What is Fire to Flourish's approach to participatory grantmaking?

Participatory grantmaking is central to our approach. It vests decision-making power about community funding in community members with local knowledge and deep understanding of their disaster recovery needs and resilience priorities.

Participatory grantmaking encourages wide community engagement, participation and empowerment, including among groups that have had little access to funding from other sources. It gives the community the power to set project eligibility and selection criteria, and ultimately decide which projects are funded.

“It’s really good to be part of something where the focus was on us as community members instead of just people standing in the room dictating and giving information that may not be as relevant to us.” Community Staff Member, Eurobodalla

Participatory processes are designed from end-to-end, with focus on supporting the long-term uplift in the disaster resilience of communities through shared understanding, strengthened connections and increased agency.

Grant round designs and funding allocation decisions are informed by workshops that bring a group of community members together to develop a shared vision and priorities for disaster resilience.

These processes are tailored across different grant rounds, with each community planning and designing their own journey for strengthening resilience. While some rounds have been broadly framed around disaster resilience, others have been more focused. For example, shaping built environment priorities through placemaking methods, engaging deeply with Caring for Country themes through Indigenous-led co-design, and addressing priorities that emerged from community reflections and lessons following a disaster event.

In 2024 alone, through our participatory grantmaking processes, we supported eight rounds of funding in our four partner communities, resulting in 83 community projects and $4.9 million disbursed.

“It’s been really beautiful to watch the kind of thinking that comes from getting to the root of the problem, through the different participatory activities. It just helps people to think a bit in those different ways.” Community Staff Member, East Gippsland