Deadline: 30 August 2019

nib foundation has launched a new Health Smart Grants program to support registered Australian charities that specialise in health promotion and primary prevention, and have a track record of engaging and empowering people to be Health Smart in their everyday lives.

Preference will be given to initiatives that are inclusive and relevant for youthand young adult audiences. The foundation believes supporting people to make good decisions will positively impact their health and wellbeing, and reduce modifiable health risks in their lives. Therefore, successful projects will draw on a strong evidence base to build health literacy, helping people to access, understand and use health information.

Funding Information

A funding pool of $320,000 will be distributed to six successful grant recipients who will each receive $40,000 in grant funding. A ‘Peoples Vote’ will also be held during the grant period, where two of the six grantees will receive an additional $40,000 in funding as voted by nib members and the wider public.

Funding Priorities

• Preventive health initiatives play an important role in equipping Australians with the tools they need to stay well. However, only 41% of Australian adults have the health literacy levels needed to make positive and informed health choices.
• Health Smart Grants fund the delivery of health promotion and primary prevention initiatives which work to improve health literacy, and help people develop the understanding and skills they need to adopt healthy behaviours.
• Far too many people in Australia die prematurely or live for many years with suboptimal health related to prevalent chronic illnesses. These chronic diseases often share the same and multiple risk factors.
• As such, the priority prevention areas target risk factors that are modifiable and have the potential to prevent ill health including:
  • Healthy habits – reducing smoking and harmful drinking, gambling, gaming, or screen-time
  • Wellbeing – maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle through physical activity and healthy diet
  • Mental health – raising awareness and promoting the value of self-care, healthy relationships, peer support and social connections
  • Sleep – promoting the importance of sleep as a protective health factor and helping people establish good sleep habits
  • Maintaining health – pre-emptively managing prevalent health conditions and risks
• They are interested in initiatives that satisfy one or more of the following:
  • Facilitate access to quality, reliable, current and targeted health information
  • Are informed by evidence to achieve health promoting behaviour change
  • Utilise effective and emerging digital health promotion techniques
  • Translate new evidence into practice in a way that is practical, scalable and sustainable
  • Operate within a strengths-based philosophy to empower and encourage good health
  • Improve the environment, culture, awareness or attitude surrounding a risk factor or health condition

Eligibility Criteria

• Health Smart Grants are delivered through nib foundation’s Private Ancillary Fund which means that to be eligible applicants organisation must be:
  • Endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) Item 1 by the ATO, and;
  • Endorsed as a Tax Concession Charity (TCC) by the ATO (or be a tax exempt entity).
• The Australian Government’s Australian Business Register has an online lookup function that enables applicants to search their organisation’s name or ABN and check whether it is endorsed as a DGR Item 1 and TCC.

Grant Outcomes

Successful partners will achieve health-related participant outcomes in the short-term, with the aim of building health literacy which results in healthy choices and behaviours longer term. The more immediate, tangible and measurable outcomes this grant program wishes to achieve are:

• Health knowledge – increasing knowledge and information of risks, protective behaviours, and navigating the health system
• Skills – developing practical skills which enable health promoting behaviour or effective responses to health challenges
• Attitudes and beliefs – Improving confidence, belief, motivation and self-agency to address health challenges and maintain good health
• Connection – Increasing access to the information, people and tools which enable/promote better health, or being connected to environments that encourage better health behaviours
• Symptom/risk reduction – tangible improvements in health and wellbeing for targeted risks, illnesses and conditions

How to Apply

Interested applicants can apply online via the given website.

For more information, please visit http://www.nibfoundation.com.au/Funding/Health-Smart-Grants.aspx