DAS Past Grant Applications — Intelligence Digest

Purpose: feed the 6 new DPSC (GO8264) applications, closing 2 July 2026. Compiled: 11 June 2026, from DAS SharePoint (GRANT FUNDING & REPORTING + Programs & Projects) and _JOB_DAS/_Grants/.

Source files (all read in full):

Corroborating: DAS_Grants_Tracker_Apr2026_v3 (win/loss + delivery state), Capacity Building Peer Support contract review, DPSC Stream 1 Decision Brief.

A. Application-by-application

A1. GO6984 “Knowledge and Skill Development” — NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (Support for NDIS Providers Grants Program)

• Submitted: 29 Aug 2024, signed Merrilee Cox (GM). Secondary contact Anna Yffer (Chairperson).
• Project: “Building Quality in Remote NDIS Service delivery across Central Australia, the Barkly and APY Land”.
• Ask: $350,448 ex GST over ~2.5 years (range was $100k–$500k).
• Outcome: almost certainly LOST. No Q&S Commission grant appears anywhere in the Apr 2026 grants tracker (8 live programs listed; none is GO6984). The Apr 2026 Safeguarding consortium proposal to the same Commission reads as a second run at the same funder.
• The pitch: two interactive components — (1) a private, mediated Facebook “NDIS Users Group” for remote participants to raise issues + learn rights; (2) an NDIS Interagency Network + Support Coordination Collaborative (CA + APY + Barkly) for provider professional development on quality/ethics/conflicts of interest, with a secretariat function extending the existing Alice Springs Service Coordination Network. Delivery “in collaboration with” MoneyMob Talkabout on the APY Lands.
• Structure: Commission’s fixed form — applicant details, financials, 200-word summary, project plan table, risk plan table, 3 assessment criteria (900-word caps), declarations. Priority cohorts ticked: ATSI, CALD, rural/remote.
• Execution quality (read this before reusing anything):
  • The Project Plan table was submitted empty (all 8 rows blank).
  • Criterion 3 left the question’s instruction text interleaved with the answer (“You must demonstrate this through including:” sits mid-response; answers woven between prompt bullets).
  • Consortium table contains only “Money Mob” — no legal name, ABN or role.
  • Criteria used roughly a third to half of the 900-word allowance; almost no quantified evidence; no letters of support from MoneyMob noted.
  • Budget xlsx (separate file) was completed properly — see Section E.

A2. “Speaking Up in Central Australia and the Barkly” — ILC Individual Capacity Building 2024‑25 (DSS / Community Grants Hub)

• Submitted: 29 Nov 2023 (deadline 30 Nov), submission ref Y8J57YVQ. Took 48 hours of staff time (self-reported in form).
• Ask: $580,164 ex GST over 3 years (FY25 $182,995 / FY26 $194,492 / FY27 $202,677), split Alice Springs 75% ($435,123) / Barkly 25% ($145,041) by service area.
• Outcome: WON. Agreement 4‑JMYB4UY, runs to 30 Jun 2027. This is the direct predecessor of DPSC Stream 1.
• The pitch: leadership development for people with disability in CA + Barkly — mentoring, advocacy skills, governance training, supported participation in policy/representational roles, attendance at Having a Say conference. Target: ≥30 people in leadership training per year.
• Structure: smart-form. Eligibility (DPO/FO/PCLO question — answered as application with DPO characteristics), priority cohorts (rural/remote + ATSI ticked), disability cohorts (autism, ID, psychosocial + “physical, sensory and learning/developmental disabilities including FASD”), 2 years of financial statements keyed in, 3 criteria at 3,000 characters each, 3 project plan blocks, 5-line indicative budget, 3 risk plans, MMM classification, consortium = No.
• Used 1,397–1,975 of 3,000 characters per criterion — i.e. ~50–65% of the allowance. Won anyway; remote/cohort fit likely carried it.

A3. ILC Readiness Grant Round 2018‑19 (DPFO stream) — “Peer Support Program”

• Only pages 1 and 5 survive as PDFs. The original peer-support pitch: “the first of its kind Peer Support Program for persons of all abilities living in Central Australia”.
• Outcome: WON (DAS subsequently ran the ILC peer support/self-advocacy project referenced as track record in both 2023 and 2024 applications; the decision brief traces the lineage “since the CAPS days”).
• Style is endearing but dated: opens with a Stevie Wonder quote, “comradery”, DAS origin story (established 1992 “by and for” Alice Springs residents with disability). Page 5 is a straight partner list (see Evidence Bank).

