Grants for Australian clubs: what each state will and won't fund
Every year, volunteer committees spend evenings writing grant applications for things the program was never going to fund. The guidelines are long, the eligible and ineligible lists sit in different documents, and the departmental web page is often a round behind its own PDF.
This page is the shortcut. Every program below has been read against its current guidelines — not a summary, not an aggregator listing — and each entry says plainly what the money can and cannot be spent on. Where a program has quietly stopped running, we say that too, because a dead program that still ranks in search is how committees waste the most time.
Open right now
| Program | Where | Closes | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gambling Community Benefit Fund, Round 127 | QLD | 11:59pm, 28 September 2026 | Up to $35,000 |
| Community Benefit Fund — Minor Community Grants | NT | 30 September 2026, then monthly | Up to $15,000 |
| Aboriginal Sport for Respect Grant Program | NSW | 1pm, 6 October 2026 | $3,000 – $25,000 |
| Local Sport Defibrillator Grant Program | NSW | 7 October 2026, or when funds run out | Defibrillator packages |
| Recreational Fishing Trust grants | NSW | 5pm, 9 October 2026 | Under / over $10,000 streams |
| Active Club Program, Round 56 | SA | Midday, Wednesday 14 October 2026 | $1,500 or $3,000 |
Two of these are worth a closer look. The SA Active Club Program sets aside $200,000 of its $1,448,000 pool for recreational fishing clubs, so an eligible angling club competes in a far smaller field than the headline number suggests. And the Queensland Gambling Community Benefit Fund runs twelve rounds a year with a $35,000 ceiling and more than $60 million distributed annually — it is the most accessible large grant in the country, and the one most often overlooked because it sits with the Department of Justice rather than with sport.
Open, but restricted to state bodies rather than clubs: Tasmania's Active Industry Fund (closes 2pm, 14 October 2026) and Western Australia's Sport Development Pathways Grant Program (closes 4pm, 19 October 2026). Neither is available to an individual club.
Opening soon
| Program | Where | Opens | Closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community Benefit Fund — Major Community Grants | NT | 1 January 2027 | 28 February 2027 |
| ClubGRANTS Category 3 — Sport Infrastructure | NSW | 1 February 2027 | 22 February 2027 |
| Sporting Club Grants Program, Round 2 | VIC | 18 February 2027 | 4pm, 1 April 2027 |
| Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund | WA | February 2027 | Not yet announced |
The one distinction that decides most applications
Almost every program in Australia draws the same line, and most committees miss it.
Grants fund the build. They do not fund the renewal.
The clearest statement of it is in the federal Stronger Communities Programme guidelines, which list as eligible:
“significant upgrades of websites or applications/application software, e.g. booking systems, digital marketplace, accessibility improvements, cyber security”
“the cost of initial subscription-based software”
“initial IT support memberships”
— and as ineligible:
“memberships and warranties for purchases recurring or ongoing operational expenditure”
The same principle appears everywhere, in different words. Tasmania excludes “subscriptions to software”. South Australia excludes “Magazines, digital media and software, websites, newspaper” under its Subscriptions heading. New South Wales excludes “Yearly subscriptions and memberships”. Queensland's Active Women and Girls guidelines put it most bluntly of all, excluding “programs with on-going subscription costs (e.g. MYOB, Xero)”.
What this means in practice. A project with a beginning and an end — a website build, a system implementation, moving member records out of spreadsheets, a governance review — is the shape these programs fund. An annual licence fee is the shape they refuse. Scope the application as the former, and budget for the latter out of club funds.
There is exactly one documented exception, and it is narrow. The NSW Local Sport Grant Program guidelines state: “Yearly subscriptions and memberships (Subscription costs for video technology are eligible for first year only).” That is a carve-out for video technology specifically. It is not a general rule that the first year of any subscription is fundable.
