Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on VFFF’s activities

A Living and Lasting Legacy

  • 1962

    1962

    A pioneer of NSW philanthropy, Sir Vincent Fairfax established a family charitable trust in 1962. Although small to begin with, he hoped it would become a mighty fund for charitable distribution.

  • 2007

    2007

    Lady Nancy Fairfax bequeathed a large amount of her estate to VFFF on her death in 2007, transforming its potential to benefit generations of Australians.

  • Now

    Now

    Sir Vincent and Lady Fairfax’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren continue to build on the philanthropic foundations they laid. Family members play an active role in VFFF’s work, bringing their ideas and experiences to the table to honour the legacy of their predecessors and continue the family’s tradition of giving back to the country that gave them so much.

Test 1

This is a testing

Test 2

This is a testing

Test 3

This is a testing

Backing the Future: Callum Champagne

Callum Champagne received a 2022 NSW Backing the Future grant for Grow the Future - a social enterprise offering young people in the Bega Valley Shire supported work experience and regenerative skills training.

Backing the Future: Rizina Yadav

Rizina received a 2023 Queensland Backing the Future grant for her proposal, Young Women’s Policy Submission (YWPS).

Backing the Future: Bevis Masson-Leach

Bevis Masson-Leach received a 2022 NSW Backing the Future grant for Hometown – a pilot series of hip hop writing and production workshops held in the regional towns of Armidale, Nambucca Valley, Moree and Newcastle.

Backing the Future: Josie Clarke

Josie Clarke received a 2022 NSW Backing the Future grant to research and develop a platform to promote accessible job opportunities for young people interested in agriculture.

Miyay Birray Youth Services

For 30 years, Aboriginal-led Miyay Birray Youth Service (MBYS) has been operating in Moree, providing a range of recreational, educational, and social programs targeting common issues relating to young Aboriginal people and their development.

Australian Youth Affairs Coalition

The Australian Youth Affairs Coalition (AYAC) is the national voice and advocate for young people. They work to ensure that young people are equally considered and included in public dialogue and policy.

Country Universities Centre

Many regional students are faced with the difficult choice between leaving their family and community or forfeiting the future opportunities that come with having a tertiary degree.

Jarjum Centre Lismore – Strengthening Early Learners

Jarjum Centre is an Aboriginal preschool that has provided accessible and inclusive early education and support in Lismore for the last 40 years.

Social Impact Leadership Australia

SILA – Social Impact Leadership Australia – is the culmination of three years of research, planning and development, involving a collaboration of four funding partners, leading to a joint investment of $9.6 million over five years in the leadership of Australia’s for-purpose sector.

Youthworks

The Youthworks Ministry Support Team (MST) is team of expert youth and children’s ministry advisors who are trusted across Sydney and NSW as leaders in Christian ministry and practice.

Foundation for Young Australians – Building Young People’s Civic and Cultural Engagement

It is fitting that VFFF’s largest grant in the first year of Backing Young People should support youth leadership and civic participation – an area of interest for Sir Vincent and Lady Nancy Fairfax.

Bush Heritage Australia – Seeding the Future

Bush Heritage Australia represents a special part of both our past and future as a Foundation.

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on VFFF’s activities

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on VFFF’s activities

SEAN - see below examples. 1. Home page template. No header image, everything is out of whack

Supporting the vision and hard yakka of inspiring Australians

A message from VFFF re: COVID-19

Who is VFFF?

VFFF is a thriving family foundation, spanning three generations of the Vincent Fairfax family. Honouring our Founders’ legacy, we strive to play the most useful role we can, joining the efforts of so many working for a better Australia.

We see our role as enabling communities and people impacted by social issues to lead change. This means – especially with our larger grants - we look to take bold and thoughtful risks on high potential organisations that are forging new ways of working and reaching for catalytic impact.

What do we fund?

We fund registered charities in NSW and QLD whose work aligns with our two funding areas. Our Thriving People and Places grants are about people and communities reaching their educational, social and economic potential and about working together to find better ways to confront persistent issues. Our Christianity grants focus on young people having positive experiences of Christianity.

