A fair, healthy, sustainable and vibrant Australia.
Our Mission
Honour the legacy of founder and benefactor, Sir Ian Potter, and his commitment that the Foundation make a difference to Australia.
Maintain a tradition of encouraging excellence and enabling innovation to facilitate positive social change and develop Australia’s creativity and capacity as a nation.
Support outstanding charitable organisations and invest in Australia’s innovative and creative people.
© The Ian Potter Foundation
Level 3, 111 Collins Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Phone 03 9650 3188
Email admin@ianpotter.org.au ianpotter.org.au
ISBN 978-0-6451942-6-5
First published 2026
Design: Sweet Creative
Published by The Ian Potter Foundation
A Timeline of Grantmaking (page 30)
1960s – FKA Children's Services (which began as the Free Kindergarten Union in 1908) was awarded the Foundation's first Education grant (£100) in 1965 to support training kindergarten teachers.
1970s – The largest Education grant of this decade was $75,000 to the University of Melbourne for a Lectureship in Education of the Deaf.
1980s – Mr John Gough AO OBE was one of the Founders of the Melbourne Business School at The University of Melbourne and on the board of that institution for over 20 years, including as Chairman for six years. During that time, the Foundation established The Ian Potter Chair in Finance at the School. John Gough went on to join The Ian Potter Foundation's Board of Governors from 1994 to 2011.
1990s – In 1991, $200,000 was awarded to Museums Victoria towards the Ian Potter Auditorium in the new Scienceworks museum which opened in Spotswood in 1992.
2000s – Lady Primrose Potter at the 20th anniversary of The Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden in 2024 with the Royal Botanic Gardens (VIC) Director & Chief Executive Chris Russell and Chair Penny Fowler.
2010s – A $10 million grant was awarded to the State Library of Victoria in 2015 to help restore and renovate one of Victoria's most architecturally significant and much-loved heritage spaces, Queen's Hall. This is the largest Education grant and one of the largest grants ever awarded by the Foundation.
2020s – In May 2023, the Foundation joined more than a dozen other philanthropic organisations to commit a combined $100 million over four years to establish the Investment Dialogue for Australia's Children.
The Foundation began awarding education grants at its first Board meeting in 1964. Since then, it has broadened its scope to all domains of child development and narrowed the focus to children aged 0–8. This shift reflects the overwhelming evidence that early years are critical for lifelong outcomes.
Prevention requires investment in systemic change and building the capacity of research-driven and communityled organisations working to improve outcomes for Australian children and families. Funding research and practice ensures evidence leads to transformative action. Developing long-term collaborations ensures new ideas are tested and progressed through consolidation phases to become embedded, proven approaches.
Professor Richard Larkins AC 2013–2025
Professor Brian Schmidt AC 2015–2025
Professor Fiona Stanley AC 2016–2022
Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC 2013–2014
Mr John B Gough AO, OBE 2007–2011
Professor Thomas Healy AO 2007–2019
This book is one in a series that aims to record The Ian Potter Foundation's grantmaking since its establishment in 1964. As a successful financier with a desire to use his good fortune to assist fellow Australians, Sir Ian Potter was one of the first benefactors to establish a charitable foundation in Australia in his lifetime. Critical to its establishment was legislation that allowed donations to philanthropic trusts to be tax-deductible. This milestone was achieved primarily due to Sir Ian's negotiations with the Federal Government at the time. Indeed, Sir Ian agreed to make an initial contribution to the Foundation of £1 million (equivalent to $29 million today) comprising Australian United Investment Co Ltd shares on a non-tax-deductible basis.
While the Foundation's corpus has since grown from £1 million to over $1 billion by 2025, the value of Sir Ian Potter's initial donation is far greater. Thanks to his foresight, now, we have a vibrant and growing philanthropic sector in Australia, including several foundations with multi-billion-dollar corpuses, all working in their own way to benefit Australians.
The Foundation's funding principles—excellence, prevention, leverage, through collaboration, partnerships, innovation, long-term thinking, and cultivating leadership in the Australian social sector—guide its grantmaking. When reviewing the Foundation's Education (and Early Childhood Development) grants, the importance of fostering collaboration among researchers, encouraging excellence in service-delivery organisations, and supporting strong community leaders is apparent. Funding initiatives that employ long-term thinking and are evidence-based have been the hallmark of this program area.
Over the past sixty years, 695 grants, valued at $86 million, have been awarded to 281 organisations across the Education and Early Childhood Development program areas. From the 1960s to the early 2000s, Education grants
supported all educational institutions from kindergarten through to tertiary level. They also supported museums and other institutions providing educational programs and resources, such as the Melbourne Zoo. The shift in focus to the early years came about in 2017. With Foundation's renewed vision in 2020, this program area was re-named Early Childhood Development and focused on supporting innovative programs and sector initiatives in early childhood (0–8 years). This change was due to overwhelming evidence that ensuring children meet key developmental milestones in their early years has a significant impact on their lifetime wellbeing. Interestingly, two of the first Education grants awarded by the Foundation in 1965 were £100 to the Free Kindergarten Union for training kindergarten teachers and £500 to the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers College for building an extension to its facilities.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, 68% of the Foundation's Education funding went to universities. The largest grant in this period was $1 million to the University of Melbourne in 1989 to establish The Ian Potter Chair of Corporate Finance at the Graduate School of Management. At this time, the average size of an Education grant was $14,104, and funding during this period was generally directed to a range of activities, from minor capital works to the purchase of resources and assistance with academic research projects.
By the 1990s and 2000s, the ratio had shifted, with 67% of Education grant funding going to organisations providing educational services and spaces for children. The most notable grant in this period was $1 million to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Victoria in 2000 for The Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden, one of the most popular public child-focused spaces in Melbourne for local and visiting families.
Since 2011, the average grant size has increased significantly, jumping from $56,764 in the 2000s to $615,001 since 2021. The Foundation has awarded a number of significant grants during this time, including $10 million to the State Library of Victoria towards the redevelopment of the Queens Hall, $7.8 million to Questacon for the Smart Skills Initiative and $5 million to Victoria University for the Sunshine Skills Development Hub. Likewise, there have been more multi-year, high-value grants (exceeding $1 million) to organisations working on research, sector development, and systems change in the early childhood services sector.
The gradual evolution of the Foundation's grantmaking approach since 1964 has allowed it to support leading organisations, and drive innovation and impact in education.
Founder
Sir Ian Potter
1964–1994
Board of Governors
Chairman
Mr Craig Drummond 2024–current (Chair), 2021–current (Governor)
Governors
Lady Potter AC, CMRI (Life Governor) Appointed 1993
Mr Anthony Burgess AO 2013–current
Professor Karen Day AM 2021–current
Mr Patrick Houlihan 2024–current
Professor Sir Jonathan Mills AC 2025–current
Mr Allan Myers AC, KC 2004–current
Professor Kathryn North AC 2025–current
Ms Alison Watkins AM 2025–current
Mr Charles Goode AC (Emeritus Chairman) 1987–2024
Professor Emma Johnston AO 2021–2025
Mr Leon Davis AO 2007–2025
The Hon Alex Chernov AC, KC 2016–2025
The Hon Susan Crennan AC, KC 2015–2025
Professor Richard Larkins AC 2013–2025
Professor Brian Schmidt AC 2015–2025
Professor Sir Edward Byrne AC, Kt April 2021–2024
Professor Fiona Stanley AC 2016–2022
The Hon Sir Daryl Dawson AC, KBE 1998–2020
The Hon Sir James Gobbo AC, CVO, QC 2001–2019
Professor Thomas Healy AO 1990–2019
Professor Graeme B Ryan AC 1987–2018
Dr P John Rose AO 2000–2015
Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC 1991–2014
Dr Thomas H Hurley AO OBE 1976–2014
Mr Frank Nelson 1979–2012
Mr John B Gough AO OBE 1994–2011
Mr Neil (Nobby) Clark AO 1994–2007
Sir Roger Darvall CBE 1964–1998
Mr Hugh Morgan AC 1985–1993
Professor Sir Sydney Sunderland CMG 1964–1993
Sir Ian Wark CMG CBE 1964–1986
Mr Roy McArthur CBE 1964–1984
Prue Warrilow
CEO,
Think about the people who shaped your life. Odds are, there was a teacher who lit that spark, gave you confidence, or helped you see the world in a new way.
