The Disaster Ready Fund: Round Three 2025-26

Applications are open

Round Three of the Disaster Ready Fund is now open. Applications close 5pm Wednesday 2 April 2025.

Apply

Applications in Victoria must be made online via SmartyGrants.

Before you submit your application please read the following guides:

Eligibility

Only Australian state and territory governments are eligible to directly apply to the Commonwealth for funding in Round Three 2025-26.

All Victorian applications will be initially assessed and shortlisted for inclusion in a joint Victorian submission. Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) is Victoria's lead agency and will coordinate this submission.

The following organisations are eligible to apply for inclusion in Victoria's submission:

state government departments and agencies
local government
floodplain management authorities
emergency service organisations
peak bodies and incorporated associations/organisations with an emergency management purpose, connection or interest
research institutions
private and non-government organisations, including small business and associated business groups.

If you are applying in Victoria, your project needs to be delivered in Victoria. Your project can deliver in other states, but it must have a significant portion delivered in Victoria. If your project is multi-jurisdictional or national, please contact drf@emv.vic.gov.au (External link) to discuss your eligibility.

Ineligible to apply

You are not eligible to apply (as the applicant/lead organisation of an application) if you are:

an entity without an Australian Business Number (ABN), unless you are a First Nations organisation or not-for-profit organisation as defined in the Glossary of the Round Three Guidelines (External link)
an entity that does not have the capacity to enter into a legally binding agreement
an organisation or a delivery partner that is included on the National Redress Scheme’s website (External link) on the list of ‘Institutions that have not joined or signified their intent to join the Scheme’. These organisations can partner on a project led by an eligible applicant.
an Australian Government body (including government business enterprises) or other entity that is wholly funded by the Australian Government
an individual
an overseas resident/organisation
delivering a project that does not include a significant Victorian-based component.

Multiple applications

You can apply more than once. Organisations that want to apply for more than one project should submit an application for each. Your application should detail your separate and unique co-contributions for each project.

Joint applications

Where you are making a joint application, one organisation should be nominated to lead the proposal.

The application must identify all members and their respective co-contributions.

Each contributing partner should also provide a letter of support using the template.

DRFR3 Delivery Partner Letter of Support Template (DOCX, 117KB) (External link)

Co-contributions

In your application you must include how your organisation and any delivery partners will contribute to the project financially. This can be through financial in-kind and/or historical investments that meet the eligible co-contributions detailed in the Round Three Guidelines (External link).

For most applicants, the minimum co-contribution is 50 per cent of the total project value. Participants cannot waive their co-contribution obligations, but a tiered approach reduces the minimum requirement for certain applicant types and project locations.

Minimum co-contribution requirements also cannot be met from Australian Government funding sources, with the exception of financial assistance provided to local government under the Australian Government's Financial Assistance Grants program (External link).

More detailed information on eligible applicants, delivery partners and co-contributions is available in the Victorian Application Guide.

Assessment of your application

Your application will be assessed by an expert panel of Victorian emergency management personnel. A shortlist of up to 60 Victorian applications will be recommended to Executive Government for approval.

The approved applications will be collated into a single overarching submission to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). NEMA will check the projects included in the submission against its eligibility criteria and an assessment panel will assess the eligible applications. NEMA's Coordinator-General (or their delegate) will recommend projects to the Australian Minister for Emergency Management who will decide which applications are successful.

It is estimated that successful applications will be announced from September 2025. This timeline may change. Please be aware, if your application is successful it may take several months for you to receive your funding.

Your funding

Once the successful projects have been confirmed, NEMA will execute a Funding Agreement with EMV via a Federation Funding Agreement (FFA – Environment).

EMV is then responsible for coordinating individual funding agreements between the Victorian Government and successful applicants. The Australian Government will not directly fund or enter into any agreement/s with third parties (e.g. other organisations that EMV partners with on a project).

About the Disaster Ready Fund

The Disaster Ready Fund is the Australian Government's flagship disaster resilience and risk reduction initiative. It funds projects to support Australians to manage the physical, social and economic impacts of disasters caused by climate change and other natural hazards.

