From the CEO
Making a meaningful contribution
Like everyone in our community right now, we have been grappling with the challenges presented by bushfire and then the global pandemic, and how we can make a meaningful contribution to something so all-encompassing.
The Ross Trust Trustees have kept a strong focus throughout these last few months, both on how to stay true to our values and strategy, whilst also responding to the immediate issues at hand.
We’ve made several important commitments:
- We will continue granting in our two dedicated funding priorities – educational equity and biodiversity conservation
- funds have also been dedicated to bushfire and COVID-19 response and where possible will also align with the funding priorities
- We will look at both immediate and long-term needs in communities most affected by these crises
- We will continue to grant in 2020-21.
I’m very proud that the team has been able to respond quickly to requests like providing immediate funds which assist school children gain access to the internet, when they didn’t have any way to connect with school remotely. These create real and direct impacts for Victorian communities. Read more in the stories below.
We’ve recently completed a review of our new strategy to see how we are tracking against the plan. Having always maintained a strong commitment to the flora and fauna of the state, it’s interesting to see how making a clearer declaration of that commitment and developing a theory of change for biodiversity conservation, has helped us strongly increase our grant funding in that area. Already this financial year over $1.5 million has been allocated to biodiversity conservation grants; more than the total awarded for flora and fauna grants for the last five years of the prior grant program.
We will have some more big announcements soon as we work with our stakeholders to identify the most pressing needs.
In the meantime, read about some of our recently funded projects and please continue to stay safe and well.
Sarah Hardy
CEO, the Ross Trust
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