The question this answers
How do we prevent ineligible applications from going through to assessment?
What the problem looks like without robust front-end screening
An applicant spends three hours completing your form. They upload attachments, write detailed responses, get colleagues to review. They submit.
Then your team reviews it and discovers they were never eligible. Wrong organisation type. Wrong location. Wrong project focus.
Now you have an upset applicant, a complaint to manage, and staff time wasted on an application that should never have arrived. Multiply this by dozens of applications per round.
On a small program, staff can absorb this. At volume, it’s a disaster. Every ineligible application that gets through is time your team doesn’t have. Every rejected applicant who “didn’t know” is a complaint waiting to happen.
The form let them through when it should have stopped them at the door.
What I deliver
Structured screening questions designed to sit at the front of your application form. They check eligibility before the applicant invests significant time. That means:
- Clear, unambiguous questions tied directly to your eligibility criteria
- Logic that stops or redirects ineligible applicants with an explanation
- Guidance for edge cases (what to do if you’re not sure)
- Language that matches your guidelines exactly
The form does the filtering. Staff don’t have to intervene. Ineligible applicants find out in two minutes, not after three hours of work.
What good looks like vs what bad looks like
Bad: A checkbox at the end of the form that says “I confirm my organisation is eligible to apply.”
This confirms nothing. It shifts responsibility to applicants who may not understand the criteria. It doesn’t filter anyone out. It just creates a paper trail that protects no one.
Good:
| Question | Response options | Logic | Why this works |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is your primary business activity? | Dropdown: specific agricultural activities | Selection must match program scope or stop | Specific, not “do you align with our objectives” |
| How long have you been trading? | Less than 1 year / 1-2 years / 2+ years | Less than 2 years → stop with explanation | Trading history filters out newly created entities |
| Can you provide BAS statements for the past 8 quarters? | Yes / No | No → stop with explanation | Verifiable evidence of actual trading |
| Do you have employees or regular contractors? | Yes / No | No → may redirect to sole trader program | Evidence of genuine operations |
| Has your revenue declined more than 20% in the past 12 months? | Yes / No / Not sure | No → stop (if hardship program); Not sure → guidance on how to calculate | Verifiable from BAS, not self-assessed hardship |
| Is your primary place of business in [region]? | Postcode entry | Postcode checked against approved list | Binary, verifiable |
Ineligible applicants are filtered out in the first few minutes based on verifiable facts, not vague claims. Those who proceed know they have the evidence to back it up.
Why it matters
Every ineligible application costs time. Applicant time. Staff time. Goodwill.
At scale, this is the difference between a manageable grant program and one that drowns in volume. If 20% of your applications are ineligible, and you’re processing 500 applications, that’s 100 applications your team is handling that should never have arrived.
Front-end screening isn’t about being unwelcoming. It’s about being clear. Applicants find out early whether this program is for them. Staff focus on applications that actually have a chance. The form does the work, not people.
A well-designed form is a service, not a barrier. And it scales without needing more staff.
Other Eligibility Design Deliverables
“Why can’t your staff agree on who’s eligible?” → Eligibility architecture designed so routine decisions are determined by structure, not interpretation. Ambiguity is resolved at the design stage. Staff apply rules rather than exercise judgement. When eligibility outcomes are consistent regardless of who applies them, the design is working.
“Why do your eligibility rules sound clear but resolve nothing?” → Eligibility rules designed to be genuinely binary, including explicit treatment of edge cases and commonly disputed scenarios. The hard decisions are made during design, documented, and defensible. When a borderline case arrives, the answer already exists.