What each jurisdiction will fund
| Where | Best program for a club | Website build | Club software | Ongoing subscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACT | Club Enhancement Program | Yes | Yes, if tied to participation | No |
| VIC | Sporting Club Grants, Category 5 | Yes, explicitly | Yes — “upgrading your membership portal” | No |
| NSW | Local Sport Grant Program | Yes, explicitly | Marginal | No, except video technology year one |
| SA | Active Club Program | Yes, under Club promotion | No | No |
| QLD | Gambling Community Benefit Fund | Unconfirmed | Unconfirmed — ask first | No |
| NT | Community Benefit Fund | Unlikely | Unlikely | No |
| TAS | Active Clubs Program | No, expressly | No, expressly | No |
| WA | — | No program exists | No program exists | No program exists |
| Federal | Stronger Communities Programme | Yes | Yes | First year only |
Australian Capital Territory
The Club Enhancement Program (ACT Sport and Recreation) has the most software-friendly wording of any live state program, funding up to $20,000 with no mandatory co-contribution. Its eligible list includes “Innovative digital applications, marketing and communications to enhance participation experiences and/or increase participation”, and separately “Costs associated with the development and implementation of governance, planning and management structures and practices (e.g., consultation, research, data, policy and procedure manuals)”.
The condition is the participation link. A system pitched as reducing registration friction or growing membership fits; one pitched as back-office convenience runs into the exclusion for “general administrative and management costs associated in operating the organisation”.
Requirements: ACT incorporation, affiliation with a state or national body, public liability cover of at least $10,000,000, and a current strategic or operational plan. Quotes: “a minimum of one quote (preferably two)”, and screenshots of shopping carts are accepted.
Status: between rounds. The 2026 round closed 17 October 2025 and no 2027 round had opened as at 21 September 2026. The program page still displays the closed round as though current, so check the grants portal rather than the page.
Victoria
The Sporting Club Grants Program Category 5 — Governance and Engagement — funds up to $1,500 and names the product category outright. Eligible costs include “Building a new website or updating an existing one” and “Upgrading your membership portal”. Category 3 separately covers “Online registration platforms or program-specific web pages” where these support a funded event.
Excluded: “Subscriptions for accounting software, bookkeeping”, and program-wide, “Business as usual or operational expenses”.
Applicants must be an incorporated association, company limited by guarantee, or Indigenous corporation, with an ABN. Child abuse insurance is required only for Category 2 projects involving ongoing services to under-18s, not for Category 5.
Status: Round 1 closed 26 August 2026. Round 2 opens 18 February 2027 and closes 4pm, 1 April 2027.
New South Wales
The Local Sport Grant Program ($2,000 to $20,000) explicitly funds “upgrade or develop a new website for the club” and “Projects that improve a club's capability and capacity to increase community presence and the ability to communicate with existing participants/members”.
Club management software itself is marginal. The program's technology wording — “technology directly related to delivering the sport e.g., sport related equipment, microphones, speakers, video technology and/or umpire technology” — is on-field, and the ineligible list captures “Office equipment (e.g., office furniture, television, computers, iPads, printers, photocopiers etc.)” and “administration costs that relate to the running of the applicant organisation”.
The structural feature worth knowing: $50,000 is quarantined to each of the 93 NSW electorates, and applications are assessed in the electorate containing the project address, not the club's postal address.
Requirements are heavier than most: incorporation, affiliation with a listed State Sporting Organisation, public liability cover of at least $5 million, and quotes no more than six months old, in AUD, with the GST component shown. More than one quote is “highly desired”.
Status: closed 24 August 2026, outcomes December 2026. No next round announced.
Also in New South Wales: the Safe Shooting Program ($10,000 to $50,000) funds range construction, storage and security, and firearms equipment for clubs approved by the NSW Firearms Registry. Its digital category covers hardware only — “installation of WIFI / satellite connectivity hardware, keyless entry, increased automation” — and it excludes administrative and operational expenditure. The Recreational Fishing Trust is open until 9 October 2026 but will not fund “club facilities that are only available to organisation/club members”, which rules out club administration systems.
South Australia
The Active Club Program pays two flat amounts decided by membership: $1,500 under 100 members, $3,000 at 100 or more. No partial awards, and no competition on the size of the ask.
