Fred's Grants offered up to $10,000 for community-run Festival of Fisher's Ghost events

This round has closed. Campbelltown City Council ran Fred’s Grants — funding for community groups that want to put on their own event as part of this year’s Festival of Fisher’s Ghost, the festival’s 70th anniversary and 200 years since the reported ghost sighting — from Monday 7 September to Sunday 20 September 2026. Menangle Park sits inside the Campbelltown local government area, so a group based here, or one that principally serves people here, can apply. Council requires the event to be held in an open space or Council facility inside the LGA. Nepean River Reserve on Menangle Road is a Council reserve in Menangle Park, but it has no power, lighting or sports facilities, and Council’s outdoor event approvals normally require 8 to 12 weeks notice — so any activity needing facilities, or planned from scratch, would almost certainly need to be held elsewhere in the LGA.

What is on offer

Council’s programme page sets two tiers: up to $2,000 for a small community event, and up to $10,000 for a major community event or festival. Eligible applicants are not-for-profit organisations, community groups, and unincorporated groups auspiced by an eligible incorporated body — the page does not list individuals as eligible on their own.

The event has to connect to Fred Fisher: Council’s criteria ask applicants to “clearly demonstrate a connection to the story, history, legend or cultural significance of Fred Fisher” and to deliver the event “during the approved Festival of Fisher’s Ghost period”. Council’s news release gives that window as Monday 26 October to Sunday 15 November 2026 — wider than the main festival programme’s 29 October to 8 November dates that this site has already published.

The conditions worth knowing before applying

Applicants must hold current public liability insurance of at least $20 million and provide evidence of it, have acquitted any previous Council grants with no outstanding debts, and separately meet Council’s requirements to “Hold an Outdoor Event” — its Section 68 application process. Regularly recurring activities (weekly, monthly or seasonal), fundraising events, and anything that duplicates an existing Council-run Fisher’s Ghost event are excluded. Elected representatives — MPs, mayors and councillors — and Council employees cannot apply or directly benefit.

How to apply

Applications went through SmartyGrants, Council’s usual grants portal, at the link on Council’s programme page, and closed at midnight on Sunday 20 September 2026.

For a group here that missed it: check Council’s Festival of Fisher’s Ghost and grants pages in 2027 in case the programme returns. The team that administers it is Council’s Events & Activations Team, phone (02) 4645 4900, email outdoor.events@campbelltown.nsw.gov.au — the same team a group has to deal with anyway for the Section 68 outdoor-event approval, which needs 8 to 12 weeks notice.