Currently 3 active cross-disciplinary and social impact grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in Australia. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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Canon Oceania's annual Grants Program, marking 20 years, supports schools, not-for-profits and community groups across Australia and New Zealand to tell their stories, reach wider audiences and deliver lasting results. CATEGORIES: Education, Community, Environment, and First Nations/Cultural. AWARD: each recipient receives 5,000 in local currency, split as 2,500 cash and 2,500 in Canon product; more than 50,000 awarded across the region. PROCESS: applications close 11:59pm AEST/NZT Sunday 14 June 2026; the wider community votes on finalists in July, and winners are announced in August. APPLY (Australia): https://www.canon.com.au/about-canon/community/grants ; APPLY (New Zealand): https://www.canon.co.nz/about-canon/community/grants .
Protostars is a micro-grant program for young people with passion projects: Blackbird gives people under 25 in Australia and New Zealand AUD 1,000 to work on strange, quirky, ambitious and audacious passion projects. A passion project can be anything, from metaverse art exhibitions, battle bots, space drones, theatre shows, films and opera podcasts to a travelling STEM roadshow or an app. The grant comes with a program and community: recipients join a cohort for 8 weeks of weekly catch-ups, learning from each other and special guests, building in public, and virtual or in-person coworking sessions, plus an in-person dinner and an end-of-program showcase, and ongoing access to the wider Protostars community (funding, networking and social opportunities). ELIGIBILITY: aged 18-25, based in Australia or New Zealand, and have a passion project. Protostars runs in seasonal cohorts. Deadline: 21 June 2026.
Believers funds the people, projects and programs creating the conditions for young people's creativity to flourish at scale. Creativity is meant in the broadest sense: artists are creative, but so are scientists, debaters, community builders and dancers, and a project can be anything from a summer camp to a robotics competition to a co-working holiday house for artists. Blackbird looks for inventive, dynamic experiments that encourage young people to be curious, to explore, to be lifelong learners, and to build community and become high-agency people, backing projects that are 0-1 (just starting) or 1-10 (scaling or iterating) rather than established groups. Examples: a neighbourhood community science lab, a hacker house, a hardware garage makerspace, a travelling STEM roadshow, or an after-school arts or coding club. ELIGIBILITY (no flexibility): individuals, groups or organisations established in Australia and/or New Zealand; projects taking place in AU/NZ; projects completed within 12 months; projects whose core focus is primarily creative outcomes; and organisations with less than AUD 1.5M in revenue. WHEN TO APPLY: Believers is open year-round, with EOIs and applications reviewed and progressed on a rolling basis; the program closes when all funds are disbursed or at the end of the FY27 period (30 June 2027), whichever comes first. Expressions of interest for Believers Fund III open on 30 June 2026.