Successful recipients

About the program

The LGBTIQA+ Sector Strengthening Program is a new Victorian Government initiative that supports sustainable service delivery and growth of the LGBTIQA+ community sector.

The program aims to increase the capacity of LGBTIQA+ groups and organisations to deliver critical supports and services to Victorian rainbow communities. This is the third year the program has been in place.

In 2025-26, the program provided grants of up to $150,000 to invited organisations from a total funding pool of $1,600,000. Funded projects will be delivered between April 2026 and November 2027.

We are excited to announce the following successful recipients and projects:

Drummond Street Services

Drummond Street Services will develop QFamily, an online platform that will enable online registrations for their existing programs and facilitate online delivery of The Village program. Delivered by Queerspace, The Village is a 7-week program for parents of trans and gender diverse children that uses a “whole-of-family” approach.

Flat Out

Flat Out’s Beyond Bricks and Bars program will continue their Rapid Response Outreach work, with the aim of providing critical early intervention and prevention focused support to TGD community at risk of incarceration, recently remanded, facing criminal charges or having frequent contact with police.

Gippsland Pride Initiative

Gippsland Pride Initiative will expand their organisational capacity to consolidate grow and stabilise their regional activities through the rollout of scalable, community resourced, regionally led systems aligned with their Strategic Plan.

InterAction for Health and Human Rights

InterAction will expand their Intersex Peer Support Australia program’s reach into rural and regional areas, support and strengthen Victoria’s intersex peer support volunteers, and increase capacity and understanding of partner organisations in Victoria to improve service-provision.

LINE Wangaratta

LINE Wangaratta will further develop their Pride Hub space and services to meet identified community need. The project will involve reviewing and redesigning the Pride Hub model, delivering inclusive community connection activities, supporting the workforce and volunteers to develop their capacity, refining the service and planning for the future in line with community consultation.

Many Coloured Sky

Many Coloured Sky will expand their dedicated casework service for LGBTIQA+ people on temporary visas and asylum seekers. They will do this through training, supporting and supervising an expanded group of expert volunteers, who will provide intake, casework and referral pathway services for clients.

Minus18 Foundation

Minus18 will develop and launch a new suite of interactive eLearning modules, providing accessible, evidence-based LGBTQIA+ inclusion training statewide. These resources will include allyship guides, video learning, and downloadable tools for workplaces, schools, sporting clubs, and community organisations. They will provide free access to these eLearning modules for young people in schools across regional and rural Victoria to improve access and impact.

Proud 2 Play

Proud2Play will improve engagement with regional and rural areas, increase service delivery capacity and allow ongoing growth across sporting codes and regions. This project will create an online platform enabling Proud2Play to identify geographic gaps for service, schedule services more effectively and centralise data systems to improve their capacity to support organisations and clubs.

Switchboard Victoria

Switchboard will continue their Rainbow Families program, which connects LGBTIQA+ parents, carers and their families to supports and critical information in Victoria. Switchboard will deliver services through the Rainbow Families online hub, in-person events and online webinars, covering topics like navigating services, childcare and schools, fertility, surrogacy processes, breastfeeding and parenthood with a focus on fostering community connection.

Thorne Harbour Health

Thorne Harbour Health will improve health outcomes for LGBTIQA+ women by establishing an LGBTIQA+ Women’s Advisory Panel to identify critical gaps in women’s health and co-design community-led initiatives that respond to long-standing inequities.

Transcend Australia

Transcend will develop and deliver up to three 6-week structured programs for fathers and father figures of TGD young people. The program meets an identified need for tailored supports for fathers to build their confidence and knowledge around how to support and advocate for their TGD young person, improving outcomes for the TGD young person and their families.

Transgender Victoria

Transgender Victoria will deliver 3-5 Mobile Affirmation Station activations across 2-3 regional LGAs, providing non-medical gender affirmation (clothing, grooming, styling, education and peer support) and one-to-one peer navigation. TGV will also release a local council partnership playbook, documenting a model that can be adopted by other councils and organisations engaging with TGV communities.

Victorian Pride Centre

Victorian Pride Centre will deliver the third year of their TiPS (Telling it with Pride Speakers) program to train and develop a new cohort of LGBTIQA+ public speakers for their Speaker’s Bureau. They will also establish a new LGBTIQA+ producers’ arm of the program to build capacity for LGBTIQA+ event production.

Zoe Belle Gender Collective

Zoe Belle Gender Collective will develop and deliver a trans-led 'Train the Trainer' program for the healthy masculinity sector, co-delivered with an expert men’s behaviour and violence prevention specialist. The training will reduce harm to TGD communities by equipping those who work with men and boys with the skills to actively challenge transphobia, misinformation and gender-based violence.

