The Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal (FRRR) has launched a free online tool to make it easier for local community groups in remote, rural and regional areas to access data to strengthen their funding applications.

The FRRR Community Data Tool provides easy access to reliable data that community groups can use to demonstrate the real need in their community that is driving their work, and to help funders see the impact that their support can make.

The tool draws on a range of trusted public data sources to provide reliable data that will be automatically updated, in one place. 

Jill Karena, FRRR’s Head of Granting, says that every remote, rural and regional community in Australia has a story of resilience, challenges and hope, but not everyone can back up their story with accurate data.

“We commissioned the FRRR Community Data Tool, to make it super simple for groups to pull up key data about their community, just by entering their location in the online tool. 

“It will tell them things about their community, like the population, gender split, remoteness classification, their SEIFA rating, etc – all drawing on reliable, publicly-available data. 

“If groups want to dive deeper, there are links to some excellent resources that we also use to inform our grant programs, such as information about health and wellbeing, the workforce, income levels and economic growth. There are even more insights that they can access through our partnership with Seer Data & Analytics.

“Being able to access this data and wealth of information, free of charge, will help community groups more effectively advocate for themselves and for their community’s needs. 

The project was funded by the federal government and community groups are encouraged to log into the tool online and to share feedback after using it, so that it can be continually improved.