General Purpose Distribution Fund

This fund is available to assist people with an eligible disability who are on low income to access items that will improve their quality of life. Grants of up to $3,000 per applicant each financial year are available for one or more of the following purposes:

Personal or household items or
Temporary or short-term services when other funding is not available or
Activities that enhance quality of life.

Previous grants include funding for household items, such as fridges and washing machines, and smart devices to control assistive technology solutions and connect to community.

Please note that we have a limited amount of grant funds, so we may not be able to support every eligible application.

Application guidelines

Please refer to the following guidelines when preparing your application:

Applications are accepted at any time. Decisions are made by a committee of people with disability. The committee meets every two to three months.
Committee decisions are guided by:
- The funds available.
- Any previous grants awarded to you.
- Whether government would fund the item (for example, under NDIS or health services).
- The impact of the grant on your quality of life and connection to community.

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Further information

Read our Frequently Asked Questions for more information about this grant, including eligibility criteria.

To be eligible for our General Purpose Distribution or Short Stay Holiday grants you must:

Be over 18 years of age
Live in South Australia
Be on a low income (e.g., receiving a Disability Support Pension or equivalent)
Have one of the following:
- An acquired brain injury
- A degenerative neurological condition
- A physical disability that:
  - Impacts mobility, requiring day-to-day support (e.g., personal care, mobility aids, assistive technology)
  - Is lifelong, either from birth, early childhood, or resulting from an accident or certain illnesses

The funds for our small grant programs were originally connected to Julia Farr Services. This means, the grants are limited to supporting the types of disabilities experienced by the former residents of Julia Farr Services. JFA Purple Orange is legally required to ensure grants are distributed to individuals who have a physical disability that meets the eligibility criteria.

The nature of eligible physical disabilities is limited to:

A physical disability that impacts your mobility so that you have day-to-day support needs, for example for personal care, mobility aids (such as a wheelchair) or supports or assistive technology in your home. This will be a lifelong physical disability either from birth, early childhood or resulting from an accident or certain types of illnesses.

Because of the restrictions on the use of the funds, the following disabilities are not eligible: disability caused by chronic health conditions, age-related conditions (including arthritis and dementia), intellectual disability, mental illness, or autism.

No. When making decisions on grants, we consider the role of government or public funds – including the NDIS – in paying for the item or service.

We know that there are many people with disability who do not receive NDIS services. You do not have to be an NDIS participant to apply for our grants.

Our General Purpose Distribution grants fund:

Personal or household items or
Temporary or short-term services when other funding is not available or
Activities that enhance quality of life and connection to community.

Previous grants have funded domestic appliances and computer equipment, for example. The maximum grant size for this fund is $3,000.

We do not fund the following:

Medical items
Items or services that should be covered by government funding, such as NDIS
Daily living costs such as food, drinks and household bills
Gambling
Alcohol or other drugs
Luxury items
Fixed items in a rented home that you will not take with you if you move house
Vehicle purchase and maintenance
Legal fees
Retrospective costs
The costs of support workers, friends and family members that are travelling with you (for the holiday fund)
Activities that are not inclusive within mainstream communities, such as group holidays for people living with disability
Items costing more than $3,000, unless you can demonstrate that you can cover the additional cost from elsewhere

Please send us two quotes per item. Your quotes can be from two different providers, or you can have quotes from one provider for two different models, or two different options. For example you might have different accommodation options with the same hotel, or you might have quotes for two different models of oven.

No – you can apply for your preferred item. You can apply for a grant for a good quality item – it doesn’t have to be the cheapest, but we won’t fund luxury items.

If the item you want to purchase costs more than the maximum value of the grant ($3,000 for our General Purpose Distribution Fund), you will need to demonstrate that you have secured funds from another source to pay the difference.

You can apply for more than one grant, but we will only award one grant per person, every financial year from the General Purpose Distribution fund or from the Short Stay Holiday fund. If you apply for more than one grant at a time, we will ask you to identify your preference.

You can apply for more than one item. We have limited funds, so we may not be able to fund everything you have requested. If you apply for more than one item, we will ask you to select which item is most important to you. Our Committee is more likely to fund multiple items where they are related to each other, for example a smart device, case and headphones. We have also funded multiple household items for applicants who are moving home and need essential items for their new house.

You can receive one grant per person, every financial year from the General Purpose Distribution fund or the Short Stay Holiday fund. If you have already received funding from one of these funds in this period, a second application will not be funded.

Our team will review your application to make sure it is complete and that you are eligible for funding. If we decide that you are eligible, we will send your application to our Trust Funds Committee. Our committee members are all people with disability.

Our committee will review all eligible applications against the funds available. The committee will consider a range of factors, such as whether the application will support your independence in your home, your interests, and your inclusion in the community.

It is a competitive process and we may not be able to fund all eligible applications.

Our Trust Funds Committee meets every two to three months. If your application is eligible, we will send it to the next available committee meeting for decision making. You should expect your application to take anything up to four months to process, depending on the timing of your application and our committee meetings.

If you are awarded a grant, we will ask you to supply us with your bank details and we will pay the grant directly into your bank account.

You will be asked to sign a grant agreement when you are awarded the grant and to provide us with your bank details for grant payment. We will pay the grant direct into your bank account. We require you to send us receipts for your purchases within 90 days of signing your grant agreement.

You can spend more than your grant amount, but you will have to fund the extra cost yourself, or from another funder.

We will review the difference between the amount we have paid you in grant and the amount you have spent, according to the receipts you send us. If you have spent less than the grant amount, we may ask you to return the unspent funds to us, so that we can use them to support another person.

There are other organisations providing grants to people living with disability in South Australia. They have their own grant funding rules, and in some cases you may not be able to apply directly – you may need to be referred by a support worker or a health worker.

Other funders include:

Wyatt Trust

Louisa da Costa Trust

Good Shepherd (loans)

Joseph Seridis Trust Fund