A4. Remote NDIS Safeguarding & Engagement Framework (NT) — unsolicited proposal to NDIS Q&S Commission, April 2026

• Consortium: IDA (NT peak body) + DCLS + DAS. Two-year model.
• Ask: modular — Option A Education $841k/2yr; Option B Insight $1.307M/2yr; Option C Integrated (preferred) $1.681M/2yr ($838,200 Y1 + $843,000 Y2).
• Outcome: pending/unknown (April 2026 document).
• The pitch: dual education + community-insight functions across 8 NT regions, underpinned by a remunerated First Nations Disability Advisory Group, fixed-agenda yarning circles 3×/community/year, baseline safeguarding indicators, closed-loop reporting to the Commission.
• Structure: exec summary → authoring orgs → context/“sharp practices” → problem statement (individual harms / structural causes / system gaps / system consequences) → operational model in tables → governance → modular funding options → budget → outcomes → 4 appendices (target communities with language groups, fixed agenda, indicators, advisory scope). This is the most professional document of the set by a wide margin.

A5. Inclusion NT / SACID Workshop & Peer Groups quote (22 May 2025)

• Quote letter to Liz Collier (GM, Inclusion NT) for delivering 6 workshops/yr + monthly peer action groups in Alice Springs, FY26 + FY27.
• Total $250,304.01 (FY26 $113,506.45; FY27 $114,042.65 incl 3.2% indexation; +10% management fee across both years).
• Outcome: WON — became the SACID MOU (Capacity Building & Peer Support), $250,304 ex GST, 30 Jun 2025 – 30 Jun 2027, 5 six-monthly payments of $50,060.80. Conditions: must employ ≥1 person with intellectual disability; all sessions co-facilitated by a person with ID; DEX-compatible data collection.

B. Writing style register

Two distinct DAS voices exist in the corpus:

The 2023–24 “Merrilee voice” (Speaking Up + GO6984 + the draft NT proposal):

• First person plural throughout (“we”, “our advocacy work”).
• Long, flowing, comma-spliced sentences; minimal headings; almost no numbers. Evidence is experiential, not statistical — claims are anchored in casework (“the matters that are referred to our services for advocacy”), not citations. The only citation in the entire Speaking Up application is one ABS link inside a risk table.
• DAS self-description is consistently modest-but-vigorous: small org, long history, deep networks, fights above its weight.
• Region/cohort description leans on remoteness, policy neglect, workforce crisis, and the distinct experience of Aboriginal people with disability.
• Typo-prone: “organsiations”, “utiities”, bank name “Disability Advocacy Serviuce”, “Venue Hite” (twice), “SCAHS”, risk comment field filled with “x”.

Representative passages (verbatim):

“We are a small organisation with limited resources but are vigorous in raising the issues associated with the rights and interest of people with a disability living in one of the most remote and disadvantaged settings in Australia including the distinct needs and experience of Aboriginal people with a disability.” — Speaking Up, Criterion 3

“The challenges of living in remote and very remote settings are rarely given more than lip-service in government policy and funding arrangements, and there is a need to build a more vigorous direct voice for people in these settings.” — Speaking Up, Criterion 1

“We know, for example, that the significant distances which providers need to travel to deliver services can result in erosion of plans to meet travel costs.” — GO6984, Criterion 2

The 2026 “consortium voice” (Safeguarding proposal): third person, tables, function/purpose framing, benchmarked costings, regulator-centred outcome language (“shift from reactive, complaint-led enforcement to a more proactive, informed regulatory approach”). Reads like a different organisation wrote it.

Verdict for DPSC: blend them. Keep the authentic first-person-plural, casework-grounded register (assessors of a small regional org expect it, and it won Speaking Up) but impose the 2026 document’s structure, evidence density and quantification — and proofread, because the historical record is sloppy.