Education shapes our lives. As the world changes rapidly, education equips children and young people with the knowledge, skills, values and experiences they need to thrive.
Early childhood education sets the course for future learning and growth. Great teachers who are capable and committed scaffold learning and help children become lifelong learners. Researchers and academics build the evidence base for strong pedagogy and practice.
My organisation, the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY) has been privileged to receive 12 Education and Early Childhood Development grants from The Ian Potter Foundation since 2001, totalling $4.1 million. These grants helped establish ARACY in 2001, creating a nexus for leaders in the child and youth wellbeing sectors; supported ARACY in developing the National Early Language and Literacy Strategy; and currently, our role as the convenor of the Investment Dialogue for Australia's Children.
The ARACY story is just one of many that The Ian Potter Foundation has woven through the pages of this book.
Across the education spectrum, from early childhood development to universities, from practitioners to researchers, from built to natural environments – The Ian Potter Foundation has been an innovator and enabler of educational excellence. — Prue Warrilow
Across the education spectrum, from early childhood development to universities, from practitioners to researchers, from built to natural environments – The Ian Potter Foundation has been an innovator and enabler of educational excellence.
Examples of this innovation and excellence include the first education grant of £100 in 1965 to the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria, which helped maintain its free kindergarten and support teacher training, and a grant in 2007 establishing The Ian Potter Foundation Indigenous Research Fellowship at the Menzies School of Health Research.
This commitment, guided by foresight and a belief that learning happens everywhere, has played an important role in expanding how and where children and young people learn. It has supported a wide range of grants – from Questacon and Taronga Zoo to nature play projects like The Ian Potter Children's Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne and The Ian Potter Wild Play Garden in Sydney.
The Foundation's work to support collaboration and community leadership has included funding for Aboriginal community-controlled organisations. This has included establishing regional networks of Aboriginal Early Childhood Care and Development programs in the Derby region in Western Australia; consolidating the Martu Women and Families Program in remote Western Desert communities in the eastern Pilbara Western Australia; and supporting SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children to pilot and scale an innovative Indigenous early years support model to strengthen community-controlled early learning services to improve their quality, sustainability, and agency.
The Ian Potter Foundation has long been a leader in reimagining what's possible in education. With clear-eyed foresight, it has focused on areas where it can make the greatest impact for children. ARACY and others working in the Education and Early Childhood Development space are grateful that The Ian Potter Foundation truly lives and breathes its values and principles.
Since the inception of The Ian Potter Foundation, supporting excellent educational institutions has been the hallmark of the Education and, subsequently, the Early Childhood Development, program.
In its earlier decades, the Foundation made grants to educational institutions at all levels, including schools and universities, often in response to fundraising appeals for building works, the purchase of equipment, or the development of programs. These grants were small by current standards, ranging from $200 to $100,000.
An exception was a 1989 grant of $1 million over five years to the University of Melbourne for the establishment of the Ian Potter Chair of Corporate Finance at the Graduate School of Management, as part of a broader cooperative development by several Australian companies and foundations to double the
size of the Graduate School of Management. This grant was substantial for the Foundation, given that our average Education grant size in the 1980s was $14,104, rising only to $20,605 in the 1990s.
It was also the first of several similar grants over the following decades supporting excellence in academic leadership and scholarship: the Ian Potter Chair in Zoology ($300,000 in 1991) at the University of Melbourne, the Ian Potter Principal Research Fellow in Education Economics ($453,000 in 2005) at Charles Darwin University and The Ian Potter Foundation Indigenous Research Fellowship ($192,000 in 2007) at the Menzies School of Health Research.
In recent decades, the Foundation has supported our leading cultural, scientific and educational institutions, with multimillion-dollar grants to develop a diverse range of initiatives. These include nationwide science programs, world-class public learning spaces and child-focused outdoor spaces where children can discover the natural environment through play.
Three of these projects received the most significant Education grants awarded in the Foundation’s history. The largest – $10 million to the State Library of Victoria granted in 2015 – helped restore and renovate one of Victoria’s most architecturally significant and muchloved heritage spaces, the Queen’s Hall. This grant complemented substantial funding from the Victorian State Government for the State Library’s Vision 2020 project. Queen’s Hall, the Library’s original magnificent arts reading room, had been closed for over a decade and fallen into disrepair. Once renovated, it was reopened to the public in 2019, adding 1,000 square metres of reading room space for study, learning and innovative programming. The third largest grant awarded by the Foundation in its 60-year history, it is also the largest grant the State Library of Victoria has received in its 156-year history. In recognition of this, the Library chose to rename this space the Ian Potter Queen's Hall.
In his speech at the opening of the Ian Potter Queen’s Hall, Charles Goode AC (then Chairman of The Ian Potter Foundation) reflected on the value of libraries in our community, quoting German immigrant Hermann Beckler, who, in a letter back to his brother in Munich in 1859, wrote of the State Library:
Here you can quench your thirst for knowledge; learn what is necessary or useful in your life or position; [and] raise your thoughts above the low, common path of daily life by reading sublime prose or poetry … I see books, can actually handle them and look at the maps and pictures inside. And here they are; I read them, make extracts, use them repeatedly … In effect, the books are mine, are everyone’s; this is a public library …
‘Visit to the Library in 1859’, by Hermann Beckler. Published in The LaTrobe Journal, no. 25, 1980.
The Foundation awarded its second-largest Education grant to Questacon for an ambitious multiyear educational outreach program called the Smart Skills Initiative. Smart Skills was a nationwide program that incorporated interactive workshops, exhibitions, tours and special events, encouraging young people to pursue studies and careers in STEM. A critical factor in the Foundation’s decision to support this project was its national outreach program, which provided young people, particularly those in regional and remote areas of Australia, with access to innovators and scientists, to develop creative thinking skills. In addition to running programs directed at students, Smart Skills included STEM teacher workshops designed to complement the Smart Skills student in-school workshops and ensure that Smart Skills outreach to regional areas left a legacy of innovation and invention in the local community. Questacon’s role as a national catalyst and facilitator of science and technology education uniquely positioned it to lead this initiative.
