Air Rescue 2024 Update

We have seen the media get into some of this grant space, and thank goodness.  See the media page for some around this.  Some of this reportage reminded me to revisit an old favourite, Air Rescue Services Ltd.  A reminder about their Special Purpose (copied from their website):

The Directors resolved to continue to apply the current criteria, methods, systems and policies for net proceeds distribution, to effectively maximise returns to the rescue helicopter service through Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust, and to ensure the even distribution of funding for other charitable or community organisations within the company's operating areas.

There is no comment made about the number of grants that can be made to any specific organisation per annum.

What I have done is pull their grants data that ARS has made to the end of their financial year June 2024, and added this to my previous work, cleaned it up and categorised it.  Below is a chart looking at where their money has gone over time.  No surprises: money mostly going to their Air Rescue Services and a large amount to sport.  What is interesting however is the growth in grants over the last decade.  This is due to growth in venue management: while I don't have the numbers from the early days, in 2015 they had 420 machines under management: at the end of 2023 that had grown to 530 machines in 33 venues.  What I have also started to do is to look at who owns the venues (DIA does not do this - I have asked).  This can be quite telling if you want to understand why certain sorts of activities get favoured: although as previously stated venues really are not allowed to influence grant decisions.

This chart shows a few things:

• Air Rescue's grants have grown a fair bit.  This is driven by largely static grants into Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust, and by significant growth into NZ Flying Doctors Services.  Both of these charities are fundraisers for a private business which runs these services operationally, so we have no insight into operational efficiencies.
• Nelson Marlborough's Rescue Helicopter is a recipient.  They actually own helicopters so good to see they are supported here.
• What is also interesting is the growth in non Sports over the past two years.  The chart doesn't look so dull.  In 2024 83% of available grants went to Sport or Air Rescue: in 2014 it was 93%.
• The COVID effect is over.

 
There have been some concerns over pokies failing to return community money to the communities that the money comes from.  The Hauraki District Council has identified its missing around $1m of the $2.4m potential grants in the area.  Similarly I looked at Rotorua and identified a missing $4m.  The chart below looks at 2023 grants by region. The grant numbers are for the year end March 24, which the number of machines is based on some DIA data on 31 December 2023. We also need to be careful with the analysis: some venues will be more productive than others.  Blue is where the grants are higher than expected, red lower, and green bang on.

	2024 Grant dollars	Number of Machines	% 2024 Grant dollars	% Number of Machines
Auckland	$2,031,718	63	11%	12%
Canterbury	$9,740,558	216	54%	41%
Hawkes Bay	$399,133	36	2%	7%
Horowhenua	$19,791	18	0%	3%
Manawatu	$29,937	18	0%	3%
Marlborough	$414,305	18	2%	3%
Nelson	$837,450	32	5%	6%
Rotorua / BOP	$92,695	18	1%	3%
Ashburton	$159,048	7	1%	1%
Wellington	$3,483,083	72	19%	14%
West Coast	$593,701	18	3%	3%
New Plymouth	$0	14	0%	3%
Other inc National	$228,106	0	1.3%	0%
TOTAL	$18,029,526	530

 

I have put the CWCART money against Canterbury.  Given this pokie is set up for CWCART, then I'd expect to see that skew to Canterbury.  What is striking: Manawatu, Horowhenua, Hawkes Bay, Rotorua and New Plymouth seem to be not getting their fair share.  Wellington is certainly overegging it BUT of course it could be that Wellington's venues are really productive.  And I could well have mislabeled the grants. 

I proposed a different model last month, but had a less disruptive model occur to me: changing the laws around Alcohol Licensing.  This could see Local Authorities taking the pokie into account on the granting of the liquor license.  We have seen the case of the Edinburgh Castle site (indeed a former Air Rescue Services Trust site but currently with Blue Sky) continue to offer pokies long after its liquor license was revoked.  If the Local Authority was concerned about the grants being made (or rather not being made) to their  local communities, then why not link the pokie operator to the licensing programme.  The programme already exists, and the data to answer questions LAs may have is readily available. An operator who provides funds to "good" local organisations could get the nod, others perhaps not.

I thought you might find the Wellington grant distribution interesting: I would expect Wellington to have a number of regional organisations who get a fair bit of grant dollars.  Think a regional health charity or the like.  That's what I would expect.  However, below shows the top 10 recipients over the past three years, by dollar value and showing number of grants.  So nothing to the Wellington rescue helicopter but a lot to the capital's football clubs. 

Lets look at the top 15 on a National level.

	2022	2023	2024	Grand Total
Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust	$3,764,917	$3,338,673	$3,344,647	$10,448,237
New Zealand Flying Doctor Trust	$2,766,001	$3,528,397	$3,552,222	$9,846,620
Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter Trust Inc	$602,311	$861,170	$216,501	$1,679,982
Nelson Suburbs Football Club Inc	$182,637	$221,528	$296,323	$700,488
Sport Education Community and Cultural Foundation	$217,774	$240,638	$236,881	$695,292
Jasmine Arts and Culture Charitable Trust	$301,702	$154,985	$207,368	$664,054
Canterbury Regional Basketball Foundation	$142,504	$214,542	$305,491	$662,538
West Coast Rugby Football Union	$313,626	$189,000	$157,615	$660,242
Dewey Centre Foundation	$75,399	$293,738	$270,857	$639,995
Miramar Rangers Association Football Club Inc	$164,947	$242,242	$208,172	$615,361
Theatre Royal Charitable Foundation	$166,313	$193,348	$201,536	$561,198
Cashmere Technical Football Club	$111,254	$200,569	$239,032	$550,855
Fencibles United AFC	$118,443	$192,100	$233,391	$543,934
Lower Hutt City AFC	$158,558	$191,039	$193,425	$543,022
Ole Academy Incorporated	$127,757	$168,730	$215,632	$512,119
Other	$5,313,979	$8,435,418	$8,150,433	$21,899,830
Grand Total	$14,528,123	$8,666,117	$18,029,526	$51,223,765

 

So not much change but some levels of grant making that are a little eyebrow raising.  You can read some of that here, but that Nelson Suburbs Football Club has been subject to a complaint as have a few of the above.  I still haven't heard anything so I guess the regulator must be all good on the potential conflict.  Dewey Center Foundation too is interesting: registering as a charity in 2021 this pokie is its only funder.  And Dewey is in the same address block as one of the ARS venues.  I also wonder about Sport Education Community and Cultural Foundation, the fifth most funded organisation, which registered as a charity in 2019.  It could be that ARS should be applauded for supporting a new organisation.  But I'm inherently distrustful of most things so I'd have a good look at this.  And as for football...

I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there.  No one else seems all that interested.  As a citizenry we allow both those supplying money and those asking for money to operate, and as a community we need to ensure we have oversight over the organisations they choose to fund.   Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting, and if you want to dive into the data a bit more than happy to do so. Check out my website http://www.delfi.co.nz/