On August 5th, 549 cafes, 42 coffee roasters and sponsors, and thousands of coffee drinkers took part in CafeSmart 2016 and helped raise $160,523 to fund local grassroots homeless projects. For every coffee sold, cafes donated $1, coffee roasters supplied beans and customers chipped in. An amazing effort and a record year.
100% of these funds have now been combined with substantial funds raised through our new StreetSmart Collective initiative and other one off gifts for a total of $223,000 distributed to support 118 community grants.
These grants support people who are homeless or at risk in communities where cafes have raised the funds. We fund the wish lists of the organisations we support, we fund the programs that they just can’t find funding for and we fund the essentials that really make a difference.
The StreetSmart Collective is an exciting new initiative which sees StreetSmart collaborating with other funders (Philanthropists, Trust, Foundations and Corporates) to match our grants and scale our impact for these smaller organisations and the community. Working with the team at the Australian Communities Foundation a further $51,500 was raised from The Paterson Family Fund, the Johnstone Gumption Fund, the Ballandry (Peter Griffin Family) Fund, the BB & A Miller Fund and The Pomegranate Fund.
StreetSmart Australia CEO Adam Robinson said “CafeSmart brings together close to 600 small businesses across Australia to take action against homelessness during National Homeless Prevention Week. The event not only raised vital funds but also created great awareness around the issue of homelessness and what people can do to help in their local communities. It is also hugely encouraging to be working with like-minded people, and now other funders, who see the value in supporting the work that smaller organisations do on the front line, day in day out.”
StreetSmart grants go to support projects local to the cafes who participated, funding a wide variety of responses to homelessness including Pets in the Park to run outreach clinics, Coast Shelter to refurbish a shower and laundry, Sherwood Neighbourhood Centre to provide hygiene packs, Hobart City Mission to support homeless young mums, Merri Outreach to provide intensive support for young children and My Friends Place Womens Refuge to build storage for women’s belongings.
This round of Community Grants has seen 118 such projects funded and of those 28 were first time recipients. This grants round also saw the nomination of 14 Lead Projects which received larger grants and were put forward for matching.
| State | No. of Grants | Grant Amount |
|---|---|---|
| VIC | 46 | $ 121,200.00 |
| NSW | 32 | $ 53,250.00 |
| QLD | 15 | $ 17,750.00 |
| WA | 13 | $ 17,100.00 |
| SA | 6 | $ 5,350.00 |
| TAS | 2 | $ 3,850.00 |
| ACT | 3 | $ 3,000.00 |
| NT | 1 | $ 1,500.00 |
| TOTAL | 118 | $ 223,000.00 |
On hearing the news of a successful grant application and matched funds Lucy Adams, Manager and Principal Lawyer at Homeless Law, told us…
“Access to brokerage – small amounts of money that can be used to help people catch up with rent or pay other small expenses – can be the difference between eviction and keeping a roof over our clients’ heads.
Last year we prevented 111 people being evicted into homelessness, but even with the best legal representation, we wouldn’t be able to prevent some of these evictions without having small lump sums to chip in to get negotiations started. Sometimes this money is for a week’s rent, sometimes it’s to help clean up the property, sometimes it’s to help someone move their belongings so they don’t get taken to the tip when a tenancy ends. Combined with legal representation, access to this flexible brokerage plays a big role in homelessness prevention and we’re enormously grateful to StreetSmart for supporting us in our work.”
The Team at Justice Connect
If you would like to know more about the latest grants and more examples of where funds have gone, all grants are listed on State based PDF’s towards the bottom of the ‘who we help’ page.
Thank you…. These grants were made possible by our Sponsors and Funders, Coffee Roaster Partners, Participating Cafes, matched funders and supporters. We rely on hundreds of small business participants and thousands of supporters so our heartfelt thanks go out to you all! For more details about CafeSmart 2016 and our top fundraisers check our previous blog post here.
StreetSmart has now raised $4.1 million since commencing in 2003 and has funded 1346 community projects at 486 organisations.
If you think our work is important and would like to help fund grassroots projects you can join up to become a StreetFunder – find out more here.
To collaborate with StreetSmart and join the StreetSmart Collective please call Adam Robinson on 0488 336419