Another significant Education grant supporting science education was awarded in 2016 to the Taronga Conservation Society Australia for the new Taronga Institute of Science and Learning. This $1.5 million grant contributed to the capital costs of the new Institute based at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
A collaborative research and learning space, the Institute is a living laboratory providing a platform for scientific collaboration, student learning and the protection of our natural environment. This space enables universities and industry partners to co-locate, thereby increasing the uptake of research opportunities. Within the Institute, there is a range of purpose-built laboratories, including a multidisciplinary research laboratory, a teaching laboratory and the Taronga CryoDiversity Bank. These facilities have increased Taronga Zoo’s research capabilities and enabled further global
engagement and collaboration with universities to address critical conservation issues.
The Institute’s immersive habitat classrooms bring STEM programs to life for students from preschool to high school. The Institute was the first facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and aims to inspire and educate the next generation of conservation scientists.
In 2016, the Foundation also elected to support the new Victoria University Polytechnic Sunshine Skills Hub with a $5 million grant, the largest funding commitment the Foundation has made to the vocational education sector. This project attracted the Foundation’s support because it aimed to increase access to relevant skills training in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, encouraging and supporting job creation and industry innovation to meet 21st-century trade and industry needs. It was clear that trades were evolving away from ‘traditional’ skills to skills essential for innovative product design and development.
The Skills Hub enables rapid prototype design, micro-manufacturing, practice-sharing, and networking, stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship. The Hub’s modern and flexible facilities support increased enrolments and provide high-tech and specialist equipment, ensuring graduates are work-ready. As with many large grants from the Foundation, this $5 million grant leveraged a further $10 million from the Victorian State Government.
The Foundation’s interests in education and the environment were equally met in the $1 million grant awarded in 2000 to Melbourne’s historic Royal Botanic Gardens to create a children’s garden. For over 20 years, The Ian Potter Children’s Garden has provided families with young children their own space in which to explore, enjoy and experience the natural world. The garden was the first of its kind in Australia. It was designed and constructed for children aged three to 12 years; it includes mazes, tunnels, moats, rock formations and water elements.
Designed at a ‘kids-scale’, it encourages children to play, be curious and learn about the beauty and importance of environmental conservation. It combines plants, sculpture, and outdoor classroom facilities to educate children about plants through play, discovery and adventure.
In 2013, the Foundation made a further grant of $265,000 to improve and extend the site, accommodating the 1.9 million visitors annually.
The success of The Ian Potter Children’s Garden in Melbourne inspired similar projects in Australia and overseas, including The Ian Potter Wild Play Garden in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
In 2013, the Foundation granted Centennial Parklands Foundation $1.5 million towards the project, including $500,000 from The Alec Prentice Sewell Gift.
The project strongly aligned with the objectives of The Alec Prentice Sewell Gift, which supports children’s education and encourages an interest in the environment, the arts and literature to create opportunities for personal development.
There were no children’s gardens in New South Wales when this funding was announced. With a growing urban population, opportunities for children to access nature and engage in wild play are becoming increasingly scarce. Australian children’s relationship with the great outdoors is waning rapidly. A recent study found that only 27% of children regularly play outside their homes, compared to 71% of the baby boomer generation.
The Foundation was one of the first funders approached to support this project, and its decision to offer a significant level of funding was due not only to the success of The Ian Potter Children’s Garden in Melbourne but also to the clear and growing evidence of the benefits of providing dedicated outdoor spaces for children in urban areas.
Alec Prentice Sewell (1909–2003) bequeathed $8 million to The Ian Potter Foundation for the ‘maintenance, education, welfare and benefit of needy children’.
The Alec Prentice Sewell Gift (APSG) supports education and programs that encourage children's interest in the environment, the arts and literature. Since its establishment in 2004, APSG has provided $10 million to 65 organisations around Australia, including the following standout examples.
The Song Room is the only Australian education organisation delivering multiartform learning programs with student and teacher outcomes. Since its founding in 1999, over 500,000 students and teachers have participated in its programs.
APSG has provided $990,000 across two grants to The Song Room. The first for $240,000 in 2018 enabled The Song Room to develop and deliver an online arts teaching and learning solution for early childhood practitioners, modelled on the highly successful ARTS: LIVE platform
In 2022, APSG awarded The Song Room a further $750,000 in capacitybuilding support to assist it to realise its strategic plan and meet the needs of young people, school communities, and its partners at a pivotal time in educational and social change.
Founded in 2012, Story Factory is a not-for-profit creative writing centre for young people aged 7 to 17 from underresourced communities. After a $20,000 Education grant in 2014 from The Ian Potter Foundation for a trial outreach program, APSG provided $50,000 in 2016 to Story Factory to deliver, in partnership with Belvoir St Theatre, a year-long scriptwriting project to boost the communication skills and confidence of 80 Western Sydney teenagers.
In 2023, APSG awarded Story Factory $615,000 over five years, allowing the organisation to expand its reach and deepen its impact by piloting, evaluating and scaling nationally a suite of digital creative writing programs.
Beginning in 2009, 100 Story Building was developed as a centre for young writers to support and extend the resources of teachers, parents and schools in engaging the most marginalised children and young people in literacy learning in Melbourne’s inner west.
In 2013, APSG contributed $135,000 to open the 100 Story Building in Footscray, Melbourne and a further $150,000 in 2014 to scale and replicate the literacy program service into a financially viable social enterprise.
APSG awarded 100 Story Building an additional $300,000 in 2019 to pilot Story Hubs – co-created creative spaces designed and developed within schools. Story Hubs expanded in 2023, with APSG providing $500,000 to scale the program into more schools across Victoria. More recently, the organisation was awarded an additional $600,000 (by APSG and the Foundation) over five years to provide capacity-building support.
Since its establishment in 2004, The Alec Prentice Sewell Gift has provided…
Cool.org develops real-world, curriculumaligned teaching resources to equip educators to teach children about contemporary issues.
Teachers have the most significant influence on student learning but need support to provide high-quality, meaningful education to all students, regardless of their geographical or socio-economic situation. Cool.org uses the latest scientific evidence and data to create resources that help students comprehend today’s big questions, such as climate change. Teachers are supported with accredited professional development courses, which improve their practice and facilitate student learning experiences.
APSG awarded Cool.org $300,000 in 2019 to transform scientific studies into free, curriculum-aligned STEM and data literacy educational materials for students, in partnership with environmental organisations. In 2023, APSG awarded a further $500,000 over five years to Cool.org to enable it to build its capacity to codesign high-quality, evidence-based, realworld education resources across a range of curriculum areas.
Library For All is a growing global team of innovators harnessing technology to disrupt the publishing and education sectors. It allows hundreds of thousands of children worldwide to read and learn from culturally relevant books in their own language.
Our Yarning is a free, digital library of culturally relevant education resources created by and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Partnering with communities – with support from APSG via a $500,000 grant in 2002 – Our Yarning publishes books written by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal children, putting learning in their hands. In addition to hard copies, the books are delivered via offline and off-grid technology, paving the path for literacy attainment across Australia and unlocking educational opportunities for the next generation.
Stephanie Alexander AO, one of Australia’s most recognised cooks, food educators and authors, established the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation in 2004, following the success of a school kitchen garden program piloted in 2001. The motivation for this work came from Alexander’s awareness of the growing problem of childhood obesity in Australia.
The Ian Potter Foundation was an early supporter of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program (SAKGP), providing $70,000 from 2005 to 2007 to help establish the program. Since 2016, APSG has awarded an additional $660,000 over two grants to adapt the program for use in early childhood settings.
Over five years, Our Yarning aims to publish 500 books, supporting 95,000 Aboriginal children gain literacy skills through the joy of reading.