C. Evidence bank (reusable claims, stats, figures — source noted)

Region & cohort:

• 78% of NDIS plans approved in the NT are for people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander — the highest percentage anywhere in Australia (NDS 2018 State of the Sector report). [ILC application page 1.pdf — old stat, refresh before reuse]
• Approximately 45–52% of NT NDIS participants are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, many in remote/very remote communities, many speaking English as a second or third language. [Safeguarding proposal, 2026]
• Central Australia has “the highest rate of brain injury and cognitive disability in the country” and no neuropsychological or specialist brain injury services at all. [How to write a grant proposal.docx draft]
• There are no LACs in Central Australia — drives demand for information/navigation support. [same]
• Alice Springs has the highest rate of population turnover in Australia (ABS, cited with link) and is one of the most expensive regional centres in Australia; net population decline trend. [Speaking Up risk plans]
• Airfares to/from Alice Springs more than doubled in recent years, increasing isolation and cutting in-person access to national events. [Speaking Up project plan 2]
• NT remote NDIS market = “high-value, low-oversight market vulnerable to exploitation”: plan-draining via over-servicing/non-delivery, coercive provider switching using cash/food/goods inducements, undisclosed conflicts of interest between coordination and delivery, targeting of hospital patients, movement of participants without informed consent. [Safeguarding proposal]
• In 2023–24 up to 10% of NDIA payments estimated non-compliant or fraudulent — over $2.5B potential leakage. [Safeguarding proposal]
• Aboriginal people with cognitive disability are over-represented in the NT Corrections system (NAAJA, OPG and AMSANT submissions to the DRC, NT justice.gov.au citation). [How to write… draft]
• Severe disability-sector workforce shortage; orgs struggle to deliver basic services, so capacity-building is deprioritised. [Speaking Up Criterion 1]
• Many remote Aboriginal people “are accustomed to living in settings characterised by deprivation so expectations of service quality can be low”. [How to write… draft — powerful but handle with care]
• Complaints data does not reflect lived experience — “a structural visibility gap rather than absence of harm”. [Safeguarding proposal]

DAS track record & client numbers:

• DAS established 1992 (ILC page 1: “by and for a group of Alice Springs residents who had various disabilities”); incorporated 22 Feb 1993 (certificate attached to Speaking Up); “established in 1993 by families and carers” per the draft NT proposal. Pick one origin line and standardise — the record contradicts itself on both year and founders.
• 30+ years delivering advocacy and information services across Central Australia and the Barkly; funded under NDAP + NT Government for 25+ years. [Speaking Up Criterion 3]
• DAS assisted more than 20 people in the justice system to access the NDIS or link to services post-release; strong relationship with NDIS Justice Liaison Officers and prison health. [How to write… draft]
• Delivered Self Advocacy Training to clients of four local services in one year; one participant nominated for Young Territorian of the Year. [Speaking Up Criterion 3]
• Previous ILC project: people with disability became co-facilitators of training and then gained paid employment delivering the program. [Speaking Up Criterion 3 — best single track-record line in the corpus]
• DAS employs a small group of casual facilitators, all of whom have a disability. [GO6984 Criterion 3]
• Policy Advisory Committee — all members people with disability — guides systemic priorities and reports bi-monthly to the Board. [GO6984; Speaking Up]
• Speaking Up outcome target: ≥30 people/year in leadership training. [Speaking Up Criterion 2]
• DAS org structure 2024: four staff — GM, Senior Advocate, Projects Coordinator, Project staff; Board meets bi-monthly. [GO6984]
• DAS financials (as submitted): FY22‑23 income $600,336 / surplus $8,500; FY21‑22 income $688,148 / surplus $31,664; cash $277,704; net assets $196,879. [Speaking Up] — update with FY24‑25 figures for DPSC.
• Community Grants Hub organisation ID: 1‑XA‑301. ABN 78 719 251 291. [Speaking Up; GO6984]

Partnership claims made in past applications:

• MoneyMob Talkabout (APY Lands financial counselling, community board) — GO6984 delivery partner.
• First Peoples Disability Network (Tennant Creek), Central Australian Aboriginal Congress — “works closely with”. [Speaking Up]
• Inclusion NT / SACID (live MOU), FPDN, Quality & Safeguards Commission, CDU (floated as PD partner), NT Chamber of Commerce (exploratory). [GO6984]
• 2018 list: NT Disability Advocacy Collective, Aboriginal Interpreter Services, ACCOs, Central Australian Health Services, DANA, AFDO, SARU, NDS NT/National, Anti-Discrimination Commission NT, Health & Community Services Complaints Commission, VALiD. [ILC P5]
• Consortium claim: IDA + DCLS + DAS = “the largest independent disability advocacy network in the Northern Territory… no commercial interest in the outcomes”. [Safeguarding]
• Leadership resources drawn from Inclusion Australia, DARU, Disability Leadership Institute, Empowered Communities, FPDN. [Speaking Up]
• Roundtables held in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, Sept–Oct 2025 — citable co-design/consultation evidence. [Safeguarding]
• WA comparator program “Your Rights, Your Supports, Your Service” funded at $492,483 p.a. for the Perth region alone — used to justify NT remote pricing. [Safeguarding]
• DAS delivery footprint as mapped for the Commission: Alice Springs (Mparntwe), Amoonguna, Tennant Creek, Ali Curung, Utopia (Arlparra); language groups Arrernte, Eastern Arrernte, Warumungu, Alyawarr, Kaytetye. [Safeguarding Appendix A]

