Discovery Grants
Our Discovery Grants are in their fourth iteration and remain one of our primary accessible grant opportunities, as we continue to hear that there are very few funding opportunities that:
Surface community insights into what person-centred, strengths-based approaches look and feel like
Invest in preventative approaches for mental health
Provide the opportunity for learning, developing and adapting rather than delivery of outcomes
We know that these are critical components to surfacing community and living expertise into how we understand wellbeing, what keeps it strong, and building the collective capabilities and conditions to support this.
Application Process
We aim to make our application processes person-centred and meet people where they are at. This means doing the work on our end to share information in different ways, take time with people in building understanding, and creating an application process that is flexible and supports creativity in how people apply. It also means being as upfront and transparent about our intentions as we can so that people can choose if this feels like a valuable opportunity for them to invest their time, expertise and passion in.
We had over 45 individual conversations, 60 unique registrations to our online information session, which was then accessible as an online video resource, and additional phone and email enquiries for application support.
Of our individual conversations, 50% proceeded to an EOI, and 35% of those who registered for our information session applied – many of which we did not have additional support conversations with.
During our conversations, many people fed back that our process was refreshing and that they appreciated the level of clarity, flexibility and support that we provided. However, equally, we understand that sometimes too many resources makes it overwhelming, and that although the unique intention of Discovery, and application process is appreciated, it can be challenging because it is so different to what people have become accustomed to. We take this into consideration and in future, will try to make the supporting information more evident, highlighting what the essential guidance is.
Alongside approaches to discovering something new about prevention and the conditions for wellbeing, we also heard about many, many community approaches that are already developed or running and just need funding to operate and provide community outcomes. We are committed within our newly released strategy, to dedicate more of our time to growing the funding pathways that support community determined or led preventative approaches.
Insights into the EOIs received...
Themes
Across the 76 applications, there were some consistent themes or opportunities expressed. These included:
The importance of working with young people to understand, strengthen and co-create the conditions that build a sense of belonging
A need to invest in building out the evidence and developing practice models for what engages, sustains, and supports men’s peer support models
The importance of pairing primary health care experiences and holistic, person-centred wellbeing supports
The power of intergenerational connection, cultural practices and experiences
Shifts in community services incorporating community conditions, context and connections into their models and offerings
Location
Over half of the EOIs received were for work with communities in the Greater Adelaide area, while a significant portion (34%) of submissions represented work across South Australia, encompassing both regional and metropolitan areas.
Community Group
As part of the Expression of Interest process, we asked applicants to share with us who their community group was in their own words. We have synthesised these responses for the purposes of this chart, and hope that this provides a sense of the types of community groups applying and the ways in which people came together. We recognise, however, that people and communities are multi-layered and that many applicants used a variety of ways to describe their community groups.
Some of the nuances not captured in the graph include:
The range of lived experiences that brought communities together, such as different health conditions or significant life events
The intersections within groups – for example, almost 30% of the applications had a focus on young people in addition to the experience described.
Sector
Applications came from a range of organisational sectors, which reflected the intersectional nature of the conditions and determinants that contribute to mental health and wellbeing. This chart provides a synthesis of the sectors represented in the EOIs, however, we recognise that in many cases the organisation, community or individual applying sat across more than one sector.
Types of responses
To provide an insight into the different ways applicants hoped to use the Discovery Grant, we have synthesised the responses here. We recognise that this summary does not capture that many of the submissions presented multi-pronged approaches to their ideas. For example, an EOI with a focus on ‘Creating new resources and ways of supporting people’ might also have had an intention to build community capability or develop a technological support. Nevertheless, we hope that this synthesis gives a sense of the primary intention behind the ideas shared with us.
Feedback
This graph shares the different ways applicants learnt about Discovery Grants. It was particularly interesting to note that almost 40% of applicants heard about this opportunity by word of mouth.
Shortlisted Applicants to Full Application
We have invited six expressions of interest to submit a full application, alongside three 2025 Spark partners who have elected to apply using their community learnings and ideas.
All applicants shared a deep connection and relationship with community, an idea that is contextual and looks to shift our knowledge and the conditions that contribute to wellbeing, and a shared value of community expertise, agency and possibility. The community groups, ideas, and approaches are diverse across the nine, as they were across all the expressions of interest we received.
Insights into the shortlist:
3 of the 9 would occur in a regional context
Each application represents a different community group, many with an intergenerational or relational view on how connections co-create wellbeing
The organisational sectors represented are community services (3), community organisations (3), advocacy (1) and peak organisations (2) partnering with community
Half of the proposed ideas are around surfacing new insights and understandings, and the other are focused on creating new resources and ways of supporting people
We look forward to sharing our new Discovery partners with you in September, and updates to our future funding opportunities over the coming months.
Interested in learning more?