After being selected as our Grant of the Week only four days ago, Travel Play Live’s Women’s Adventure Grant has attracted unprecedented interest - not only from The Grants Hub followers, but from individuals and organisations around Australia.
To give you some perspective, the Facebook post is our most engaged with post EVER, with:
150,000+ people reached
18,000+ post clicks
1,000+ shares
700+ comments
500+ likes/reactions.
Our page itself has gained 1,100+ new likes in the past few days (that's a lot when we only had 4,000 likes at the start of the week!). For a very small business, it's been an amazing few days!
Take a look at the Facebook post breaking all records.
Jessie (Founder & Managing Director of The Grants Hub) had a chance to touch base with the Director of Inspiration & Adventure from Travel Play Live (Kerryann Hayes), to find out some more about the Women’s Adventure Grant.
Is there a story behind the Women's Adventure Grant? What prompted Travel Play Live to provide this opportunity?
Basically this idea started with an early morning conversation at an airport. We were informed that there were awe inspiring women in our network, using adventure for the purpose of creating 'positive change’, who were getting knocked back for funding as the adventure itself wasn't deemed “epic” enough (and let’s just say these feats of adventure, even without the purpose behind the project, were incredible in anyone's mind).
Once we picked our jaws up off the ground, we began to discuss a few things. Firstly, what is the definition of epic, and what is it that causes such a controversial reaction when the words adventure and women are used in the same sentence? Second, with women tipping the scales when it comes to participating in many active outdoor pursuits these days, why are women still rarely being seen or heard?
Being a smaller independent magazine we didn’t have funds to commit to helping support every woman like we wanted, however we knew with the support of our community we could possibly find a way to make something happen. With a few phone calls, a crowd funding campaign and some commitment from key supporters, we managed to raise over $20,000 - enough for 4 x $5,000 grants that would support women in four diverse categories, normally not catered for. The response was overwhelming!
Travel Play Live Women’s Adventure Grant 2018 is proudly supported by Rays, Jack Wolfskin, The Gutsy Girls Adventure Film Tour, Fully Rad, The Ageing Revolution and our crowd funding supporters within the broader Australian adventure community.
Why provide a grant specifically for women?
The Travel Play Live Women’s Adventure Grant is a genuine effort by Travel Play Live, after many conversations with frustrated women in our community, to improve the visibility of women and their participation in the Australian adventure landscape. The grant is not just about sharing stories of epic proportions, but actively supporting Australian women within the adventure space and helping turn the dreams of women of all ages, with a passion for adventure, change, exploration and expedition into a reality, no matter who they are. We are seeing women in our network with a huge amount of passion incurring some heavy personal costs to support their missions, with little support from funding avenues or mainstream media.
Travel Play Live and our new wave of female driven adventure content creators speak often of differences in the feminine experience of the outdoors, and we certainly don’t think that that unique difference should exclude women from being able to access funding for their adventurous pursuits. For us this was an obvious first step in not only redefining the word ‘adventure' as many of us see it, but to give back to a growing community of women using adventure to make a positive impact, whether that is individual, local or global.
Lots of people don’t feel like they’re worthy of winning a grant. Women in particular often underestimate themselves. What would you say to women considering applying for the Women’s Adventure Grant?
Epic does tend to conjure images of extreme adrenaline filled escapades. However, in more colloquial terms epic can be defined as ‘extending beyond the usual or ordinary’ and we don’t see any issues with applying this definition to the domain of women’s adventure. There is currently a worldwide movement seeking 'equality in the outdoors’ and we know that many women engage in adventure for different reasons to our male counterparts, often using it to highlight awareness of topics they are passionate or concerned about. We know that - this grant is not only about the adventure, but it’s purpose.
So we say 'go for it girls’, be creative, share with us your passion and tell us how you see your adventure fulfilling our mission and changing the world for the better! Get creative, be adventurous, step out of the comfort zone and give yourself the chance for our community to support your projects, whether you are successful in your application or not!
Will you be providing more rounds in the future? Given the interest we’ve seen at The Grants Hub, I’m sure our followers would love to hear about future grant rounds!
We’d love to say YES, however the reality is, being an independent magazine with a small (but passionate team) may see us needing further support in the future. So if there are any big corporations out there, we’d love you to get in touch! The great thing though, we saw a need, engaged our community and the response has been overwhelmingly exciting!
We are looking forward to the event night early May, where we announce our successful applicants, and also bring together some of our acclaimed women in ‘adventure related businesses’ to further help, coach and mentor women for their future projects.
To find out more about the program and submit an application, head over to The Grants Hub's Facebook post on the grant where you can find all the details.
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