2025 Innovation Round outcomes

We received over 80 high quality applications for the 2025 Innovation Round and offered 11 grants. We recognise the effort and thought behind every application and provided feedback to help applicants prepare for future rounds.  

Grant recipients

The Innovation Advisory Panel  discusses applications during our assessment process

Feedback

What made a compelling project? 

Understanding our objectives 

Strong applications demonstrated a clear understanding of FCIF’s objectives and could explain how their idea would test a genuinely new way of working.  What made these proposals innovative was their ability to rethink existing approaches.  These proposals showed the potential to improve the efficiency of service delivery and generate benefits across the broader financial counselling sector. 

Partnerships 

Applications with strong and diverse partnerships – especially partnerships within the financial counselling sector – were more effective in demonstrating wider sector benefits. 

An external focus 

While strong ideas often emerge from a local or issue-specific context, some projects were too narrowly focused and did not clearly explain how the project would benefit the broader financial counselling sector.  More compelling projects were able to demonstrate how their idea could be applied more widely and provided evidence of broader relevance through partnerships or plans for sharing outcomes.  FCIF looked for proposals that demonstrated how learnings could be adapted across different settings, rather than remaining specific to one service or community. 

Seed or Scaling Up grants 

Compelling applications aligned their project idea with the right grant type. Seed Grants are designed to establish the foundations of your idea and to test your thinking before scaling up. Choosing a Seed Grant can strengthen your proposal if your idea is still in development or hasn't yet demonstrated results in practice. 

Some projects applied for a Scaling-up Grant but did not provide sufficient evidence that their project had already been successfully tested. Scaling-up grants are intended to build on a proven concept where clear outcomes have been achieved and the next step is a broader implementation. Without this foundation, the application was less compelling and did not meet the intent of the Scaling-up grant. 

Applicants who matched their project to the appropriate grant type and were realistic about their project’s current stage of development, were more successful. 

A focus on evaluation 

Compelling applications demonstrated they were testing a specific idea and included a plan to evaluate its impact. This helped to lay the foundation for future scaling or broader application in a Scaling up grant.

Why were projects unsuccessful?

Financial capability projects 

Many EOIs involved standalone financial literacy, wellbeing or capability projects. These applications did not proceed to a full application as they did not meet our efficiency assessment criteria.  

While effective financial capability initiatives may reduce some need for financial counselling in the future, these projects were not able to demonstrate an ability to improve the efficiency of financial counselling service delivery.  

We encourage unsuccessful applicants with an interest in standalone financial capability initiatives to look at the work of the Ecstra Foundation which has a specific focus on financial education and financial capability. The Ecstra Foundation’s Talk Money program is specifically designed to help Australian school students learn about money. 

Workforce capability projects 

Many EOIs involved projects to enhance financial counsellors’ skills, for example through training or resources tailored to specific client cohorts or presenting issues. These projects did not advance to a full application as we considered they were more aligned with our Workforce funding priority.  

We anticipate that some of these projects may be able to apply for our 2026 Workforce Round. This round will be developed following the publication of Financial Counselling Australia’s National Workforce Strategy 2025-2030.  

More information will be available closer to the launch of the 2026 Workforce Round. 

Additional staffing projects 

Some applications involved projects to expand financial counselling service delivery by employing additional staff or testing different ways of working by employing additional staff with different skills, at different working hours or on a temporary basis. Some of these projects were excluded because we considered it was additional service delivery which was an ineligible activity under the Grant Guidelines. Other applications did not provide a compelling case when mapped against the assessment criteria, particularly the innovation and sector-wide benefits of these projects. 

Projects seeking to add staff to existing service models may be better suited to our 2025 Expansion Round, which is specifically designed to fund additional roles that support financial counselling delivery, including both specialist and non-specialist staff. 

Awareness raising projects 

Some projects had interesting ideas about how to encourage, or facilitate, people (often highly disadvantaged people) to understand & access financial counselling services. These projects were excluded as this is an ineligible activity under the Grant Guidelines.  

FCIF’s charitable purpose is to assist people experiencing financial vulnerability by reducing unmet demand for financial counselling services. Unmet demand refers to people who are actively seeking financial counselling help but can’t get timely access to a financial counselling service. We consider awareness raising to be addressing unmet need, rather than unmet demand. 

Unserved communities’ projects 

Projects to pilot service delivery in settings where financial counselling services are not currently provided did not progress to full application.  As noted above, FCIF’s charitable purpose is to assist people experiencing financial vulnerability by reducing unmet demand for financial counselling services. These proposals were considered to be addressing unmet need, rather than unmet demand, for financial counselling services. 

Projects combining multiple, unrelated components 

Some applicants combined multiple ideas into a single project.  This made it difficult to assess and in some cases resulted in the entire project being excluded, particularly if one aspect of the project was ineligible.  We encourage you to submit one clear idea per EOI.  You are welcome to submit multiple EOIs if you have several ideas to explore. 

Technology projects 

Some projects proposing new technologies lacked the clarity or depth needed for proper assessment.  In some cases, it was unclear what technology would be developed or what the project was ultimately aiming to achieve.  This lack of detail made it difficult to understand the scope, feasibility, innovation or impact of the idea. 

Projects that had already identified a technology partner and could demonstrate that the partner understood the project brief tended to be stronger and clearer as a result. 

We encourage you to write your application as though the reader has no prior knowledge of the technology or tools being proposed.  A strong application should clearly and succinctly explain the technology that you want to use, how it will work and how it meets the assessment criteria.   

A clear and compelling project that involves technology should consider: 

• What the technology is and how it functions
• Whether it is a new development, adaptation or integration from existing platforms
• How it supports financial counselling delivery
• Any technology partners
• How it aligns with the assessment criteria to deliver wider sector benefits.