The QBE Foundation has opened applications for this year’s local grants program, offering $360,000 for charity and community organisations working to build climate resilience and inclusion opportunities.  

QBE says it will offer nine grants of $40,000 each to winning organisations across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific to help support areas of need.   

The winners will be selected by a committee of QBE Foundation members and experts assessing the validity, impact, innovation and need for the grants to enhance the applicant’s work.   

“At QBE, addressing climate resilience and inclusion are integral to our purpose of enabling a more resilient future, so being able to support community organisations that align with our core values is tremendous,” QBE Foundation Co-Chair Jon Fox said.  

“We’ve seen great positive impacts from past grant recipients and look forward to contributing towards further change through this year’s program.”  

Global women’s rights organisation ActionAid was among the nine grant recipients last year with their selected program to help offer women in Vanuatu access to a two-day training workshop to share knowledge about the effects of climate change and build leadership skills to tackle the issue.   

ActionAid Australia CEO Michelle Higelin says the workshop offered an opportunity to “create roadmaps for implementing disaster preparedness plans in their communities and replicate the training with more women in the community”.   

She praised the efforts of the QBE Foundation to support ventures for underprivileged groups, saying that the leadership workshop “wouldn’t have been possible without this grant”.  

Applications for the program close on September 29.  

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