Australia grants expressions of interest (EOIs)

The minimum requirement is that an organisation is a registered charity on the ACNC register, has Australian Taxation Office Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR1) endorsement and is covered by Item 1 of the table in section 30-15 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997.

Additionally, we are also willing to consider organisations that are partnering with a registered non-profit with Deductible Gift Recipient Item 1 status (the “contracted entity”). This organisation would be responsible for the financial receipt and/or management of the grant.

N.B. In relation to individual work integrated social enterprises (WISEs), or other individual social enterprises aligned to our grantmaking framework, we are limiting eligibility to those are acting as intermediaries or field builders in the WISE space for young people. This is because the Macquarie Group Foundation is separately funding individual WISEs through our membership of the Work Integrated Social Enterprise (WISE)  Collaborative Funders Group. The main essential difference between non-profits and social enterprises is that non-profits rely on public funding through donations. Social enterprises are businesses; they generate their own profit to keep themselves running.

We are only able to consider applications from organisations that have DGR1 status at the time of EOI submission. As noted above, we will consider EOIs from organisations that are being (or will be at the time of EOI) auspiced by DGR1 organisations.

Applying organisations must confirm they align with our grantmaking framework. Within that, the following types of organisations are excluded: 

• houses of worship or strictly religious organisations

• educational institutions (other than universities)

• political organisations 

• professional associations

• sporting groups (except via Macquarie Sports grants)

• organisations funding military activities

• media outlets  

• private and corporate foundations

Additionally, we are not accepting EOIs from individual work integrated social enterprises (WISEs), or other individual social enterprises aligned to our grantmaking framework, unless they are acting as intermediaries or field builders in the WISE space for young people. The Macquarie Group Foundation separately funds individual WISEs through our membership of the Work Integrated Social Enterprise (WISE)  Collaborative Funders Group. 

We will preference EOIs from organisations who can clearly demonstrate a greater focus on young people (15-24 years) via their stated mission, vision, strategy and programs (alongside clear alignment to our grantmaking framework).

We have approximately $A2.2 million for allocation by the end of March 2026.

We expect to support up to eight organisations through this funding, with individual grant amounts ranging between $A250,000 - $A500,000. Our preference is for fewer larger grants versus multiple smaller grants.

All approved grant applicants will then have an equivalent amount pledged for FY27 and potentially FY28 also.

We will not ask you to specify an amount in the EOI. Instead, we will assess the request for funding against other requests to determine the approximate grant amount we are able to provide in the context of our overall grant portfolio.

Yes.

There are no other EOIs confirmed at this stage.

EOIs will be assessed by several reviewers from the Macquarie Group grantmaking team against a consistent reviewing methodology to reduce bias.

We will preference EOIs from organisations that best align with our grantmaking framework. For those organisations that do align well, a consideration will be whether the organisations are reflective of the identities and lived experience of the community they are trying to serve.

No. We will only consider one EOI per organisation.

Please add noreply@system.versaic.com to your safe sender list to ensure you receive communication from our team regarding the outcome of your EOI.

Yes, you are encouraged to regularly save your EOI responses prior to submission. Please note, the period of inactivity before you are timed out is 20 minutes, so please save your form regularly. Once you click the ‘submit’ button you will not be able to make any further changes.

Yes, you can view the questions you will be asked during the EOI process here. 

We will only consider EOIs submitted via our grant management platform Versaic and these need to be submitted by the deadline. 

The EOI is a two-page form which has been designed to capture the minimum amount of information required for the Macquarie Group grantmaking team to assess alignment with our grantmaking framework. To continue to improve and refine our approach, we encourage you to share your feedback on the EOI process via the comments box at the end of the EOI form.