2025 Children's Week Grants

The Victorian Department of Education is inviting eligible organisations to apply for a grant of up to $1,000 to contribute to the cost of hosting a Children’s Week activity that celebrates the theme Everyone should know about Children’s Rights! Children’s Week 2025 will be held from Saturday 18 October to Sunday 26 October 2025.

The grants program aims to:

• provide children and their families an opportunity to participate in a range of community activities
• engage Victorian families to connect and play together
• provide a financial contribution to support eligible organisations to deliver high-quality events that celebrate the national Children’s Week theme.

Get children involved!

Organisations are encouraged to involve children in the planning and design of their event. The National Quality Standard (NQS) recognises children as competent and capable. Supporting children’s agency and involving them in decisions cuts across all seven quality areas of the NQS.

To read more about NQS Quality Area 1.2.3,  and how to Support Agency: Involving Children in Decision Making visit Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority.

• Before applying, please make sure you have read the 2025 Children’s Week Guidelines
• The guidelines outline the eligibility criteria, application and assessment process. 
• Please note, kindergartens and long day cares (amongst other organisations) are not eligible to apply for a Children's Week Grant. The exception to this is if the ineligible organisation works in partnership with an eligible organisation and the eligible organisation submits the grant application. Please see section 4 below for more details. 
• Please make sure all your details are entered accurately, including contact details, as this will be used in developing your funding agreement if your organisation is successful.
• Your organisation can only apply for one grant.
• The application must be submitted by 11:59pm Tuesday 17 June 2025.
• If you have any questions about the grants or application process or eligibility, please contact the team via email at childrens.week@education.vic.gov.au.

Your organisation can apply for a grant if:

• the organisation is a Local Government Council or an eligible not-for-profit (NFP) organisation (see Eligible Not For Profit organisations section below)
• the organisation is covered by applicable insurance/s including Public Liability.

Organisations can only apply for one grant. If you are a large organisation, please consider if any other teams within your organisation are also applying for a grant – for example, a Local Government Council that operates multiple libraries can only have one of their libraries apply for a grant.

Local Government Councils are eligible for a grant of up to $700, all other organisations are eligible for a grant of up to $1000.

Eligible Not for Profit organisations

NFP organisations provide services to the community and do not operate to make a profit for its members (or shareholders, if applicable). A few examples are art centres, neighbourhood associations and sports clubs. To assess your NFP status, we will check the following against the Australian Business Register:

• type of organisation registered
• deductible Gift Recipient status or entity type
• incorporated or auspiced by another incorporated organisation (a letter of support will be required by the auspicing organisation).

Other indicators of your organisation's NFP status or particular community purposes are your organisation's:

• constitution or governing rules
• trust deed (if it is a trust)
• registration or association with other regulatory bodies that require not-for-profit status and/or the particular community purpose for registration.

For more information on NFP organisations please visit the Australian Taxation Office. For more information on what an incorporated association is, please visit Consumer Affairs Victoria.

For-profit or some NFP organisations are not eligible to apply for a grant. The exception to this is if they work in partnership with an eligible organisation and the eligible organisation submits the grant application.

The following organisation types are not eligible to apply independently for a grant, regardless of if they are NFP:

• kindergartens including kindergarten parent advisory groups and approved providers
• long day cares including approved providers
• outside school hours care services including approved providers
• family day cares including approved providers
• playgroups**
• schools
• individuals / sole traders.

**Community or Neighbourhood Houses that deliver a playgroup as part of a suite of community services are eligible to apply if attendance to their Children’s Week event includes families and children from across their local community. The Community or Neighbourhood House must apply for the grant, not the playgroup.

By submitting an application, applicants accept and agree to the following:

• the grant will only be used for costs associated with the event/activity such as:
  • guest speakers, entertainment, performance or other artists
  • learning or craft materials
  • children’s prizes and certificates of participation or achievement 
  • additional administrative costs incurred such as travel or phone
  • other relevant costs.
• launching the event/activity and/or the event/activity occurring within Children’s Week (18 October – 26 October 2025)
• offering the event/activity free of charge to Victorian children (0 – 12 years)
• the event/activity demonstrating an educational outcome or benefit
• the event/activity exploring the 2025 Children’s Week theme
• not promoting commercial interests through the event/activity
• promoting the event/activity through a range of media channels to encourage participation and generate community awareness of Children’s Week
• having their event/activity promoted on the Department of Education’s Children’s Week webpage Children's Week | vic.gov.au (www.vic.gov.au) and through the Department’s communication channels with Victorian early childhood and school sectors
• including the official Children’s Week and State Government logos and tagline “This Children’s Week event is presented by (organisation name) in partnership with the Department of Education” on all promotional materials.

Privacy Collection Notice

The Department of Education is collecting this information for processing and assessing applications for the Children’s Week Grants Program. Information collected will be dealt with in accordance with the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic) and the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic). Your personal information may be used to contact you about this application and may otherwise be used and disclosed as required by law. For more information about how the department handles your personal information, and how you may access to it, please contact the department’s Privacy team on privacy@education.vic.gov.au or see the departments’ Privacy Policy.

I confirm that as the applicant organisation I have:

• read and understood the grant activity guidelines
• checked that my organisation is eligible
• the applicable insurance/s including Public Liability
• no money owing to the Department of Education as a result of previous funding or grants.