Dennis Altman becomes a GALFA Patron

We are thrilled to announce that Dennis Altman has accepted our invitation to become GALFA Patron. He has already supported GALFA through a generous donation to the homelessness project via the Assia Altman Fund, and has spoken at one of our Melbourne events about the importance of philanthropy by and for the LGBTI communities.

He is currently Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Human Security at LaTrobe University in Melbourne, and remains very active as an author and commentator on politics, gay rights and global HIV AIDS issues amongst many other topics. He was listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever in 2006, and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008.

New funding priorities for 2017-2019

Homelessness; Disability; Children, Young people and Families

The GALFA Directors met in Melbourne for our annual planning day in July, ably facilitated by volunteer Peter Runacres. Ron Thiele and Brenton Geyer, members of the GALFA marketing committee, also attended.

We unanimously agreed on updated funding priority areas for 2017-19 and developed the following matrix:

• LGBTI specific outcome areas
  • High priority: Homelessness; Disability; Children, young people and families
  • Medium priority: Healthy ageing; Mental health including suicide prevention; Prison / post incarceration; Refugees; Alcohol and other drugs
• Focus points within the outcome areas
  • Isolation-rural, regional, remote; Multiple marginality including ATSI, multicultural; Community capacity building; Cultural engagement & development; Evidence building; and, Services & inclusive practice.

Using principles of social change philanthropy, we will develop these outcome areas in diverse ways including grant rounds, commissioned projects and direct donations.

GALFA the funding partner for St Kilda-Swans AFL Pride Match

The first AFL match dedicated to the LGBTI community was held at Etihad Stadium on 13 August 2016. GALFA was very pleased to have been selected as the funding partner by the St Kilda Football Club. A raffle at the pre-match dinner raised $1,106, and the post-match sale of the rainbow footy guernseys raised another $10,000. This money will go to GALFAs disability funding priority area.

This was a cultural change event, with a huge amount of work done by both clubs in the weeks before the match to develop positive attitudes towards LGBTI people within player and staff groups.

Jason Ball recently said that many LGBTI people reported attending the match – either being their first ever AFL match or the first for many years, and feeling comfortable to be themselves.

Announcing our new Small Grants Program

GALFA will launch our Small Grants program in 2017 with a call out for 4 x $500 grants in February, and then another 4 x $500 grants available at any time during the rest of the year. This program aims to support LGBTIQ individuals or communities who would otherwise be limited by the constraints of other funding programs. It is intended to benefit LGBTIQ people and promote positive social outcomes and mental health in the community through enhancing community participation, skills or connectedness.

The Channel becomes the first GALFA sub-fund

Georgia Mathews

The Channel is a giving circle specifically for LGBTIQA causes. It is designed to encourage individuals to donate small amounts to a pooled fund, and then together to decide on a specific community program to donate to. The Channel was established by Georgia Mathews and launched in 2016. Initially Ian Gould and Ruth McNair met with Georgia to share our networks and knowledge, however it became clear that there was a natural fit with GALFA. After considerable consultation with John Emerson, retired lawyer at Freehills; Trudy Wyse at the Australian Communities Foundation; and others in the field, we agreed that The Channel could become a sub-fund of GALFA. In this way, The Channel has access to a ready-made charitable DGR structure, and GALFA benefits from the injection of youthful enthusiasm and ideas. See www.the-channel.org

LGBTI Disability area update

Two projects have been approved:

1. Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria has been commissioned to commence the LGBTIQ disability evidence building project. This work will include a literature review and secondary analysis of Private Lives 2 and the Rainbow Women’s help seeking Project.
2. Arts Access Victoria has agreed to support the Development of a business plan for a web based social media platform for LGBTI people living with disability.

GALFA is now facilitating the establishment of a LGBTIQ disability Alliance to further advance this important work. The Broadtree Foundation has agreed to provide a further $15,000 over three years, and other funding is being sought.

Welcome to new Board member Fiona Wilkie

Fiona is our newest Board member. She is based in Sydney, although is currently working in Melbourne on a secondment. She is an accountant and business controller with Orange Business Services. She has experience as a Senior Tax consultant (Price Waterhouse); operations and finance manager in a group of 4 nursing homes (Wilkie Resources Pty Ltd), set up and operations management with a start-up IT company in Boulder, USA & Sydney (Platypus Partners) and in business advisory management in Sydney (William Buck). Fiona is a current volunteer and director of Paws and Recover, a fundraiser for the Smith Family through long distance swimming (20km Solo Rottnest Channel 2015), and a volunteer to the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service (Sydney).

Fiona has kindly agreed to become GALFA treasurer, allowing Ian Gould to take up other roles including evaluating the impact of our funded projects.

LGBTI Homelessness project update

Anna Wark (Launch), Brenda Appleton (TGV), Chris Weston (Community Sector Banking), Ian Gould (GALFA), Cal Andrews (Uni Melb), Sally Goldner (TGV) Front – Kate Foord (Drummond Street Services), Ruth McNair

The GALFA LGBTI homelessness project has completed the homelessness services interviews and secondary data analysis of Journeys Home, and is now in the midst of interviews with LGBTI people who have experienced homelessness. We have received a $20,000 grant from Community Sector Banking to develop and pilot a trans model of care within homelessness services. This exciting project is a collaboration between Melbourne University, Launch Housing, Transgender Victoria and Drummond Street Services, led by Ruth McNair and Cal Andrews. A trans community advisory group has met for the first time to inform the model of care. We are now working on a project website to be housed with the National LGBTI Health Alliance website.
twitter.com/GALFAhomeless

Myer-GALFA grant round 1 for 2017 call for expressions of interest

This new grant round will focus on improving the wellbeing of LGBTI people living with a disability. We encourage projects that are collaborations between disability advocacy and LGBTI groups. The projects should aim to assist LGBTI people living with a disability in any of the following areas:

• Reducing isolation
• Recognising multiple identities including ATSI or multicultural
• Building community capacity
• Enhancing cultural engagement and development
• Building evidence
• Improving LGBTI inclusive practice in services.

Applicants should focus on projects over a 1-2 year period that enable community development; education initiatives; applied, community-led research with tangible outcomes in the field; or events or conferences.

Applicants must submit an expression of interest by email to GALFA using the appropriate form by 5pm Monday 27th February 2017. See the GALFA website for the application form. www.galfa.org.au/funding/current-grant-round

Sydney GALFA Launch Friday 17 February 2017

We will be launching GALFA in Sydney to inform local LGBTI people and allies about our work and encourage new donors. This will be in an informal gallery space, with local gay artists’ work featured. More details to follow.

Thank you for your donations

Thank you to our generous donors that have contributed this year. It’s easy to donate to GALFA either on line via our web site, or by setting up a regular monthly contribution. Donations over $2 are tax deductable.

Donations either once off or monthly can be made via our website - go to www.galfa.org.au and hit the Donations button.