OUR STORY
OUR PURPOSE
For over 25 years, we have had the privilege of working in partnership with Australia’s not-for-profit sector, other funders and all levels of government.
The Nelson Meers Foundation was established in 2001 by businessman and philanthropist, Nelson Meers AO, and his daughter, Sam Meers AO. We were the first ‘prescribed private fund’ (now ‘private ancillary fund’) to commence operation in Australia. Since we began our funding program in 2001, we have funded over 250 innovative and diverse projects and over 200 different organisations.
We are inspired every day by the many project partners whom we have had the privilege of supporting over the past two decades. We aim to support the organisations we work with by placing our trust in them, and providing them with untied, multi-year funding to build their long-term capacity.
The Nelson Meers Foundation is family-led, and our grantmaking is underpinned by our family values of creativity, fairness, inclusion, sustainability, leadership, collaboration and humility. The Foundation supports the multi-generational personal giving of the individual members of the Meers family, who give in their personal capacity to programs both within and outside the Nelson Meers Foundation’s funding remit.
To extend our impact beyond our grantmaking, we take public positions that support our work, actively seek to collaborate with our philanthropic peers, and encourage collaboration between the organisations we support.
We strongly believe that private giving plays an integral role in ensuring the vitality and resilience of Australian society and we actively advocate for greater opportunities for philanthropic giving, and more impactful philanthropic giving, in Australia.
From a governance perspective, our operations are overseen by an advisory board chaired by Sam Meers AO and comprised of family members and members of the community.
What We Do
Over the past 25 years, the Nelson Meers Foundation’s key objective has been to foster innovative artistic and cultural expression, and to encourage greater engagement with the diversity, complexity and richness of our cultural sector. We have done this by supporting organisations and projects that create positive change, promote individual wellbeing, community cohesion and cultural tolerance, particularly through the lens of the arts and culture.
Our experience over this time, through the wisdom of the many project partners we have worked with, and the more recent engagement of the next generation of the Meers family, has led us to expand our funding remit to achieve greater progress in key social justice issues.
Whilst we will continue our legacy of supporting the cultural sector, we will also include in our funding considerations for the 2024-2028 strategic period a small number of projects coalescing around three specific focus areas. With the available budget, it is anticipated that a maximum of three grants will be awarded, providing multi-year operating support with grant commitments extending over up to three years.
For the 2024-2028 period, our focus will be as follows:
OUR COMMUNITY
Our focus will be on support for organisations promoting or honouring human or civil rights, and those engaged in the improvement of aging outcomes.
OUR CULTURE
We believe that artistic and cultural endeavours are essential to both individual identity and to an enlightened and tolerant society. We will therefore continue to support art and culture in all its forms. We embrace the ability of the arts to cross disciplinary boundaries and be responsive and relevant to our community, providing important cultural, social and political access points for both its practitioners and its audiences.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
Our focus will be on building bipartisan support for bold, evidence-based climate policy that accelerates an equitable net-zero aligned energy transition in Australia.
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Engage With Us
We are currently only accepting applications for our cultural program, for which we have a two stage grant process.
As a first step, please email us at info@nelsonmeersfoundation.org.au with a brief description of your project so we can let you know if your project is appropriate for funding from the Nelson Meers Foundation.
If your project is appropriate, you will be invited to submit a full application. An application form will be emailed to you.
Please note that at this stage, our funding areas other than our cultural program are by invitation only.