“Club promotion: Developing websites, social media, traditional print media” is eligible. Software is not — it is excluded twice, under “Subscriptions: Magazines, digital media and software, websites, newspaper” and under “Non-essential technology: ... software not associated with the activity”. The eligible technology examples are all hardware.
Recreational fishing clubs are expressly eligible, with $200,000 of the pool reserved for them. Car clubs are expressly ineligible — though the exclusion is written as applying to clubs eligible through the state's Car Club Program, and that program ran its final round in 2025. A South Australian car club should ask the Office directly rather than assume.
Status: Round 56 closes midday, Wednesday 14 October 2026.
Note also that the SA Car Club Program — which funded “Systems improvements (e.g., IT systems, software upgrades, membership portals, data collection systems)” and “Website designs and updates” — was the most software-friendly club grant in the country and has now concluded. Its final round closed August 2025 and no successor has been announced.
Queensland
No dedicated sport program is currently open to clubs. Active Clubs is dormant: its guidelines PDF returns a 404, the program is absent from the department's current funding index, and it does not appear in the 2026-27 budget service delivery statements. ActiveKIT, the state's technology-focused fund, closed with no successor.
That leaves the Gambling Community Benefit Fund — twelve rounds a year, up to $35,000, administered by the Department of Justice. Its eligible list covers “equipment” and “printing, publications and marketing” without naming software either way, so a one-off purchase is arguable but unconfirmed. Ongoing costs are expressly out. Call the fund on 1800 633 619 before building an application around software.
One trap worth knowing: the Fund excludes “purchases from a grant writer or related business”, and separately bars grant writing, grant management and project management fees.
Northern Territory
There is no currently published club-level sport grant. The Grassroots Grant Program has disappeared from the department's site and its guidelines are unretrievable; the sport grants index page has not been updated since 2019.
The live route is the Community Benefit Fund, with monthly Minor grants to $15,000 and Major grants from $15,001 to $250,000. It publishes no eligible expenditure list at all, only exclusions, which include “operational or core business activities” and “recurrent expense funding” including “administration expenses”. Club administration software sits squarely inside both.
Tasmania
The Active Clubs Program ($1,000 to $10,000) is an equipment program and says so clearly. Both software and websites are expressly excluded: “subscriptions to software”, “Laptops, tablets or computers for personal or administrative use”, and, under Marketing and promotion, “Development of websites”.
Its eligible IT category is participation hardware only — “Tablets used for scoring or video replay in coaching, non-fixed score boards, electronic timing equipment”.
Status: the 2025-26 round closed 24 March 2026 and no 2026-27 round had been published as at 21 September 2026. Search results may still show the page titled “Open”. The live page says Closed.
Western Australia
Western Australia has no club development or capacity-building grant a community club can apply to, for any purpose. Sport and recreation now sits with the Department of Creative Industries, Tourism and Sport; the legacy dsr.wa.gov.au domain is unmaintained and serves an expired security certificate, so any link to it will warn your members.
What exists: facilities funding through the Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund (suspended pending a review, rounds expected February 2027), KidSport vouchers of $300 that families claim and clubs redeem, the Regional Athlete Travel Subsidy Scheme for individual athletes, and an events program. The department's own club development page offers training and guides, but no money.
The Every Club Grant Scheme is a trap for anyone scanning WA grant lists: despite the name, only local governments and state sporting associations could ever apply, and the program has been discontinued.
Federal
The Stronger Communities Programme ($2,500 to $20,000, up to 100% funded for clubs) has the best wording in the country for technology, including “computers, associated software and user licenses”, “significant updates of existing ICT systems including: CRM systems, databases etc.”, and “the cost of suppliers, consultants and contracted labour undertaking eligible project activities”.
The catch is access: applications are by federal MP nomination only, so a club cannot self-apply. Round 9 has closed and no Round 10 has been announced.
