The Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach initiative (PACO) was established to enable more frequent and responsive engagements between government and Pacific communities to keep Pacific peoples informed and supported during the country's response to COVID-19.
The Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach Fund aims to increase engagements across Government to ensure support into hard-to-reach Pacific cohorts and build capacity to deliver increased engagements without placing additional burden on current resources.
The objectives of the fund are to:
Applicants can apply by submitting a costed proposal.
UPDATE: In February 2022, the Government announced $18 million in new funding for the Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach initiative to support Pacific communities to prepare, respond and recover from the social and health impacts of the COVID-19 Omicron variant. Learn more:
Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach - Omicron Response Fund
Bookmark this page to learn about the next Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach funding round and open/close dates.
The Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach Fund - Social Enterprise opened on Friday 18 November 2022 and closed on Friday 27 January, 2023. Learn more about the PACO Social Enterprise fund.
In February 2022, the Government announced $18 million in funding for the Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach initiative, led by the Ministry for Pacific Peoples, to support Pacific communities to prepare, respond and recover from the social and health impacts of COVID-19 Omicron.
Applications for this round of funding opened on 21 March 2022 and closed at 5pm on 30 June 2022.
Learn more about the PACO Omicron response fund.
The Pacific Aotearoa Community Outreach Fund - Delta response opened on 8 December 2021 and closed on Friday 28 January, 2022. Learn more about the PACO Delta response fund.
The Community COVID-19 Fund is now closed. This initial COVID-19 related funding round for Pacific communities opened on 27 July 2020 and closed on 28 August 2020. Learn more about the Community COVID-19 Fund.