Now, from where I sit it seems that funding decisions are made without anyone actually looking at where the money goes.  I thought I’d do an occasional blog looking at recent decisions made by specific funders.

You can check it out yourself at http://www.cert.net.nz/ .

From their front page: “The Trust aims to distribute net proceeds to recognised appeal funds for the purpose of assisting with this recovery process.
“This includes making grants to appeal funds such as the Christchurch Earthquake Mayoral Relief Fund, The Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal and the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.
“In addition to the Trust's primary purpose of supporting Christchurch Earthquake Recovery, the Trust may also provide other grants towards general public education, educational scholarships, the promotion of public parks or museums and support for non-commercial emergency rescue services.”

So it’s a fairly general fund.  In 2015 they distributed just over $2m into mostly Canterbury off 6 venues, four in Christchurch, one each in Kaiapoi and Kaikoura.  Note their website points to one in Dunedin, but that looks to have moved to Southern Trust.

Funding decisions in the past 2 ¼ years are set out here.  As expected, Sport certainly receives over half of the funding, and while there is no information, its likely much of the education spend goes towards sports within schools.

 This is probably driven by who is actually applying to this trust. I looked at 2016 declines: they turned down 19 applications in Q1 of this year: 11 of those were for sporting organisations, and four of these were schools, so, on that basis, that suggests its not a bias toward sports: simply demand from sporting bodies for those funds. 

Where it gets interesting is looking at a breakdown by code.  In Q1 of this year, Bowls received some $94k: 2015 Bowls got more than any other code, receiving just over $200k from this funder.  Burnside Bowling Club in fact got some $41k in 2015, and $44k so far this year.  When I try to see where the funding went, its bit tricky, as their 2015 published accounts (shown on the societies office website) only show just over $11k as grants revenue. However, there is a line in their balance sheet showing just over $100k as “Grants received to Action” which I would assume are grants received for capital development. 

Rowing’s grants were driven by some big money going to Red Bladez.com ($80k in 2014, and $22k in 2015), the St Bedes team.  I see this year the money is headed across town to St Thomas’ rowing team, with a grant of just over $10k earlier this year.  Boxing is interesting too: Woolston Boxing Club received $26k in 2015, and has, so far, received $11k this year. 

But I also found some interesting stuff in the Education grants.  There are grants going to a whole range of schools, from Decile one to Decile 10.  Now, for my sins I have got myself involved in my own school’s PTA.  While its very easy to fill in a funding application and flick it off, I really do believe its better for the community to raise from within: it fosters a sense of ownership, one of belonging, and a stronger community.  And the money that the school probably would have got is available to go to other, hopefully more deserving, organisations.

Now, all these organisations are perfectly entitled to apply for funding, and CERT is perfectly entitled to give their community funding to organisations who meet their criteria.  However, the bigger question is whether these community groups should be asking for funding.  Shouldn’t clubs be mostly sustainable on subs and member fundraising?  If its an expensive sport, then should the community subside participants?  How much is actually needed? 

Would love to talk with you if you think this is just a little bit interesting.

There are many reasons Not for Profits do not receive the funding they ask for.  The funder might simply not have enough to hand out.  The organisation might have too much in the bank already.  Or the programmes they are wanting to do are deemed high risk, not proven, or just plain weird. 
Assessing a funding application can be a tricky thing, and many hours can be put into making the right decision.  Its relatively easy to say yes when it’s a proven group with proven programmes, but saying no can be difficult: indeed it’s often easier to say Yes But… 

But there is a need to say NO.  New Zealand now has over 50,000 Not for Profit organisations, many of which will be asking for funding, increasing demand. And, on the other hand, supply of funding reduces (see my previous blog there).  So funders have two options: fund everyone but less, or go all out on the better organisations. 

An assessment that an organisation is not so great may come from a whole range of concerns:
·         Concerns about governance (too many family members involved in a group)
·         Efficacy research inconclusive – or worse, ineffectual
·         Organisation too small to be effective
·         Organisation working beyond its capacity, or mandate
·         Outreach organisation with no social media presence
·         Start up not working with incumbents
·         Tip offs from others that organisation has issues
·         Organisation utilising illegal employment criteria
·         Organisation pursuing model which hasn’t worked for others
·         Groups looking to gold plate their facilities

​A perfect funding decision requires perfect information.  Of course this is well-nigh impossible, so decisions have to be made on the best available information.  But there is where there is often an information void. This can result in poor allocation of resources. 

Example?  A friend on a national board decided to close certain clubs due to lack of use: so the club goes off and supports themselves through community funders.  End result: national body undermined, and more resources into a couple of ineffective organisations not even supported from their national body. 

Relying on the group to say how effective they are is like making a recruitment decision purely off a CV: often the best looking CVs are not the best people for the job.  Nor are the sexiest organisations with the glitziest brands best positioned to help address some of the complex issues within our society.   What can also be interesting is to understand who else has contributed to the organisation.  In some cases this provides a “stamp of approval”.

Turning down a request for funds takes time.  Time to read the application, google research, staff and board, and to have conversations with people whose opinions you respect.  A full day to recommend a decline of an application costs around $360 (variable cost only).   And that does not include the angst of making the wrong recommendation!  This will be replicated across many different funders – although the costs will vary based on a funder’s process around application assessment.

In 2014 Canterbury funders funded 4,800 applications: now how many were declined?  25%?  10%?  That’s a cost of anywhere between $173k and $432k in Canterbury alone.

Would it be quite useful to have a central database where funders could look to see who had declined a group for funding – and why?  That information could really assist funders to make more decisive decisions more quickly.  And at lower cost.  Many of the gaming trusts do publish that information, and some even code as to why the application was refused.  But that data is buried in pdfs in the corners of the internet.  I am sure this could be done, if there was a will and desire to improve the decision making information.    I reckon a simple open source database could be done quite simply if there was a will to do so.  Result of this: funder resources could be better directed, resulting in more funding for good groups.

Would love to talk to you if you think this is quite interesting – and you have a will to make a difference.