Innovation and impact grants (Violence Prevention Innovation Lab)

Innovation and impact grants (Violence Prevention Innovation Lab) is sponsored by Minderoo Foundation (in partnership with Our Watch). The Violence Prevention Innovation Lab, funded through a philanthropic partnership with Minderoo Foundation and led by Our Watch, aims to identify and strengthen transformative gender-based violence prevention approaches.

Our Watch | Violence Prevention Innovation Lab Violence Prevention Innovation Lab The Violence Prevention Innovation Lab is the first of its kind in Australia, with a mission to identify and strengthen transformative approaches to preventing gender-based violence. Funded through a $7.

5 million, 3-year philanthropic partnership with Minderoo Foundation , the Lab will enable partners to better test, evaluate, scale and embed promising primary prevention thinking into community-led action. In 2026-27, the Lab will focus on accelerating evidence-based community projects through a suite of Innovation and Impact Challenge grants.

The 6 grantees represent a diverse range of new, community-led primary prevention initiatives across performing arts, maternal and child health, new fathers, LGBTQIA+, Indigenous-led and multicultural cohorts, and initiatives that support young people.

Check out the latest articles featuring the Lab: Innovation lab rethinks violence prevention | Today Starting Your Innovation Journey | Shackleton Labs For inquiries about the Violence Prevention Innovation Lab get in touch with us via innovation. projects@ourwatch. org.

au . The team would love to hear from potential new funders and collaborators. Project title: DadConnect Project location: Queensland DadConnect is a 12-month hybrid digital and place-based capability pilot that supports men and boys to build respectful, positive, gender-equal relationships.

This is done by strengthening relational capability in fathers and building the workforce’s confidence and skill to engage men safely and effectively during the perinatal period.

Project title: Migrant and Refugee Fathers Project Project location: Queensland This project will bring together and facilitate a group of young fathers from migrant and refugee communities to explore and articulate what works and resonates in supporting young migrant and refugee men. This is particularly in the context of becoming fathers, to foster respectful, gender-equal relationships and challenge rigid ideas of masculinity.

Project title: Two Plays Project Project location: Tasmania Two playwrights will collaborate using a community engaged framework to write the performance scripts of two new plays about male violence against women and children, one told from a female perspective and one from a male perspective.

The plays will challenge rigid stereotypes of masculinity and provide a sense of both the problem and the possible solutions for audiences to be inspired by. New Story Company will also produce play readings, with follow-on community discussion sessions about the issues raised.

Project title: MPOWER PRO: FlowCoach AI Project location: NSW and national MPOWER PRO incorporating FlowCoach AI meets young men through hip hop – a language they already speak. This Indigenous-led platform uses artificial intelligence coaching to guide young people through songwriting as a pathway to emotional wellbeing. As they create, they develop emotional regulation skills, practice self-reflection, and build agency.

The technology allows culturally grounded support to reach young men at scale, particularly those who don't engage with traditional services. Project title: The First 100 Project location: Victoria Project title: Support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people Project location: Tasmania The project will form a framework of support for fathers of trans/LGBTIQA+ young people to parent in gender affirming, equitable ways.

Facilitated by a peer with relevant professional experience, the fathers will share parenting and family experiences through discussions of topics related to stereotypes of masculinity and fatherhood, and their interaction with cisgenderism, cisnormativity and homophobia.

The group will focus on ways to individually and collectively challenge rigid masculinity stereotypes and limited understandings of gender in not only themselves, but interpersonal and community contexts. Diverse local not-for-profit projects announced as first Violence Prevention Innovation Lab grantees The grantees represent a broad range of new, community-led primary prevention initiatives across a diverse selection of organisations.

Innovation Lab to fund groundbreaking work in preventing violence against women The first of its kind Violence Prevention Innovation Lab will shortly launch in Australia to identify and strengthen transformative gender-based violence prevention approaches.