Caution flags on the evidence base (internal only — do not import into applications):

• Peer Support (SACID): $288 of wages in 8 months of FY26 against $66.7k revenue; “must employ a person with ID” deliverable at risk.
• NT 5‑Year: $0 wages in 8 months against a funded 0.5 FTE advocate.
• Speaking Up itself: $57k YTD surplus, wages $87k vs $139k budget — underdelivery.
• Net effect: claim continuity and co-design honestly; do not claim delivery at scale. (Matches decision brief framing: “building from a community-led foundation”.)

D. Track record / organisational capacity formulations (Criterion 2 reuse)

The corpus uses four building blocks, in roughly this order every time:

1. Longevity + funder pedigree: “Disability Advocacy Service was established 30 years ago and has been funded through the National Disability Advocacy Program and Northern Territory Government for over twenty-five years to deliver advocacy services to Central Australia and the Barkly.” [Speaking Up]
2. Governance + financial management: “Throughout its life the organisation has managed both recurrent funding and project funding, along with fee-for-service work. The organisation is managed by an experienced Board and structures are in place for financial and performance monitoring and reporting.” [GO6984] Plus: bi-monthly Board; Policy Advisory Committee of people with disability as project oversight vehicle.
3. Lived-experience employment as proof: previous ILC participants became paid co-facilitators; casual facilitator pool all have disability; (new: SACID MOU requires an employed Inclusion Advisor with ID). This is DAS’s strongest differentiator and maps directly to DPSC’s involvement criterion.
4. Networks in place of scale: named partners (FPDN, Congress, Inclusion NT, MoneyMob, Q&S Commission) + “wherever possible draw on existing resources rather than reinvent the wheel” [GO6984] + the honest small-org line (“small organisation with limited resources but vigorous…”).

The third-party version for consortium docs: “DAS provides individual advocacy, information and support to people with disability in Central Australia and the Barkly region. Based in Alice Springs, DAS has strong community links and cultural knowledge and works closely with Aboriginal communities to uphold rights and access to services. DAS also delivers systemic advocacy to address regional issues and poor provider conduct.” [Safeguarding]

E. Budget formats used

Four distinct formats in the corpus:

1. GO6984 Commission template (xlsx): category rows × FY columns (2024‑25…2027‑28) + details column. Actual lines: Staff Salary “0.6 FTE SCHADS Level 5/3 plus on costs – super, workcover, leave loading, overnight allowance, professional development supervision” $205,999; ICT (laptop/phone/software/hosting) $7,400; co-design travel (4 Tennant Creek visits/yr + conferences) $23,400; co-design planning sessions (facilitators/venue/catering) $9,000; delivery events 6/yr $31,250; resource development $15,000; operating/admin $58,399 (= 16.7% of total — the de facto admin rate). On-costs folded into the salary line, not split out. First FY pro-rated (~half year).

2. Speaking Up smart-form (5 lump items): Staff salaries & on-costs (FT project worker + management support) $417,142 (72% of total); Operating $71,074; Evaluation $25,000 (4.3%); Travel & accom (Having a Say + Tennant Creek) $20,550; General office (accounting, audit, insurance, rent, utilities, phone) $46,397 (8%). Out-year escalation ~5% FY25→26, ~4.2% FY26→27.

3. Inclusion NT quote (hours × rate build-up) — the most defensible format DAS has used and the obvious base for DPSC’s Indicative Activity Budget:

• SCHADS casual hourly rates (May 2025): Level 5.1 $61.60; Level 6.3 $70.28 (skilled facilitator); Level 3.1 $46.69 (Inclusion Advisor).
• Loadings: super 12% (2025 rate), management fee 10%, indexation 3.2% (2025), onboarding/recruitment $3,000 one-off (“super, Workcover, payroll and insurances”).
• Unit costs: catering $200/session, venue $150/session, printing/materials $100/session; Darwin 2-day meeting $6,494.65; Darwin summit (5 pax) $10,557.75.
• Hour build-ups itemised per deliverable (e.g. weekly co-design = 282 hrs/yr each for Project Officer + Inclusion Advisor; 5 weeks annual leave baked in).