The Australian Government announced that up to $1 billion will be committed through the Disaster Ready Fund over 5 years, from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2028.

The primary objectives of the fund are: 

increase the understanding of natural hazard disaster impacts, as a first step towards reducing future disaster impacts
increase the resilience, adaptive capacity and/or preparedness of governments, community service organisations and affected communities to minimise the potential impact of natural hazards and avert disasters
reduce the exposure to risk, harm and/or severity of a natural hazard's impacts, including reducing the recovery burden for governments and vulnerable and/or affected communities.

Current funding opportunity

The Australian Government has introduced a range of key changes in Round Three, including, but not limited to, the following:

To encourage investment in larger scale infrastructure with enduring resilience and risk reduction benefits, a dedicated funding allocation (notionally $138 million of the Round Three funding pool), minimum project values ($0.5 million) and longer project durations (up to 5 years) have been introduced for the following project activity types:
- investment in grey infrastructure
- investment in green-blue infrastructure (including nature based solutions)
- investment in social infrastructure
- investment in natural hazard monitoring infrastructure.
A $59 million notional funding allocation and a maximum project duration of three years applies to the other project activity types.
The lead agencies of each state and territory will be limited in the number of applications they can submit to the NEMA, to ensure the Australian Government’s assessment panel expertise and time is focused on the most competitive applications. Victoria has been allocated a cap of 60 applications and consequently the Victorian assessment panel will be required to shortlist no more than 60 applications. Multi-jurisdictional and national project proposals will be excluded from these caps.
The option to apply for a partial or full waiver of the 50 per cent co-contribution requirement has been replaced by a tiered approach to co-contributions that reduces the minimum co-contribution requirement for certain applicant types and project locations.
Rules regarding the inclusion of past investments in co-contributions have been tightened.
The assessment criteria and supporting documentation requirements have been updated. This includes, but is not limited to:
- a requirement for all applicants to provide a clear business case for their proposal as an attachment, including a project plan, budget and risk management plan
- a requirement for all applicants to provide cost estimates prepared by a quantity surveyor or other relevant professional (e.g. actuarial or accounting advice that verifies project costs are accurate and realistic, ideally less than 12 months old) for projects valued over $1 million, or quotes or cost estimates prepared by the applicant (ideally less than 6 months old) for projects valued under $1 million.
Guidance has been added on intellectual property.

There is no minimum or maximum amount of Australian Government funding per project, within the total allocated for 2025-26 of up to $197 million.

Future funding rounds

Dates for Rounds Four and Five are not yet available.

Contact us and further information

If you have any queries regarding the Disaster Ready Fund, email our coordinating team at drf@emv.vic.gov.au (External link).

You can view a range of supporting material on the NEMA website (External link).

Successful grant recipients in previous rounds

The Australian Government has awarded Victoria over $37 million in Commonwealth funding from Round Two of the Disaster Ready Fund to ensure Victoria is better protected and prepared for future disasters. This is in addition to Round One, where more than $26 million was awarded to Victoria.

Round One

Victoria was awarded over $26 million for 31 projects across:

17 infrastructure and 14 systemic risk reduction projects
17 local government, 9 state government, 4 NGOs, and one catchment authority.

Funding amounts ranged from $30,000 to $7 million per project and were matched dollar for dollar with an in-kind or cash contribution.

The median funding amount awarded was $238,227 per project.

Projects ranged in duration from 10 months to 3 years.

Round Two

Victoria was awarded over $37 million for 34 projects across:

4 infrastructure, 18 systemic risk reduction projects and 12 addressing outcomes in both streams
17 local government, 11 state government (including one catchment authority), 4 NGOs, one Australian public company, and one project from the tertiary sector
3 of these projects were multi-jurisdictional.

The median funding amount awarded was $571,800 per project.

You can see the full list of successful projects for Round One and Two on nema.gov.au (External link)