The Kitchen Garden Program offers children lifelong practical skills in growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing fresh food. It also offers opportunities to experience wellbeing and connectedness, alternate ways of learning that increase engagement, and introduces investigations into sustainability and food security.
Since 2010, the Foundation has sought to support early intervention and holistic learning models through its Education and Early Childhood Development program, aiming to counter disadvantage by improving educational outcomes for at-risk children and youth. This has meant investing larger sums in ambitious sector-wide initiatives that require true collaboration across researchers, communities, and practitioners.
The Foundation has seen its role as a strategic early funder of long-term projects that need time to gain some traction to encourage others to join and participate.
The epitome of this approach is the Foundation’s involvement in the Investment Dialogue for Australia’s Children (Investment Dialogue), launched in 2023, which brings together government, philanthropic investors and the community sector to coordinate efforts to address intergenerational disadvantage affecting children, young people and their families.
Our vision for the Investment Dialogue is that it will help to build evidence, reform systems, improve data access and enhance (targeted and universal) programs and supports for children and young people in Australia. If this cooperation model works, we hope to see it replicated across other areas of the Foundation’s work.
— Charles Goode AC, Chairman Emeritus of The Ian Potter Foundation
For more than a decade before the Investment Dialogue, the Foundation backed key long-term collaborative efforts to improve the lives of Australian families and children.
ARACY (Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth) was founded in 2002 by esteemed epidemiologist Professor Fiona Stanley AC, a leader in clinical care, health research and education, and later a board member of the Foundation (2016–22).
ARACY’s mission is to champion the wellbeing of all Australian children and young people so they can thrive. Since 2012, the Foundation has supported ARACY in undertaking evidence-gathering and pilot programs such as the right@home project ($1.1 million), which assembled experts within Australia and internationally to develop an Australian-owned model of intensive home visiting to support families living with adverse circumstances to nurture their children’s development. In 2019, the Foundation also supported ARACY to coordinate the development of the National Early Language and Literacy Strategy (NELLS). The strategy was launched in 2021 by a coalition of 10 key organisations focused on improving literacy and education outcomes for children.
More recently, the Foundation has provided capacitybuilding support to ARACY to strengthen and grow the organisation. ARACY is also instrumental in supporting the philanthropic sector in establishing the Investment Dialogue and now acts as its Strategic Convener.
Another key collaboration is the Early Childhood Impact Alliance (ECIA), which the Foundation instigated in 2018 to bring funders together within a community of practice. ECIA hosts forums and information-sharing sessions designed to provide funders with a neutral environment to explore concepts and opportunities, expanding their collective knowledge on the latest research, program innovations, best practices, and policies affecting young children and their families. This aims to improve collaboration and strategic investment in this space. From 2018 to 2022, the Foundation provided $286,000 to ECIA’s secretariat costs.Very much a precursor, ECIA is now fully incorporated into the Investment Dialogue.
In 2020, the Foundation provided $75,000 in cofunding (alongside the Minderoo Foundation) for the Centre for Policy Development (CPD) to undertake a modelling study to assess how a universal access model for early childhood education and care (ECEC) might be rolled out in Australia. The early childhood development sector has long been calling for universal access to childcare in Australia, but the costs of introducing it have never been fully analysed.
CPD examined the costs of alternative approaches, international comparisons, and lifetime costs to the system of those who miss out on ECEC. The study, published as the Starting Better report in 2021, called for
a new nationwide guarantee for young children based on the evidence of what has the greatest impact and what will work best for Australian children (0–8 years) and their families, including universal childcare up to school age. The Foundation awarded a further $1 million over 5 years in 2022 to support the implementation of the Starting Better guarantee to achieve lasting reform.
Around the same time, the Foundation provided $1 million to the Research in Effective Education in Early Childhood Hub (REEaCh) at the University of Melbourne (2021) for its Educational and Developmental Gains in Early Childhood (EDGE) project, to evaluate universal 3-year-old kindergarten in Victoria.
REEaCh prioritises research and engagement in early childhood education and care by assessing the quality of early childhood education programs, the equitable participation of all children in high-quality programs, and supporting educational leadership to ensure sustained quality improvement in early learning.
In partnership with The Front Project and with support from the Victorian Department of Education and Training, REEaCH is examining the impact and effectiveness of Victoria’s implementation of universal three-year-old kindergarten, as well as whether it reduces the developmental gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children at school entry. Importantly, the REEaCH hypothesis is testing whether providing universal access to two years of kindergarten will improve outcomes for all children, particularly for children
experiencing disadvantage, as there was insufficient Australian evidence to convince policymakers and the broader community of this.
The five-year EDGE evaluation project directly addresses this question by researching the impact of Victoria’s rollout of three-year-old kindergarten on children’s learning and development and disseminating the findings to government, the early childhood education sector and the community more broadly.
In 2022, the Foundation awarded $750,000 over five years to Kids First (formerly the Children’s Protection Society) to implement and evaluate an adapted version of its evidence-based Early Years Education Program (EYEP) in universal settings. The Foundation had been one of several funders who supported the initial pilot and evaluation of the EYEP at Kids First’s West Heidelberg facility from 2011 to 2018.
Subsequently, the EYEP – Kindergarten Model was developed, based on a trauma-informed, relational pedagogy approach, and is coupled with support for families to help them grow and develop positively from the early years and beyond. The program’s expansion into universal settings aims to increase access to the evidencebased model, reduce delivery costs and take a more preventive approach.
The Kids First EYEP – Kindergarten Model was implemented in six Kids First kindergartens from 2021 to 2024, with an independent evaluation completed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
Kids First has since begun transforming the EYEP – Kindergarten Model into training and resources that external service providers can adopt to provide an easily
accessible program that supports all children to thrive regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances. By 2025, the EYEP – Kindergarten Model had expanded from six to eleven kindergartens in Victoria.
Collaboration has always been a core principle of the Foundation’s approach to funding. At times, it has directly collaborated with organisations to provide a unique insight or understanding for the philanthropic sector. The Australian Council for Educational Research’s (ACER) Leading Learning in Education and Philanthropy (LLEAP) was a clear example of this. In 2010, ACER looked to develop a formalised and accessible understanding of the outcomes of educational grants. With an interest in changing the status quo, the Foundation initially provided data and information from its own records to assist the researchers in developing their study proposal.
The Foundation committed $225,000 in funding for a three-year study into the effectiveness of grantmaking in the education sector. Foundation staff worked closely with the researchers to provide information and assisted with outreach to get other philanthropists on board. Once the first year’s results were in, the Foundation provided further funds towards the publication of a guide to help bring together schools, service providers and philanthropic funders and ensure that funders could direct grants to organisations where the funds were most needed and that those in need of funding knew who to ask.
More than a decade later, the importance of partnerships is clear. As a LLEAP report stated at the time: ‘Collaboration is one way through which to build, share and exchange knowledge’.
In 2023, the Foundation awarded $350,000 to Reimagine Australia to develop Huddle, an app-based program designed to enable easy communication and collaboration between families of young children (0–8 years) and early childhood development (ECD) professionals.
Enabling teamwork is at the core of Huddle. Its purpose is to enable families to create specialised ’huddles’ of professionals and carers to collaborate on children with specific development needs to work together on setting goals and tracking progress.
