Home / What we do / Proposal development
Step one
Getting the project right before anyone writes an application.
A funding application is the last thing that happens, not the first. Before it can be written, someone has to establish what the community actually needs, who will employ the graduates, what the work costs, and who is willing to put their name to it.
Every project starts on the ground it will be delivered on. Illustrative photograph.
What this stage covers
The five things that decide whether a project is fundable
Programs decline applications for a small number of recurring reasons, and almost all of them are settled long before the writing starts. This stage exists to settle them.
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Needs assessment
What the community has said it needs — not what a program happens to be offering. Existing plans, council direction, employment data, and conversations with the people who would take part. Funders can tell the difference between a project a community asked for and one that was sold to it.
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Project scoping
The actual work: what gets built, cleared, graded or maintained; how many participants; over what period; with what equipment; to what standard. A vague scope produces a vague budget, and a vague budget is the fastest route to a declined application.
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Partner and employer engagement
Who employs the graduates afterwards. Most workforce programs are assessed on employment outcomes, so the employers have to be real, named, and engaged before submission — contractors, band businesses, regional operators, or the community's own works department.
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Budget construction
Instructor days, equipment and fuel, PPE, transport, certification fees, participant support, coordination and reporting — costed from delivery experience rather than estimated. Where a program caps a category or requires matching contributions, the budget is built to those rules from the start.
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Letters of support and authorisations
Band council resolutions, employer letters, partner confirmations, and — for land-based work — the authorisation to be on the ground at all. This last one is regularly missed: no funder pays for trail or fuel-management work you have no legal authority to perform.
What you get at the end
A project package a funder can assess and a delivery team can execute: scope, schedule, budget, partner commitments, participant plan, and the supporting evidence attached. If we go on to write the application, this is what it is built from. If you take it to another writer or run it in-house, it is yours to use.
Sometimes the answer is "not this year"
If the scoping shows the participant numbers are not there, the employer demand is soft, or the intake closes before the project could realistically start, we will say so. A declined application costs a community months and some credibility with the program. We would rather spend that time positioning for the next intake.
Typical engagement
Who it's for: First Nations, tribal councils, non-profits, regional associations and employment agencies with a priority and no funding attached to it yet.
Where it starts: a conversation, then a visit to the ground and a meeting with the people who would take part.
What it produces: a scoped, costed, supported project package.
Then what?
Grant writing & project management — matching the package to live programs and writing the submission.
Training delivery & reporting — running it once it is funded.
Where we do this
The four pillars scoping serves
Everything we scope falls under one of four pillars — if a community's priority sits under one of them, this is the stage where it becomes a project.
Food systems & food sovereignty
Growing, processing, food safety, storage and distribution — and the community food enterprises that keep the value at home.
Explore this pillar →Land & forestry
Fuel management, hazard-tree work, trail and corridor construction, and post-fire recovery.
Explore this pillar →Infrastructure & civil works
Roads, pads, drainage, water and site servicing, built as the training ground — our deepest record.
Explore this pillar →Aviation pathways
Community-owned aircraft, charter revenue through a licensed operator, and training by certified partners. In development.
Explore this pillar →Have a priority with no funding attached?
That is exactly the point to call. Describe what the community needs and we will tell you honestly whether there is a program that fits and what it would take.