NSW Wildlife Heroes – Flood Emergency Grants Guidelines

The Wildlife Heroes – NSW Flood Emergency 2022 Grant program is managed by the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife with funding from the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust.

The overall purpose of this grant program is to support wildlife rehabilitation groups and the community to assist in the rescue and rehabilitation of injured wildlife in emergency events and support volunteer wildlife rehabilitation groups in emergency response activities.

The program aims to achieve the following outputs:

– Decrease cost of emergency response to individual carers

– Increase number of wildlife that can be rescued and cared for during an emergency

– Enable wildlife groups to buy appropriate equipment and PPE for emergency response

– Enable replacement of small assets lost in storm or flood event

Overview

Applications open April 2022 and close 5.00pm 15^th May 2022. All times are in AEST.

Applicants will be notified of the outcome within 2 weeks of their application being submitted.

APPLY NOW

Who is eligible?

Applicants will be eligible to submit an application and be assessed to receive funding if they are:

Licenced wildlife volunteer groups
Have the normal operations of their group within one or more of the LGA’s designated as flood impacted by the NSW government as of February 2022
Have experience in wildlife emergency response operations or are equipped to do so in future

Applicants will not be eligible for funding if they are:

Based outside of NSW
An individual member of a wildlife group
An independent wildlife licence holder
Have more than $1 million in current assets as listed in their last ACNC report.

Funds Available

The total amount of funds available for allocation under this grant program is $100,000.

In this program the maximum grant available is $10,000 per application, with one application only per organisation.

Please note: Funding above this level may be provided in special circumstances upon discussion with FNPW and NPWS.

At the end of the grant, the Grantee must return to FNPW any part of the Grant which has not been spent or committed for the response. The Grantee will return the monies within 30 days of receiving a valid tax invoice from FNPW. Spending will be subject to audit and where necessary, retrieval of funds by FNPW.

Eligible items

Grants will cover materials and activities that are carried out during a specific emergency event only. All funds should be spent within three months of receiving them.

Funding may include reimbursement for items purchased after February 22^nd 2022 to support emergency response.

Eligible items the grant can pay for:

– fuel vouchers for volunteers working on emergency operations

– cages, tents, tables and other equipment

– animal food and formula

– feeding bottles, teats, syringes, needles, wipes

– wraps and pouches

– rehydration fluid and other first aid medication

– veterinary costs

– first aid kit materials

– PPE and safety equipment for volunteers including hats, sunscreen, fluoro vests, torches

– water and food for volunteer refreshments

– hiring fees for local hall or room to be used as a wildlife emergency operation centre

– whitegoods replaced due to flood or storm damage

– other small speciality assets to support wildlife emergency response (under $3500 per item)

Ineligible expenses for this grant:

– stipends or personal payments for time worked

– administration costs

– any costs incurred as part of business as usual e.g. hotline expenses, normal office materials

– any costs not incurred as a result of, or in preparation for the designated emergency

– any item not on the eligible expenses list

Essential criteria

All applications must comply with essential criteria. Applications that do not confirm the following for their organisation will not be accepted:

The applicant is within an LGA listed as ﬂood impacted by the NSW
Group has less than $1 million in current assets as listed in their current ACNC report
Applicant is a registered wildlife group in NSW
Have a current ABN and associated bank account
Have no outstanding grant reporting requirements with Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife (FNPW) or National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), or money owing to either organisation

Have endorsement from the organisations chair or treasurer

Assessment criteria

During the assessment process, the following assessment criteria will be scored:

The organisation has the ability to respond to the nature and scale of the current emergency
The organisations skills are relevant to the impact of the emergency on wildlife
Has the group had experience in this type of emergency response or is prepared for emergency response
A predicted increase in capacity to treat wildlife, and benefits to wildlife admitted to the organisation are clearly justified
Overall quality of the application

Priority will be given to:

Groups that have not received emergency funding from another source
Groups requiring specialist equipment to provide clean water supply for rescued marine wildlife will be given priority in this grant round.
Groups known to support high numbers of wombat rescues will be given priority to support repairing wombat burrows.

Reporting requirements

Successful grantees will be required to meet the following Milestone dates:

Milestone 1: Signing and upload of contract: by May 30, 2022

Milestone 2: Submission of a final report including financial report and story on Wildlife Heroes website promoting the project and acknowledging the Foundation: by November 30, 2022

No extensions will be granted.

The information provided in the final report will be shareable with the general public, media, government and potential funders, to maintain awareness of the need for and benefits of supporting wildlife emergencies.

Grant administration and record keeping

The Wildlife Heroes – NSW Flood Emergency Grant 2022 program will be administered using the online SmartyGrants grant management program. Applications must be made via SmartyGrants.

The following documents will also be stored by SmartyGrants:

Financial invoices, contracts and acquittal forms
Contact details of organisations and grantees
Additional documentation required for application assessment and reporting

Application process

Applications will only be accepted via the online applications portal, Smarty Grants.

SAMPLE APPLICATION FORM