2024/25 Major Grant projects announced
Six organisations will receive grants for a range of legal projects to improve the delivery of legal services that meet the needs of Victorians.
Funding projects to meet legal need and improve capability
Six organisations will receive grants for a range of legal projects to improve the delivery of legal services that meet the needs of Victorians.
This is the first Major Grants offering under Victoria Law Foundation’s new grant structure with an increased total budget pool of $550,000.
Major Grants provide up to $100,000 for projects to:
• develop understanding of Victorians legal needs and capabilities
• improve the justice sector’s data and research capabilities
• support navigation of the Victorian justice system and access legal information
• expand knowledge across the Victorian justice and community sectors.
The funded projects address a range of issues and seek to make a lasting impact through new research and interventions, improving the use of data and evaluating what works.
Congratulations to the successful applicants. You can learn more about each project below.
Understanding the experience of Victorians
Where do we go now? Renters' experiences of housing precarity and climate disaster
Climate disasters, and responses to them, reinforce and exacerbate existing inequities and vulnerabilities, increasing complex legal needs and legal need problem clusters. This research project will explore the longer-term outcomes of renters who are evicted due to climate disasters, refining the role of community legal centres in disaster response spaces and determining whether access to legal information or advice might positively alter outcomes.
$100,000.00
Diverse Voices, Varied Justice: Police responses in family violence intervention orders
Building on previous work, Westjustice will identify and investigate correlative patterns between police responses to domestic and family violence and victim-survivor demographic and identity characteristics. Police-authored applications for family violence intervention orders will be analysed in relation to marginalised victim-survivor demographics, including First Nations, migrant, refugee, CALD, LGBTQIA+, and/or those who are regionally located. This is a collaborative project across six Victorian community legal centres and La Trobe University.
$99,632.00
Evaluating the impact of self-help resources for individuals
Justice Connect offers over 100 digital self-help resources for individuals providing essential legal information to those who might otherwise lack access to legal assistance.
This project will design and undertake an evaluation of self-help resources to assess their effectiveness and understand what’s working, for whom, and for which matters.
$100,000.00
Building sector capability using data
Development of an outcomes framework
Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service
Villamanta will develop and implement an outcome measurement framework to better understand community need, target those in most need and improve services and impact.
$50,000
Increasing organisational impact through integrated data systems
Barwon Community Legal Service
Barwon Community Legal Service will enhance its data systems to better demonstrate impact, improve decision-making and service design, and meet clients’ needs. The project involves integrating evaluation and reporting mechanisms within existing processes and systems and building staff capability to incorporate these activities into daily workflows
$100,000
Supporting people to navigate the justice system
Heads Up: Supporting the workers who support young people
This project will focus on building the knowledge and capacity of workers and agencies supporting young people in the out-of-home care system to identify, understand and respond to their unmet civil legal needs.
$99,872.00
Share your feedback
As part of our recently completed new Major Grant round, we would like your feedback in a short survey on the communications and applications process.
If you applied or if not, sharing your insights will help shape the way we implement the 2025-26 Major Grant round.
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Five organisations will receive Grants to improve Victorians’ access to legal information and services.
We have streamlined our grant offering with new processes, eligibility criteria and project timelines.
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