There is a deep need for a simple communication and collaboration tool that brings together the best ‘team around the child’ to better enable
children to reach their full potential during their early years. The Foundation’s funding supports the development of the first iteration of the tool, underpinned by a co-design process with families and professionals, to drive accessibility and transparency, enabling real-time communication and collaboration. The aim is for Huddle to ease the burden for families struggling to navigate teams of professionals across complex service systems, giving families back valuable time and stronger outcomes for their child. Huddle is a feature within the THRIVARY app, designed for all families to use to assist in navigating early intervention supports, particularly for families of children with additional needs.
It’s a well-worn adage that prevention is better than a cure. But what lies behind prevention?
Parents teach their children to learn from their mistakes, recognising that early experience plays a vital role in shaping children’s ability to navigate future situations.
For society, it is the gathering and sharing of knowledge that can help us all avoid less favourable outcomes for ourselves, our children and our community.
Prevention has been the impetus for many of the Foundation’s Education and Early Childhood Development grants throughout its history. An example of this is the $1.5 million grant over three years to the Menzies School of Health Research in 2010 to establish the Centre for Child Development and Education (CCDE) in Darwin. This was the largest grant from the Foundation's Education program area at the time.
CCDE’s purpose is to undertake research needed to develop policy and practices that will, in turn, address the poor health, education and social circumstances of Aboriginal children. Its programs are specifically designed to rebuild this knowledge at a grassroots level in communities and to co-develop practical and culturally relevant ways of addressing specific challenges. Today, CCDE translates research findings into improved public policy and programs through collaborative research in health, education, youth justice, and child and family services. Working with government and policymakers, CCDE strives to establish an evidence base to inform policy development and ensure that research is translated into real benefit for the community.
Similarly, the Western Australian Child Development Atlas was originally developed by the Kids Research Institute Australia (formerly Telethon Kids Institute) and began as a pilot program using geographic information system technology to develop maps of government administrative and survey data related to children in geographic locations. The aim was to combine data sets from various government departments (including Health, Child Protection, Corrective Services, Police, Attorney General, Education, Disability and Housing), the Australian Education Development Census, NAPLAN and school attendance data overlaid with details of services provided to children.The intention was to create a tool that could more effectively:
• inform policymaking, service delivery and community capacity building
• improve coordination between service providers
• improve planning of service delivery
• support evaluation and build evidence around what is working for communities.
The Foundation contributed $400,000 to the pilot project in 2017 and then provided a further $600,000 in 2022 for three more years of development work. The tool has since been expanded to include nationwide data, becoming the Australian National Child and Youth Wellbeing Atlas (ACYWA), helped by further grants in 2023 and 2025 ($800,000) from the Foundation.
Launched in late 2023, and now managed by the University of Western Australia, ACYWA is a national data asset empowering researchers and non-government, state and federal organisations to identify potential priorities for child health research and initiatives in meaningful and cost-effective ways.
Also in 2023, the Foundation awarded an initial grant of $395,000 (followed by $1,355,000 in 2025) to the Murdoch Child Research Institute to help develop the National Child and Family Hubs Network (the Network). This initiative arose from growing interest in most Australian jurisdictions (including at a federal level) in creating child and family hubs that co-locate services for children and families in the community.
The Network brings together Australian universities, research centres, medical research institutes, community not-for-profit organisations and state government departments, creating a multi-disciplinary, multi-sector group that aims to build collective capacity by:
1. providing opportunities for sharing research and resources and networking opportunities to prevent and reduce duplication and accelerate learning
2. strengthening the evidence on core components of a child and family hub and shared outcome frameworks required for effective implementation and outcomes
3. developing sustainable funding models for a child and family hub model and advocating for ongoing support.
The Australian Child and Youth Atlas is a national data asset empowering researchers and non-government, state and federal organisations to identify potential priorities for child health research and initiatives in meaningful and cost-effective ways.
Ultimately, the goal is to strengthen and integrate approaches to community-based child and family hubs that can equitably support the health, development and wellbeing of children and families.
Prevention is often about recognising the differences in what communities and individuals require to reach their potential. Babies are born with remarkable abilities to communicate, yet sometimes, the social and communication skills of babies can develop differently from what we typically expect. The Kids Research Institute recognises this through its Inklings program for babies aged 6 to 18 months who are showing early differences in their social interaction and communication development. Inklings is a pre-emptive, very early therapy that facilitates social and communication development by supporting sensitive and responsive infant–caregiver interactions. With decades of developmental and clinical research supporting its efficacy, Inklings has shown that early intervention continues to have beneficial effects up until at least age three.
The Foundation awarded a $750,000 multi-year grant in 2024 to The Kids Research Institute Australia to adapt and pilot the Inklings program, specifically in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings. The benefit of applying the Inklings program in community settings is that it reduces the wait times for seeing an allied health professional, as well as the stigma associated with attending a referred program. As ECEC professionals provide caregiving to children on a regular and consistent basis, they can deliver and implement key developmental supports daily to children and parents.
In a similar vein, the Foundation is also contributing $1.25 million over five years to The Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) for the Thriving Kids, Active Brains project. QBI, Queensland’s leading centre for brain research based at the University of Queensland, is developing a neuroscience-informed training program in Australia targeting the Early Childhood Development (ECD) workforce. The training program aims to build workforce capacity in understanding brain health and architecture so that ECD professionals can better understand when and where to intervene and how to best support children’s brain development and help nurture children’s resilience. Brain development in the early years underpins lifetime learning, emotional regulation, wellbeing and social inclusion.
The training program will build on the evidencebased Brain Story program developed by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child and the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative, and adapt it for the Australian context based on the five indicators of development assessed in the
‘Imagine turbocharging the quality and reach of Child and Family Hubs to affect the lives of more and more children and families in Australia, while igniting a ripple effect that sparks lasting policy change and program innovations. That’s the essence of the Network.’
— National Child & Family Hubs network, Strategy 2024–2029, page 6.
Australian Early Development Census (AEDC). This project is also highly collaborative – the QBI co-lead this project with the Thriving Queensland Kids Partnership (TQKP), a systems change initiative that brings together research, philanthropic, not-for-profit, government and community entities to improve outcomes for Queensland children. The partnership has reach across metropolitan, regional and remote communities, and has strong links into communities experiencing developmental vulnerability.
However, it is not only in the realm of health that our society can look to address preventable disadvantage. While Australia has a high rate of birth registrations (98%) under the age of 5 years, under registration of births of children in lower socio-economic areas persists and goes unacknowledged. This particularly affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. Without birth registration, children and families face significant barriers to obtaining a passport, driver’s license, tax file number or bank account and, therefore, are invisible under the law.
The true extent of birth under-registration in Australia is currently unknown. To address this, UNICEF Australia is researching levels of birth registration across Australia, consulting communities about barriers (and solutions). At the same time UNICEF Australia is registering children and running an education campaign to raise public awareness and support for the issue. The Foundation is supporting UNICEF Australia’s Every Child Counts campaign with a two-year $456,000 grant.
Smiling Mind has been at the forefront of mental wellbeing innovation for over 12 years, providing evidence-based tools and resources that teach children and adults mindfulness practices.
The Ian Potter Foundation began its relationship with Smiling Mind in 2017, providing $342,944 over three years for a tailored early childhood program developed in partnership with Early Childhood Australia. This program supports the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young children aged 3 to 6 during the transition to school. In 2020, the Foundation supplemented this with $100,000 to enable Smiling Mind to create tailored emergency support digital care packages for parents and teachers, helping children to reduce their anxiety, promote calm and build their social and emotional wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This timely project was jointly funded by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services and supported by Gandel Philanthropy. Working closely with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, over 38,000 digital care packs were downloaded, reaching approximately 325,656 children by the end of 2020.
