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Educational equity

Are you eligible?

Educational Equity grants currently are by invitation only.

Granting guidelines

 Desired Change: Young people in Victoria have equitable access to educational opportunities so they complete secondary school

The Ross Trust recognises the challenges to achieving educational equity and enabling young people to complete secondary schooling are particularly complex and multi-faceted. To contribute to addressing this issue, the Trust is working towards a desired change to support the improvement of educational outcomes for vulnerable students which engage and partner with students, not only in the classroom, but in the home and community. This desired change will assist with guiding the Trust’s work and those seeking funding, to target and focus our work together, towards common outcomes. 

Our Educational Equity funding priority is focused on improving educational attainment of Victorian children. It is informed by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4, knowledge from our grantees, published research and sector expertise.

Smart Grants are one of the ways the Ross Trust will fund organisations working to make a difference in achieving educational equity.

We welcome applications from organisations which seek to move one of the following levers of change:

  • Increase early learning participation – support engagement in early learning (ages 0-5) and improve readiness to commence primary school.
  • Support at education transition points – support students, schools and communities to reduce educational disengagement at critical transition point.
  • Strengthen school and community connections – enhance school effectiveness and capability to establish and maintain engagement.

The grant guidelines and theory of change, which are downloadable from the top of this page, provide a thorough explanation of the targeted cohorts and funding priorities which are particularly applicable to Ross Trust grants for educational equity.

Read through the exclusions and hints and tips before you start an application and you may want to download the sample application form and indicator dictionary to help guide you.