Applications for the Empowering Communities grants are now closed. 

The Empowering Communities grants are part of the Building Safer Communities Program which includes grants and a series of community forums across Victoria.

The grants support local communities design and lead innovative initiatives to address the causes of crime and improve perceptions of safety. Communities were identified from an analysis of crime and social data to ensure investment is targeted to areas where it is needed most. Other considerations such as community readiness for action and the opportunity to build on and complement local community safety efforts also helped to inform the selection of communities for investment. 

Empowering Communities has an emphasis on collaboration, partnerships and leveraging contributions across government and community agencies to address local crime and safety issues.

Grant objectives

  • build the capability of the community to understand crime related issues and design and implement effective crime prevention approaches
  • strengthen relationships between community stakeholders to work in partnership to deliver crime prevention activity, and leverage community capacity to deliver sustainable outcomes beyond the funding period
  • engage and mobilise the community to address issues of local concern
  • build the evidence base for successful community development initiatives that address crime and safety issues.
Detailed illustration showing key objectives from the body text in real life examples of people working together

Local Action Groups

In each location, Action Groups will be established, bringing together local community expertise with the shared interest of improving safety and addressing crime in their area.

A Building Safer Communities forum will be held early in the initiative to consider local crime and community safety issues and to inform future activity. Based on the issues discussed at the forum and other consultation and analysis, the Action Group will develop an agreed common goal, proposed activities to achieve the goal and an evaluation method to be used throughout the initiative to measure ongoing and overall success.

This illustration shows the key stages to setting up a strong initiative. 

Detailed illustration of real world examples to describe the grants process

Funding is provided through a targeted grant process open to selected priority communities, which have been identified based on an analysis of crime and social data. Empowering Communities activity is underway in these 9 local government areas across the state: 

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