VAFA Clubs to be supported through AFL Victoria Strategic Community Investment Fund

VAFA Clubs are set to receive a slice of the $1.5 million dollars made available to grassroots football clubs through AFL Victoria’s Strategic Community Investment Fund (SCIF). The SCIF is designed to assist clubs in 3 key areas which are all tailored to make grassroots clubs more sustainable.

The 3 key areas are:

• Grow and assist volunteer capacity.
• Grow and diversify participation.
• Improve club environments and player experiences.

Over the past few months VAFA clubs have been submitting applications for a variety of initiatives including updating digital scoreboards, accessing netting behind goals to increase safety, new jumpers that are representative of diverse groups, software and hardware designed to reduce manual cash handling and a variety of other initiatives.

Recently AFL Victoria have approved a variety of these initiatives that total more than $150,000 for VAFA Clubs. The VAFA will continue to support clubs with applications to the Strategic Community Investment Fund and other available grants and funding opportunities.

When speaking about the Strategic Community Investment Fund, Head of AFL Victoria, Ben Kavenagh said “We are pleased to be able to provide this funding opportunity through the SCIF to clubs that are proactive in improving player experiences, growing participation and assisting the wonderful volunteer workforce at community football. In 2023 we hope to see many more clubs utilise the SCIF to help them with projects and opportunities that meet one of the three key strategic areas”

One of the clubs who will receive funds as part of the SCIF is Melbourne High School Old Boys FC, who will receive $25,000 to install nets behind the goals at the Northern end of Woodfull-Miller Oval which backs directly onto the busy and dangerous Alexandra Avenue. The club will also install nets at the Clarendon Street end of the precinct as part of a larger project.

MHSOB’s Football Operations Manager, Lachlan McKinnon, said “as a club, we’ve put considerable work into the project to fund and install goal nets at our home ground at Melbourne High School. The timing of the launch of AFL Victoria’s Strategic Community Investment Fund was serendipitous as we already had everything required for the application, and we worked closely with Sean Walker and the VAFA to ensure our business case was as strong as possible. We’re ecstatic to hear we’ve been successful in receiving funding and look forward to improving our facility for the benefit of everyone in the community.”

All VAFA clubs are eligible to access the SCIF and 1:1 support can be provided by VAFA Clubs & Community Manager, Sean Walker. For any support or enquiries please reach out to Sean – [email protected].