The Foundation provided a further $500,000 to Smiling Mind in 2021 to help expand the child-facing elements of Smiling Mind’s digital support for primary schools. This funding enabled new content creation aligned to Smiling Mind’s Mental Fitness Model, including the creation of Brain Breaks inspired by Smiling Mind Creek, a series of 18 animated episodes for ages 3–8. Launched on ABC’s Early Education website in April 2023, the series has since been viewed over 200,000 times.
In April 2023, the Foundation committed a further $1.5 million over five years to Smiling Mind to invest in its continued innovation, leadership capability and impact measurement. This capacity-building funding supports Smiling Mind to expand its reach and scope, and grow self-generated revenue.
Breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage is one of the most complex and challenging issues faced by our society. Over the years, The Ian Potter Foundation has supported numerous innovative programs aimed at addressing this issue.
One relationship that truly stands out is the Foundation’s longstanding support of the Education Benalla initiative, led by the Tomorrow Today Foundation.
Benalla is a beautiful town that appears prosperous, but in fact, has high levels of disadvantage.
In 2001, residents of Benalla formed Tomorrow Today, a locally run community foundation that addresses chronic issues in innovative ways. Its clear purpose is to help people in the Benalla community work together to create a stronger, more resilient, and prosperous rural community.
The 2007 ‘Dropping Off the Edge: The Distribution of Disadvantage in Australia’ report placed Benalla among Victoria‘s 40 most disadvantaged areas. It highlighted that lower levels of educational attainment perpetuate the cycle of disadvantage. This report was the catalyst for Tomorrow Today to form a community advisory committee to investigate and understand the issues limiting children‘s life chances.
Responding to the problems identified, Tomorrow Today developed an ambitious community-wide program to improve educational outcomes and create a better future for their town.
Tomorrow Today shaped the Education Benalla Program as a whole-of-community intervention with four objectives:
1. All children start school ready to learn
2. Literacy and numeracy levels measurably improve
3. Student levels of wellbeing improve
4. Family and community raise aspirations for students to pursue tertiary education or training.
The long-term aim was for Benalla’s Year 12 completion rate to equal or exceed the Victorian average.
Tomorrow Today’s approach encompasses creating change across all environments where children learn: family, school and community.
The Education Benalla Program adopts a community development model of action, with cross-institutional support from 120 organisational partners, including all schools and early learning centres, community groups, sporting and hobby groups, businesses, government and non-government agencies. It engages families and children from birth, focusing on parent–child attachment, enhancing parent knowledge and skills, and promoting connection to social and professional support.
Addressing social disadvantage requires a long-term approach, combining many complementary projects and activities throughout each child‘s path to adulthood. The program takes a child-by-child approach from cradle to career, understanding that no single activity will achieve the desired outcomes.
The Education Benalla Program comprises three subprogram areas: Early Years, Future Work and Collaboration. Each area has multiple activities and projects at any time. Within the Early Years area, Parents Early Education Partnership (PEEP) recognises the vital role parents play throughout their child’s education.
Hands-on Learning (HOL) targets students in Years 5 to 12, allowing them to re-engage in learning through activities that often benefit the wider community. This Future Work activity identifies young people at risk of early school leaving. The practical projects develop skills and aspiration under the guidance of artisan teachers.
The Full Impact project is a community approach co-designed and co-delivered with young people and local organisations/government to increase the power, agency and aspiration of Benalla’s young people. The project provides a forum for 11 to 18-year-olds to meet weekly during term time to discuss issues important to young people and plan actions to improve the wellbeing of their peers. Participants known as ‘The Squad‘ are active in the
community, organising a range of events in response to local issues as well as having their input sought by the local council on upcoming projects.
Activity in the Collaboration area involves working systematically with organisations across Benalla to achieve a whole-of-community focus on improving child development and educational outcomes. Tomorrow Today chairs the Benalla Early Years Network and the Benalla Future Work Steering Committee and hosts a range of workshops and forums. Productive partnerships with schools and other organisations enable targeted financial support, giving young people equal access to educational and community activities, including participation in sports and hobby groups. By working collaboratively across government, community and business, issues such as developmental vulnerability, work skills, family support and school absenteeism can be addressed.
In 2007, the first national edition of the research, Dropping off the Edge, was published by Jesuit Social Services. The research has been used by federal, state and local governments to inform decision-making, tailor program delivery and inform practices over more than 20 years. It is also used by individuals and communities themselves to deepen understanding of local challenges and advocate for change.
Philanthropy could have easily overlooked Tomorrow Today when it began applying for funds to roll out the Education Benalla Program in 2010. Benalla’s community foundation was small and unproven. Tomorrow Today boldly claimed to have a local solution to an international problem – that children living in poorer areas do not reach their full life potential – and they bravely acknowledged that it would take 10 to 20 years to achieve their aim of turning things around.
The Regional Office of the Victorian Department of Education supported Tomorrow Today‘s initial research, committing $150,000 for the first two years. This investment was important in securing early philanthropic support. In 2009, the RE Ross Trust committed $225,000 over three years to the new initiative, quickly followed by $275,000 over two years from The Ian Potter Foundation.
Nevertheless, the Foundation‘s grant was the result of eight months of consultation with Tomorrow Today to examine the best opportunities to support the Education Benalla Program. It involved several site visits by the Foundation‘s program staff and Board members. Professor Tom Healy, a Governor of the Foundation at the time, articulated the reasons why the Foundation should support this initiative:
• There was whole-of-community buy-in (including fundraising).
• A long-term approach was adopted (10 years from the outset).
• The program was evidence-informed. The program had a holistic design, using a life-course approach that supports children across multiple stages and domains.
• Strong leadership was in place (key members of the community, including the former mayor, leaders in the education sector and regional agricultural industries were committed).
• They planned to use philanthropic support to leverage government funding – federal, state, local –and furthersecure philanthropic support.
• They saw the value of non-financial support. Apart from the in-kind support offered by community members, they understood that connections made through philanthropy would strengthen their request for funding from other sectors.
• There would be continued input from philanthropic funders with their representatives sitting on the Education Benalla Program Management Committee.
• They deemed evaluation as critical to measuring impact and progress.
Since its initial grant in 2010, the Foundation has awarded almost $3.2 million to support the Education Benalla Program, making this the Foundation’s longest continuous funding relationship. From the Foundation’s perspective, the Education Benalla Program has been an exemplary initiative, characterised by outstanding local leadership, strong community support and effective cross-agency partnerships. The program has been and will continue to be instrumental in changing the lives of many families in Benalla.
In 2011, an initial evaluation of the Education Benalla Program by The University of Melbourne confirmed some significant improvements in key indicators for groups of preschool children and Year 9 students, as well as a dramatic decrease in suspension rates and a huge jump in children wanting to finish Year 12.