Volunteer Grants ($1,000 to $5,000) are also MP-nominated. Their software line is narrower than it first appears: “Software packages that are primarily for online communications and activity. For example, email or videoconferencing software.” A membership platform is a stretch. The genuinely useful line for a small club is that insurance premiums are an eligible item.
When no grant covers it
The Australian Sports Foundation is not a grant program and should not be counted as one. It is a deductible-gift-recipient fundraising platform: the club raises money from its own supporters, the Foundation makes those donations tax deductible and retains 5%.
Because the money is the club's own, it is the one nationally available mechanism that can pay for an ongoing subscription — the exact cost that every grant program refuses.
Before you apply
Quotes. Requirements vary and are rarely on the landing page. New South Wales wants quotes no older than six months, in AUD, with GST shown, and prefers more than one. Victoria wants item name, description, quantity, unit and total costs plus the supplier's business name and ABN, dated within the round and still unpaid. The ACT accepts screenshots of shopping carts. Queensland's Benefit Fund does not want quotes at submission at all, but may ask during assessment.
The GST trap. This catches more committees than any other single item, because programs are split on it and neither treatment is obvious.
- Paid excluding GST — Victoria's Sporting Club Grants. “All grants under the Sporting Club Grants Program are paid excluding GST, regardless of whether your organisation is registered for GST.” Your request must absorb the GST you will pay.
- Grossed up by 10% — South Australia's Active Club Program and the ACT's Club Enhancement Program both add 10% for GST-registered applicants.
- Paid including GST — Tasmania's Active Clubs and Victoria's Stronger Fishing Clubs.
Budget for the wrong one and a $1,500 grant buys $1,363 of what you planned.
Have these ready. Incorporation number, ABN, certificate of currency for public liability at the level the program requires, confirmation of state body affiliation where it is asked for, and a clean acquittal history. The affiliation letter and the insurance certificate are the two documents clubs most often cannot produce inside a four-week window.
Frequently asked questions
Can a grant pay for our club's membership software?
In two jurisdictions, yes. Victoria's Sporting Club Grants Category 5 names “Upgrading your membership portal” as an eligible cost, and the ACT's Club Enhancement Program funds “Innovative digital applications” where they are tied to participation. Elsewhere it is either excluded outright — Tasmania and South Australia both name software in their ineligible lists — or not addressed. In every case the grant covers the one-off project, not the recurring licence.
Why do so many programs refuse subscriptions?
Because these are project grants with an acquittal at the end. A club must show what was delivered and close the file, usually within twelve months. A recurring fee has no completion point, so it falls under the operating-cost exclusion that every program carries.
Can we apply for a website?
More often than for software. Website development is explicitly eligible in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, and covered by category in the ACT. Tasmania is the outlier: it excludes “Development of websites” by name.
Do we have to be incorporated?
For almost everything, yes. The exception is the federal Volunteer Grants program, which accepts unincorporated associations where the primary contact accepts personal legal liability. Every state program reviewed requires incorporation.
Is there anything for car clubs?
Very little. No state runs a dedicated motoring club grant. South Australia's Car Club Program — the only one that existed, and which funded membership portals and website work directly — ran its final round in 2025. Car clubs affiliated with a recognised state body can apply to general sport programs where those exist.
Is there anything for shooting clubs?
New South Wales runs the Safe Shooting Program for range construction, storage, security and firearms equipment, open to clubs approved by the NSW Firearms Registry. It does not fund administration, software or websites. Shooting clubs affiliated with a state sporting organisation can also apply to general programs such as the Local Sport Grant Program.
How often is this page updated?
On a fixed review cycle, with the date shown at the top. Grant rounds open and close on their own schedule and departmental pages are frequently a round behind their own guidelines, so treat this as a starting point and confirm on the program's page before you write.
Disclosure
SquadSpot builds membership and administration software for Australian clubs, so we have an obvious commercial interest in this subject. We have said plainly where programs will not fund software, including several where they will not fund ours, because a committee that submits an ineligible application has wasted an evening and learnt to distrust the source. Nothing on this page is paid placement, and every program is described from its own current guidelines.