Youth Opportunities Program

The Youth Opportunities program provides one-off, time-limited grants for new community projects driven and led by young people.

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What is the Youth Opportunities program

The Youth Opportunities program provides one-off, time-limited grants to incorporated not-for-profit community organisations and local government councils in NSW. Funding is for new projects that enable marginalised young people, aged 12 to 24, to lead and participate in their communities.

The Youth Opportunities program requires applicant organisations to have spoken with marginalised young people and involved them in developing the project proposal prior to submitting a grant application.

Organisations must involve young people at every stage of the project – from identifying the need and developing the project proposal through to design, project delivery and final review.

Program information

How much funding is available

Up to $1.5 million is available for incorporated not-for-profit community organisations and local Councils in NSW to apply for a grant between $10,000 and $50,000 to deliver a new Youth Opportunities project.

Project Themes

Projects which are genuinely youth-led and youth-driven are those initiated by young people and based on what they have said they need.

Project themes have been suggested based on what young people have told the government and other organisations about what is important to them:

  • community inclusion and participation
  • COVID-19 recovery
  • cultural identity and connection
  • cyber safety and awareness
  • domestic and family violence
  • healthy relationships
  • financial literacy (budgeting, rent, phone, contracts, fines)
  • health and wellbeing
  • homelessness and housing
  • natural disasters (preparedness, resilience and recovery).

Youth Opportunities projects may seek to address one or more of these issues, or they may address other issues raised by marginalised young people, which are important to them and their local communities.

Applicant organisations must engage marginalised young people in the initial ‘Identifying the need’ stage of the project to ensure the project is responsive to their needs.

How to apply

Incorporated not-for-profit community organisations operating in NSW and NSW Local Councils are invited to apply. Applications are submitted via SmartyGrants

Program documents

Youth Opportunities Program grants

Since 2012, the Youth Opportunities program has provided $19.8 million in funding to 434 projects across NSW.

Previous recipients

The most recent grant recipients and their projects can be viewed in the grant rounds above.

You can also view previous recipients from when the program was launched in 2012 until 2022, as well as a series of case studies illustrating real-life examples of previously funded projects. 

The learnings from these projects are intended to help future applicants develop effective and impactful youth-led community projects.

Support and contact

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