Subsequent evaluations and census data show improvements have continued, including:
• 11.7 percentage points decrease in children who are developmentally vulnerable (on one or more domains) (AEDC data 2015 vs 2021)
• 19% decrease in youth disengagement from school and work (ABC Census data, 2016 vs 2021)
‘Often, in philanthropy, we back people as much as ideas. The people at Tomorrow Today demonstrated leadership, community and government support, professionalism, and personal commitment. Philanthropy enables a long-term approach to the achievement of social change. We have enjoyed working with Tomorrow Today to enable the people of Benalla and district to create a stronger, more resilient and prosperous community through the improved education and engagement of their young people. We hope it provides many other communities a frame of reference for their efforts to improve healthy child development and educational outcomes.’
— Chairs of philanthropic funders: Charles Goode (The Ian Potter Foundation), Jeremy Kirkwood (RE Ross Trust), Dr Jane Gilmour (William Buckland Foundation) in 2021.
• 10% increase in transition to work or post-school study 350% increase in work experience placements at Benalla P to 12 College (2019 compared to 2015).
Tomorrow Today best sums up the impact the Education Benalla program has had on its community.
‘We believed that it would take at least 10 years of active resourcing to achieve sustainable change in our young people‘s educational achievements. Gratifyingly, our recent evaluation shows increasing signs of positive change.’
The Education Benalla Program provides enormous benefits to Benalla’s children and young people, and their families by improving young people’s readiness for school and improving young people’s post-school pathways. It is also sustaining the community in many other ways, including providing capacity and collegiality that is helping keep educators in their jobs a little longer, increasing capacity of the education sector, and directly supporting families in need of financial aid. — Ludowyk Evaluation 2023
Across all its program areas, the Foundation aims to cultivate highly skilled, prepared and well-positioned leaders in Australia’s social sector. Strong leaders foster good practices, building their organisations’ capability and resilience.
Over its history, the Foundation has contributed to the development and evolution of many sector-leading organisations in the education and early childhood development sectors. In that time, we have observed that the common thread between these organisations is the strength of their leaders.
As outlined in Creating Tomorrow Today (page 22), the Foundation was an early supporter of the Tomorrow Today Foundation and its Education Benalla Program, which engages the entire community, including families, schools, local businesses and government, to deliver programs that help children and young people develop to their full potential. However, the Education Benalla Program wouldn’t have even started if it weren’t for a dedicated, strong community leadership group coming together to instigate change.
The Foundation was also an early supporter of sector-leading bodies such as the Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY), founded by former Governor of The Ian Potter Foundation and Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley. ARACY was established to harness the expertise and resources of individuals and organisations leading the way in developing innovative solutions to the range of complex problems affecting the health, development and wellbeing of an increasing number of young Australians. In many ways, ARACY serves as a nexus for leaders in the child and youth wellbeing sectors (see more on page 15).
Prior to the Foundation's Education program's objectives being refined to focus on early childhood development, it actively sought out organisations leading the way in improved teaching practice across the primary and secondary school sectors. An example is the series of grants awarded to Social Ventures Australia (SVA) to develop the Bright Spots Schools Connection (The Connection). The Connection was designed to capture the work, insights and knowledge of schools located in communities experiencing disadvantage yet providing exceptional educational opportunities for their students. The Connection fosters these ‘bright spots’ by helping school leaders document and refine their practices, enabling them to share their learning with other schools.
By connecting these education leaders across Australia, this program accelerates and spreads transformative and collaborative practice across a network of schools in low socio-economic areas. The Foundation supported The Connection with a total of $358,000 in grants from 2015 to 2021. In 2022, the Foundation granted a further $750,000 to SVA, to design a Collaborative Leadership Development Network of early years practice in Victoria and Queensland. Then, in 2025, $700,000 was awarded to SVA to pilot ImpactEd in Australia, a digital platform to help schools manage, collect and extract insights from data.
Similarly, the Foundation has funded Australian Schools Plus, a national not-for-profit that partners with schools to provide critical resources that help them to effect change to help students succeed. In 2019, the Foundation provided $200,000 to Australian Schools Plus, enabling a cluster of primary schools and feeder preschools/kindergartens in a disadvantaged community in Victoria to participate in the successful Fair Education program. The funding enabled experienced educational coaches to work with principals, preschool directors and their leadership teams, and the wider community to help design, deliver and evaluate an innovative project focused on the school readiness of early learners. There is an increasing need and demand from schools for funding support. Australian Schools Plus is only able to fund approximately 20% of the applications it receives. For over a decade, Australian Schools Plus has supported more than 1,500 school communities, established the Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards, which have acknowledged over 72 school leaders, and developed its flagship Fair Education program. Australian Schools Plus has set an ambitious goal of creating education opportunities for 150,000 children and young people by 2027 – a 50% increase on its current annual reach. In 2023, the Foundation supported this ambition by investing in Australian Schools Plus with a $1.5 million capacity-building grant, to help it continue developing the
leadership skills of school leaders and expand its support for schools in need.
Many community-led programs, including playgroups, were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Every week, thousands of self-run community playgroup sessions meet across Australia thanks to the leadership of parents or caregivers who get together regularly for play and social interaction with their babies, toddlers and preschool children.
In 2021, Playgroup Australia sought to reset playgroups nationwide by supporting families to transition from COVID-enforced isolation back to regular playgroup participation once the various state governments lifted restrictions. This involved assisting playgroup coordinators and leaders in preparing for and managing the return of playgroups, while aligning with government roadmaps for safely returning to community life. The Foundation awarded Playgroup Australia funding to promote playgroup participation through a public marketing campaign to re-engage existing families to return to playgroup. The campaign also aimed to attract new families to playgroup by raising awareness of its broad benefits for children's early learning and for the social and mental health wellbeing of caregivers.
In addition, in 2023, the Foundation provided $1 million in funding to Playgroup NSW for a project to understand the needs of playgroup volunteers/ parents, respond with innovative supports and engagement strategies, and improve access to venues for playgroups. Focusing on these primary drivers of playgroup sustainability aimed to strengthen and grow the playgroup network and support the leaders in the community running playgroups.
Strong leadership from community members is critical to the success of community-based programs. This is never more the case than when providing programs for families and children in Australia’s Indigenous communities.
World Vision Australia’s (WVA) Aboriginal Early Childhood Care and Development Program (ECCD) is a prime example of this. There is a clear need for early childhood services for these communities, as Indigenous children living in remote areas are some of the most educationally disadvantaged children in Australia.
WVA integrated its learnings from over 60 countries, as well as those from its first program iteration and evaluation in Central Australia, to deliver the program in other remote regions of Western Australia. This evaluation has shown that the ECCD program contributes to a significant increase in the number of children developmentally on track over a three-year period in the communities.
In 2018, the Foundation provided $2.24 million to WVA to scale up a regional network of community-based ECCD programs in Derby in the West Kimberley region
of Western Australia. In 2025, the Foundation granted a further $2 million to WVA for Phase Two of this project, which places greater emphasis on building capability and coordination across the West Kimberley region through a professional learning network.
Not only does the program improve developmental outcomes for the children, but it also employs local Aboriginal community members to run the program, including playgroup facilitators. Early childhood reference groups are established and are responsible for championing and driving the early childhood agendas in their communities, including setting up supported playgroups for parents and caregivers and their young children.
This program has since been adopted by the Martu in remote Western Desert communities in Western Australia’s East Pilbara. Known as the Martu Women and Families Program, the project aims to address the social, structural and economic factors that influence the development and wellbeing of Martu children by taking a holistic approach to early childhood care and development. The Foundation provided $500,000 over four years to Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa (KJ) to consolidate, adapt and expand the program in the East Pilbara, succeeding World Vision. KJ is a not-for-profit Martu organisation established in 2009 by Martu to work, strengthen and sustain their communities.