4. Safeguarding consortium budget: FTE-fraction salary lines ($75k for 0.6 FTE lead ≈ $125k FTE; $120k for 2×0.6 educator ≈ $100k FTE), explicit on-costs row (~13% on Option A; ~25% on Option C), Advisory sitting fees $120k/yr, remote travel & accommodation $100–120k/yr, interpreters/cultural brokers $10k/yr, operational overheads $40–53.2k/yr (~10%), evaluation $5k interim + $10k final. Modular A/B/C options with a “preferred” flag and an economies-of-scale note.

In-kind: never formally handled in any document — no co-contribution tables anywhere. Other-sources-of-funding declared “No” on GO6984.

F. Consortium mechanics (Safeguarding proposal)

What it did, worth copying:

• “Authoring Organisations” section up front: one credential paragraph per org, then a collective claim (“Together, IDA, DCLS, and DAS represent the largest independent disability advocacy network in the Northern Territory”) and a motive disclaimer (“no commercial interest in the outcomes”).
• Geographic delivery split, stated plainly: IDA — Darwin, Palmerston; DCLS — Tiwi, Katherine, Daly River, Jabiru, Ramingining; DAS — Alice Springs, Amoonguna, Tennant Creek and the Barkly. Appendix A extends this with named communities and traditional-owner language groups per region.
• Functional/accountability split in a governance table: all three = delivery & engagement; IDA = coordination & synthesis; First Nations Disability Advisory Group = cultural interpretation & validation (explicitly not operational or regulatory); Commission = oversight & enforcement. Independent facilitation assigned (DCLS/DAS).
• Joint contact block listing all three CEOs’ emails/phones.
• Advisory Group members remunerated ($120k/yr sitting fees) — paid lived experience, not voluntary.

What it did NOT do (gaps to fix if DPSC goes consortium):

• No money-split between partners — one pooled budget, no per-org allocation, no statement of who employs whom or who holds the agreement.
• No formal lead-agency/liability language, no MOU/letters-of-support references.
• Contrast: GO6984’s consortium handling was worse — partner described in prose but the consortium table effectively empty (no ABN, no role).
• Decision brief direction stands: DPSC Stream 1 independent, name partnerships in criteria without formal consortium.

G. Weaknesses / mistakes to avoid (observed, not hypothetical)

1. Form hygiene failures (GO6984): empty Project Plan table submitted; criterion instruction text left inside the response; consortium table effectively blank. On an equal-weighted criteria assessment this is fatal. Build a pre-submission checklist: every table populated, every prompt deleted, every word/char limit checked.
2. Typos in submitted documents: “Serviuce” in the bank account name, “organsiations”, “Venue Hite”, “utiities”, a risk comment of “x”. Proofread pass is non-negotiable.
3. Chronic under-use of word/char limits (35–65% used across both Commonwealth applications) paired with near-zero quantified evidence. The evidence bank above exists precisely so DPSC responses can be dense.
4. Outcomes framed as “it is expected that…” with no baseline, no measurement method beyond feedback forms and case studies. DPSC will want a measurement framework; the Safeguarding proposal’s baseline-indicator approach is the in-house model to lift.
5. Evidence going stale: the 78% NDS stat is from 2018 and was still being used in 2023–24. Refresh every stat against current NDIA quarterly data / AIHW before submission.
6. Contradictory origin story (1992 vs 1993; “by and for people with disability” vs “by families and carers”). Standardise once.
7. Overclaiming delivery risk: the tracker shows underdelivery on Peer Support ($288 wages/8mo), NT 5‑Year ($0 wages) and Speaking Up (underspent). Assessors can see acquittals. Frame track record around continuity, lived-experience employment and co-design — not throughput.
8. Last-minute, single-author drafting: Speaking Up submitted the day before deadline, 48 self-reported hours; GO6984 shows three progressively-edited copies scattered across folders with the final still containing template text. For 6 simultaneous DPSC applications, version control and a second reader are structural requirements, not nice-to-haves.
9. Unfinished proposals left to rot: the “How to write a grant proposal” doc is a half-written NT continuation proposal welded to a pasted article — symptomatic of no reusable boilerplate library. This digest is the start of one.