Flat Out
Flat Out’s Beyond Bricks and Bars program will continue their Rapid Response Outreach work, with the aim of providing critical early intervention and prevention focused support to TGD community at risk of incarceration, recently remanded, facing criminal charges or having frequent contact with police.
Gippsland Pride Initiative
Gippsland Pride Initiative will redevelop content and deliver online versions of their LGBTQIA+ training packages, with the aim of creating additional income streams, and expanding the delivery and impact of GPI's learning packages and support delivered via GPI's Community Officer.
InterAction for Health and Human Rights
InterAction will deliver a regional peer support retreat, with the aim of conducting community outreach and supporting people with innate variations of sex characteristics to access peer support services.
LINE Wangaratta
LINE Wangaratta will support the activities of the local Pride Hub with the aim of delivering consistent and expanded services to LGBTIQA+ communities including peer support programs and social connection activities with a focus on priority cohorts.
Many Coloured Sky
Many Coloured Sky will build stakeholder relationships in key sectors impacting on newly-arrived LGBTIQA+ people, and where they have identified significant and systemic problems, including housing, aged care, family support and local government services.
Melbourne Queer Film Festival
MQFF will execute MQFF's Audience Development Plan and Sponsorship Strategy, with the aim of strengthening MQFF's online platform MQFF+, and their capacity to deliver the festival.
Minus18 Foundation
Minus18 Foundation will deliver their Young Leaders Program, supporting 20 LGBTIQA+ youth over 10 months through 20 QLabs (Queer Labs), with the aim of helping participants strengthen their leadership skills, build connections and prepare for future roles in the LGBTIQA+ community sector.
Switchboard Victoria
Switchboard will increase their organisational capacity to deliver training on LGBTIQA+ suicide prevention and postvention to LGBTIQA+ organisations across the state for free, with the aim of supporting holistic service delivery and engagement with LGBTIQA+ communities.
Thorne Harbour Health
Thorne Harbour Health will expand their services to include Medicare-billed in-house counselling for LGBTIQA+ clients, with the aim of providing more affordable mental health care to LGBTIQA+ communities.
Transcend Australia
Transcend will undertake foundational development work to increase their capacity to screen and support families who are not fully supportive of a trans/gender diverse young people in their care, as well as improve the accessibility of their services to support caregivers or young people living with disabilities.
Transgender Victoria
Transgender Victoria will deliver Affirmation for All, a mobile social affirmation service that will travel to peri-urban, regional and rural locations within Victoria, to ensure that trans and gender diverse Victorians have equal access to free gender-affirming services.
Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation
VACCHO will create and deliver Rainbow Mob inclusion kits to their 33 member Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCO), with the aim of supporting safe and inclusive practices at member ACCOs across the state.
Victorian Pride Centre
The Victorian Pride Centre will expand the delivery of their existing 'Telling it with Pride' (TiPS) program to support more diverse LGBTIQA+ individuals to grow their skills and potential as storytellers and public speakers, with the aim of providing professional development and leadership opportunities for the individuals, further strengthen the VPC's speakers bureau program to bring in revenue for the Centre, and strengthen community representation.
Switchboard - Rainbow Community Angels Project
Switchboard will use funding to expand their Rainbow Community Angels service through workshops for LGBTIQA+ community and allies. They will train additional Angels, offer consultations, coordinate mobilisations, and present two impact reports to share successful strategies and tools.
Transcend - Stronger Families for Healthier Trans Futures
Transcend will use funding to establish a drop-in peer support space at the Royal Children Hospital’s Gender Service, translate resources into languages other than English, and engage a consultant to support their development of training modules for their fee-for-service business model.
Thorne Harbour Health - Come Together: An LGBTIQA+ Women's Health Hub
Thorne Harbour Health will use funding to develop a centralised online hub for LGBTIQA+ women's health that offers support, connection and referrals, has a curated repository of information and resources, and provides information on culturally safe services.
Victorian Pride Centre - Telling it with Pride: Speakers Program (TiPS Program)
Victorian Pride Centre will use funding to launch the Telling it with Pride: Speakers Program (TiPS Program). This initiative is aimed at empowering and amplifying LGBTIQA+ voices through a co-designed, three-month mentorship program, with the goal to create a VPC Speakers Directory.
Many Coloured Sky - Building Statewide Support for LGBTIQA+ Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Many Coloured Sky will use funding to work with LGBTIQA+ refugees and asylum seekers living in peri-urban and regional communities across Victoria, particularly in regions. The program will deliver mental health and peer support services, create information resources and support community engagement.
Melbourne Queer Film Festival - Capacity Building and Expansion Program
Melbourne Queer Film Festival will use funding to employ a seasonal Marketing and Fundraising Coordinator to support the growth and expansion of the online MQFF+ platform to regional and rural communities.
Flat Out - Beyond Bricks and Bars - Rapid Response Project
Flat Out will use funding to launch the Rapid Response Project, a program to work with early intervention services for trans and gender diverse people in the criminal justice system.
Rural Pride Australia - Rural LGBTIQA+ Community Safety Project
Rural Pride Australia will use funding to create a co-designed LGBTIQA+ regional community safety framework, resources and practice model to respond to rising anti-LGBTIQA+ hate and vilification. The framework and resources will be underpinned by an online Community of Practice.
Zoe Belle Gender Collective (auspiced by Thorne Harbour Health) - Transfemme Expansion Project
Zoe Belle Gender Collective will use funding to extend their Transfemme project for an additional 12 months, a website and resource series that promotes healthier relationships between trans women and cisgender men.
Inclusive Rainbow Voices (auspiced by Drummond Street Services), Strengthening Inclusive Rainbow Voices
Inclusive Rainbow Voices will use funding to employ a Senior Project and Policy Officer to support the growth and sustainability of the organisation and position themselves as the peak body for LGBTIQA+ people with disability.
Transgender Victoria - Reaching New Communities
Transgender Victoria will use funding to expand the operations of their new Affirmation Station site and support the expansion of the organisation's network and operations into regional and rural Victoria.
Gippsland Pride Initiative - Empowering Gippsland LGBTQIA+ Progress
Gippsland Pride Initiative will use funding to hire a LGBTIQA+ Community and Programs manager to support the implementation of their Rainbow Brick Road report, provide admin support, expand the organisation’s ability to connect with community and deliver support services, and reduce volunteer fatigue.

Equality

Updated 7 May 2026