Since its introduction, the program has exceeded expectations, and Martu communities have welcomed the positive outcomes. Communities have reported strengthened family relationships, including improved father–child relationships, increased intergenerational and cultural learning, increased engagement with and enrolment in local schools, and improved social and emotional health and wellbeing among other benefits. The results of this program provide further proof that community leadership is critical to achieving outcomes in community-based programs.
The Foundation has also supported sector leadership through several grants to SNAICC – National Voice for our Children. SNAICC is the national nongovernment peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and the organisations and communities that support them. Its goal is to see strong, safe, healthy, selfdetermining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children connected to family and culture.
The Foundation’s first grant of $600,000 in 2020 to SNAICC was for piloting and scaling an innovative Indigenous Early Years Support (EYS) model to support community-controlled early learning services, improving their quality, viability, sustainability and agency.
This project was the first phase of a long-term endeavour to develop a robust and responsive support system for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled early learning sector and to
strengthen the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice on early childhood development.
SNAICC was awarded further funding by the Foundation ($2.655 million) in 2024 to invest in strengthening and building its capacity, as well as scaling up the EYS model. This capacity-building support will enable SNAICC to provide leadership in the broader Aboriginal Controlled Community Services sector, helping to drive improvements nationally for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children through policy and practice reform.
Leadership driven by communities, for communities, is an increasing focus for the Foundation. Communities thrive when empowered to lead their own solutions, as shown by the Education Benalla program (see page 22).
Logan Together is also a whole-of-community, placebased initiative that works to improve the well-being of children aged 0 to 8 in the City of Logan, south of Brisbane.
In 2025, the Foundation awarded $1,750,000 over five years to Logan Together to help establish an equitable, accessible and culturally relevant early childhood system for families with children aged 0 to 5. This project (First 2000 Days) is being delivered in partnership with the Brisbane South Primary Health Network.
The First 2000 Days model was developed after two years of community consultation and is informed by the Restacking the Odds framework from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.
The First 2000 Days project comprises five key initiatives:
– community maternity hubs
– sustained nurse home visiting the 'Thriving and On Track' (TOTs) program
– 'brain building' activities, and – high-quality play.
These initiatives aim to ensure that Logan's children grow, develop and thrive. Learnings from the implementation of the First 2000 Days model in Logan will inform its adoption by other communities.
Cultivating leadership is a guiding principle of The Ian Potter Foundation. By backing strong leaders in the Australian social sector and our communities, we ensure highly skilled, prepared people are in place, ready and able to tackle the complex systemic problems to improve outcomes for future generations.
GRANTS: 695
TOTAL: $86,356,661
$ Total $330,200 Qty 119
$ Ave. Grant $2,775
$ Total $112,449 Qty 54
$ Ave. Grant $2,082
$ Total
$2,030,990 Qty 144
$ Ave. Grant $14,104
$ Total
$2,410,825 Qty 117
$ Ave. Grant
$20,605
$ Total
$6,300,789 Qty 111
$ Ave. Grant $56,764
$ Total
$45,036,373 Qty 101
$ Ave. Grant $445,905
$ Total
$30,135,035 Qty 49
*As at June 2025
$ Ave. Grant
$615,001
Notes
1980s – includes $1 million to the Melbourne Business School to establish The Ian Potter Chair of Corporate Finance. 1990s – includes $500,000 to the University of Melbourne for the development of the Baillieu Library, $150,000 to the University of Sydney for the restoration of the Anderson Stuart Building, and $120,000 to the University of Queensland for the Australian Architecture Electronic Gallery.
Organisation
State Library of Victoria
Questacon
Victoria University
World Vision Australia
ARACY
University of Melbourne
SNAICC
Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Social Ventures Australia Limited
Smiling Mind
Logan Child Friendly Community Limited
Australian Schools Plus Ltd
Menzies School of Health Research
100 Story Building
Centennial Parklands Foundation
Taronga Conservation Society Australia
Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal
The University of Queensland
The Kids Research Institute Australia
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Board
Centre for Policy Development Limited
Children's Protection Society Inc
Melbourne Business School Limited
Playgroup NSW Inc
University of Western Australia
The Song Room Limited
Cool Australia Trust
Stephanie Alexander
Kitchen Garden Foundation
University of Wollongong
Zoos Victoria
Story Factory Inc
Hands on Learning Australia
Ardoch Limited
Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa
Library For All Ltd
Museums Victoria
Beacon Foundation
Unicef Australia
Grand Total State
$10,179,840 VIC
$7,800,000 National
$5,229,692 VIC
$4,237,500 WA
$4,076,983 National
$3,491,248 VIC
$3,365,000 National
$2,745,000 National
$2,601,500 National
$2,442,944 National
$1,750,000 QLD
$1,700,000 National
$1,692,000 NT
$1,685,000 VIC
$1,500,000 NSW
$1,500,000 NSW
$1,500,000 National
$1,373,000 QLD
$1,156,743 WA
$1,142,700 VIC
$1,075,000 National
$1,020,710 VIC
$1,002,000 VIC
$1,000,000 NSW
$1,000,000 WA
$990,000 National
$835,000 National
$720,000 National
$715,000 NSW
$686,500 VIC
$665,000 NSW
$600,000 VIC
$592,500 VIC
$500,000 WA
$500,000 National
$497,693 VIC
$495,000 TAS
$456,000 National
Organisation
Charles Darwin University
The Centre for Independent Studies
Raise Foundation
Deakin University
University of Tasmania
Early Childhood Intervention Australia
Edith Cowan University
The Australian Council for Educational Research Limited
Good Beginnings Australia LImited
University of Sydney
Kids Own Publishing
Monash University
Jewish Holocaust Centre Inc.
Exodus Foundation
Brotherhood of St Laurence
General Sir John Monash Foundation
United Way Australia
Kids Thrive Inc
Playgroup Australia Limited
The Smith Family
The University of Newcastle
Queensland University of Technology
The School Volunteer Program Ltd
Teach for Australia
The University of New England
The Advisory Council for Children with Impaired Hearing (Victoria)
Polyglot Theatre
Western Sydney University
Australian Academy of Science
Murdoch University
Australian Institute of Family Studies
University of New South Wales
Noah's Ark Inc.
Anglicare Victoria
The Red Room Company Ltd
Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre Inc
Wunan Foundation Inc
Organisations that have received $100,000 or more in Education or Early Childhood Development grants from The Ian Potter Foundation *up to end June 2025.
Grand Total State
$448,000 NT
$430,000 NSW
$420,000 National
$416,000 VIC
$352,907 TAS
$350,000 National
$347,000 WA
$339,734 National
$308,000 VIC
$301,025 NSW
$268,194 VIC
$264,500 VIC
$255,000 VIC
$249,000 NSW
$247,750 VIC
$240,000 VIC
$207,000 VIC
$200,000 VIC
$200,000 National
$200,000 National
$195,225 NSW
$153,000 QLD
$150,000 VIC
$150,000 WA
$146,400 NSW
$145,000 VIC
$140,000 VIC
$140,000 NSW
$137,000 National
$127,511 WA
$121,000 National
$121,000 NSW
$120,000 VIC
$120,000 VIC
$110,000 VIC
$100,000 VIC
$100,000 WA
Beyond the Bell Great South Coast Ltd
$450,000 VIC