the broad parameters of innovative programs they wish to support, and then invite agencies to make expressions of interest in relation to these program dimensions.

Selected programs need to be committed to evaluation and prepared to help disseminate their innovations and experiences to the field. It is this last step, from innovation to dissemination, which has often not been taken in the past, resulting in lost opportunities for valuable and cutting edge pilot projects to make an impact on practice and policy.