Local capability fund: Pilbara Regional Round

Helping businesses in the Pilbara enhance their business capability and supply capacity.
Last updated:

This round opens at 12pm (AWST) on Tuesday, 31 October 2023 and closed at 3pm (AWST), Tuesday 12 December 2023. 

About

The Pilbara Regional Round provides funding support to Western Australian small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Pilbara region to enhance their business capability and capacity to supply to major Western Australian State or local government agencies, the Australian Government and the private sector. 

The level of funding support under the Pilbara Regional Round is 50% of eligible costs (excluding GST) up to a maximum funding level of $20,000 per successful applicant.

Who is eligible?

To be eligible for funding, applicants must:

  • Have been operating, and continue to operate, in the Pilbara region for at least 12 months prior to and following application submission date;
  • Be a for-profit organisation or business, or an incorporated not-for-profit Aboriginal corporation operating as a commercial enterprise;
  • Must align with the priority areas identified in the Diversify WA: Future State economic framework;
  • Be registered for GST for at least 12 months prior to application submission date;
  • Have an Australian Business Number (ABN); and
  • Employ less than 200 people.

Previous recipients of funding through the LCF are eligible to apply, subject to conditions outlined in the funding guidelines

How to apply?

Eligible applicants must submit their application online via the SmartyGrants portal. 

A preview of the application form detailing the information required is available through the 
portal. 

Before applying, applicants must read and understand these guidelines and the Financial 
Assistance Agreement found on the portal.

Assessment process

Applications will be assessed by an independent evaluation panel following the round closing.and against their eligibility as well their relevance to the round objectives and against the evaluation criteria of the round.

  • Relevance/need 30%
  • Level of impact 30%
  • Level of market/industry engagement 10%
  • Value for money 15%
  • Financial viability and risk 15%

Tips to applying

  1. Always double-check your application. It is worth getting someone else to read over it, if possible, before you submit it to ensure it makes sense.
  2. Remember that assessors are unlikely to be experts in the business’s industry. Overly technical and detailed answers may be difficult for assessors to understand which could lead to lower scores. When writing an application it is useful to write it in a way that anyone could understand, not just those who work in the business’s industry. A good way of doing this is to imagine you are promoting the business via its website or social media where the public will need to understand the core activities of the business.
  3. Give yourself enough time before the closing date to be able to source quotes and relevant documents. As these documents can often take a bit of time to get hold of - with quotes sometimes taking a number of weeks - if you start an application the day before the closing date, and do not have the necessary documents ready to go, then you might run out of time to get them. Applications without quotes or relevant documents will receive lower scores.
  4. Good applications provide sufficient detail but are also concise. While you definitely want to provide enough detail to ensure assessors are able to properly assess your application, if you overwhelm them with large amounts of detail it may be difficult for them to determine the point you are trying to make. Again, it is worth double checking your application and getting someone else to look over it to make sure that it is detailed, but to the point.
  5. Assessors are only able to make a recommendation based on the information you provide in your application. If there is something important that will help your application stand out then include it.
  6. Always read the eligibility criteria and the eligible activities carefully to ensure the business is eligible to apply, and that the activities the business is seeking funding for are eligible. A good application takes time to write, so if the business is ineligible you don’t want to spend time on an application that will be rejected straight away.