Paul Ramsay Foundation announces  $2.1 million in funding to 7 Australian charities 

The Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF) has announced $2.1 million in funding to seven Australian charities which will be used by each charity to evaluate their innovative programs and help point the way towards achieving better outcomes for children, young people, families and people experiencing disadvantage.

Selected through PRF’s Experimental Evaluation Open Grant Round, each grantee will receive $300,000 to conduct a rigorous evaluation of their initiatives, including an experimental component, over the next three years.

This funding will demonstrate that robust evaluations can be conducted within a relatively short time frame and with modest budgets, enabling the generation of high-quality evidence to improve outcomes for communities in need.

Tresillian – Australia’s largest early parenting service – will use its funding to evaluate the Parent-Child Nurture and Regulation (PCNR) group which supports vulnerable parent-child dyads. 

The evaluation will employ a Bayesian Adaptive Trial design to measure improvements in parental disturbances of self organisation and parent-child relationships, focusing on breaking intergenerational cycles of trauma.

Fellow parenting support program Karitane will use its funds for an evaluation of its My Toddler and Me parenting program, evaluating the brief intervention aimed at improving social-emotional and behavioural outcomes in toddlers while preventing early childhood mental health issues. 

The project will involve a randomised controlled trial to assess clinical and implementation outcomes, providing evidence to guide future scale-up and increase access for families across New South Wales.

Other programs included in the funding round work across a range of areas, including primary level literacy, nurse-led home visiting programs, financial wellbeing services, and an Aboriginal-led program that supports women transitioning from correctional centres back into their communities.

“We’re delighted to support these seven exceptional organisations to enable rigorous evaluations of their work,” the Foundation’s Head of Measurement, Evaluation, Research, and Learning, Dr George Argyrous said.

“Through this funding, PRF aims to deepen the understanding and experience of evaluation techniques in Australia to better measure and create social impact. These evaluations will contribute to the evidence base that will help shape future investment in social impact programs, not only benefiting the organisations themselves but also providing knowledge for the broader for-purpose sector.”

PRF is a philanthropic foundation established by the late Paul Ramsay AO in 2006. On his passing, in 2014, the bulk of Mr Ramsay’s estate was left to continue his philanthropy for generations to come.

Learn more about the work of the Foundation here.