We often fund operational costs and capacity building, especially to enable organisations through critical times of transition or development.

How do we work?

Every grant starts with a conversation with one of our team, to learn about what you do, and what you see as your opportunities and hurdles. We’ll take time to see if our priorities align and if they do, we will try to construct our support around what is most important to you.

Annually, we aim for 75% of our funds to support core operations and capacity building, and 60% for work in rural and regional communities. We’ll ask you to share your learnings to help inform and strengthen our future work.

What have we supported lately?

Grants are approved quarterly by the VFFF Board and Grants Committee. Find out more about new grants approved this quarter.

Case Studies

Bush Heritage Australia – Seeding the Future
Bush Heritage Australia represents a special part of both our past and future as a Foundation.
Foundation for Young Australians – Building Young People’s Civic and Cultural Engagement
It is fitting that VFFF’s largest grant in the first year of Backing Young People should support youth leadership and civic participation – an area of interest for Sir Vincent and Lady Nancy Fairfax.
Youthworks
The Youthworks Ministry Support Team (MST) is team of expert youth and children’s ministry advisors who are trusted across Sydney and NSW as leaders in Christian ministry and practice.
See more case studies

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on VFFF’s activities

Example 2. Button - orange. This is supposed to look like the one on /christianity

Guidelines for Christianity

Example 3. Case study intro - purple box - DDin font is tiny

$60,000

towards ‘Dropping off the Edge’, a research initiative mapping social disadvantage across Australia.

Example 4. Header hero image - NEWS - no image, text is black instead of white and left aligned instead of right

News

Example 5. Quote - orange background - the font is wrong, no colour behind. It is supposed to look like the one on https://vfff.org.au/our-story/

quotation-mark-light-grey

"We want to be effective in our giving, leave an impression, a lasting legacy. We have to be strategic in our giving, we have to collaborate with others and take ownership of our learnings on what has and has not worked. Good philanthropy is leading by example, particularly as the new wealth of young entrepreneurs is increasing. Our role is also to encourage others to give."

Fairfax family member, 3rd generation

Example 6. Timeline - should look like the one up the top of this page, which I saved here as we were going to re-add it to the website later.

A Living and Lasting Legacy

  • 1962

    1962

    A pioneer of NSW philanthropy, Sir Vincent Fairfax established a family charitable trust in 1962. Although small to begin with, he hoped it would become a mighty fund for charitable distribution.

  • 2007

    2007

    Lady Nancy Fairfax bequeathed a large amount of her estate to VFFF on her death in 2007, transforming its potential to benefit generations of Australians.

  • Now

    Now

    Sir Vincent and Lady Fairfax’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren continue to build on the philanthropic foundations they laid. Family members play an active role in VFFF’s work, bringing their ideas and experiences to the table to honour the legacy of their predecessors and continue the family’s tradition of giving back to the country that gave them so much.

Example 7. Simply adding a text editor box, the default font is not set correctly. Also please check the colour on the text below - I set it to blue but it doesnt show up

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

Page heading - check, this should be coloured and centred

Page intro - this should be coloured and centred heading, bold full width text followed by two columns of text DDin 18pt

VFFF is a thriving family foundation, with family members spanning three generations active in its current work. Founded in 1962, we have distributed more than $185 million to Australian communities. Honouring our Founders’ legacy, we strive to play the most useful role we can, joining the efforts of so many working for a better Australia.

We see our best role as enabling communities and people impacted by social issues to lead change.

This means – especially with our larger grants - we look to take bold and thoughtful risks on high potential organisations that are forging new ways of working and reaching for catalytic impact.

We aim for 60% of our funds to reach rural and regional communities. We also aim for 75% of our funds to meet operational costs and capacity building, especially to enable organisations through critical times of transition or development.

Learn more about our grants

We fund registered charities in NSW and QLD whose work aligns with our two funding areas.

Our Thriving People and Places grants are about people and communities reaching their educational, social and economic potential and about working together to find better ways to confront persistent issues. Our Christianity grants focus on young people having positive experiences of Christianity.

VFFF also occasionally supports initiatives that are of special interest to the Fairfax family, such as ethics and leadership.

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on VFFF’s activities