I am getting pretty slack on this grant work these days. Mainly due the challenge of having a real job, and the unending relentlessness of the stuff that goes on in this space. But below is a rinse and repeat of my last look at Blue Sky, Dragon, Milestone and Rano. I reckon these are worth keeping a beady eye on given some of the things we have discovered before about charities well supported by these pokies.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360547576/charity-struck-significant-failings-after-stuff-investigation
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/130928581/the-1-million-library-that-never-really-opened-appears-to-close-for-good
I looked at these four gaming trusts in August 2022 and raised a complaint specifically about Dragon. This complaint widened to include these four. I believe its STILL ongoing based on DIA’s response in the above articles. So while those tasked with regulation go about their jobs, the pokies and community groups they fund continue to go about theirs.
Looking at their Grant distributions over the years we can see growth has plateaued and indeed fell by around 8% ($2m) in the last financial year. This is despite an increase in the number of venues under management: in 2017 they had 17 venues and 269 machines: by 30 June 2025 they had 38 venues and 587 machines. The four also have a skew for Auckland / Waikato region. If we look at the calendar year 2024 (as that’s how I manage the venue data) they lost four venues and gained four venues.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360547576/charity-struck-significant-failings-after-stuff-investigation
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/130928581/the-1-million-library-that-never-really-opened-appears-to-close-for-good
I looked at these four gaming trusts in August 2022 and raised a complaint specifically about Dragon. This complaint widened to include these four. I believe its STILL ongoing based on DIA’s response in the above articles. So while those tasked with regulation go about their jobs, the pokies and community groups they fund continue to go about theirs.
Looking at their Grant distributions over the years we can see growth has plateaued and indeed fell by around 8% ($2m) in the last financial year. This is despite an increase in the number of venues under management: in 2017 they had 17 venues and 269 machines: by 30 June 2025 they had 38 venues and 587 machines. The four also have a skew for Auckland / Waikato region. If we look at the calendar year 2024 (as that’s how I manage the venue data) they lost four venues and gained four venues.
I have developed a wee proposal which has died somewhere in the bureaucratic void (shout out if you want it), but I think would help those charged with managing our grant making systems a little more proactive. The objectives behind the proposal are:
I thought you might be interested in the top twenty community organisations that have been granted funding in the last financial year, along with the number of grants, and the date they were registered as an entity. The reason I monitor the number of grants is because I'm quite surprised at the volumes that do go through to many charities. If you have written a grant application you will know that the process, paperwork and bookkeeping can drive a girl to drink. This is why I can't help but be a wee bit suspicious of organisations that get multiple grants per month from a single funder.
You can see 20 organisations are getting 39.6% of the total grants from these pokies. Some of last year's favourites no longer make the cut: both Lucky Clover and Woman Care have basically halved in amount of grants given, down from $545k and $319k respectively.
- Better understand the linkages between venues, Class 4 organisations and charities
- Proactively manage any potential issues by actively monitoring the data of the Class 4 organisations, launching investigations when there is evidence to suggest issues
- Be comfortable that the ecosystem is channeling grant monies to “good” organisations, minimizing that to bad, and eliminating grant monies going to ugly.
- organisations with three or fewer trustees
- organisations getting more than 2 grants per annum from a grant maker
- organisations registered within the past months
- organisations with a deficit in documentation including annual accounts
- NGOs with a name change
- NGOs with a registered address of a private dwelling and a charge of rent expense in their accounts
- NGOs with a registered address of a Class 4 venue and rent expenses (yes, I've found several)
- NGOs with address of other flagged NGOs
- NGO has a principal associated with another red flagged organisation
- NGO has a principal associated with a venue or a pokie
- NGO has income from any one pokie of more than 50% of income
I thought you might be interested in the top twenty community organisations that have been granted funding in the last financial year, along with the number of grants, and the date they were registered as an entity. The reason I monitor the number of grants is because I'm quite surprised at the volumes that do go through to many charities. If you have written a grant application you will know that the process, paperwork and bookkeeping can drive a girl to drink. This is why I can't help but be a wee bit suspicious of organisations that get multiple grants per month from a single funder.
You can see 20 organisations are getting 39.6% of the total grants from these pokies. Some of last year's favourites no longer make the cut: both Lucky Clover and Woman Care have basically halved in amount of grants given, down from $545k and $319k respectively.
Charity Name |
Total Grant Dollars Given |
Number of Grants |
Registration Date |
Heritage Foundation |
$233,455 |
20 |
17-10-22 |
Wushu Development of New Zealand Trust Board |
$233,457 |
18 |
25-08-24 |
Wish Foundation |
$236,075 |
19 |
24-07-24 |
Kotahitanga Charitable Trust |
$248,900 |
25 |
09-10-13 |
New Life Charitable Trust |
$251,467 |
32 |
06-08-18 |
New Zealand Shadow Puppet Art Troupe Inc |
$251,787 |
11 |
13-11-19 |
Caring Hearts Foundation Inc |
$271,649 |
14 |
10-07-23 |
Asian Help and Education Charitable Trust |
$283,805 |
25 |
08-06-17 |
New Zealand Sikh Community Tauranga Trust |
$306,382 |
6 |
19-07-12 |
Univision Community Trust |
$320,411 |
14 |
19-01-15 |
Middlemore Foundation for Health Innovation (The) |
$325,111 |
3 |
16-10-07 |
Next Era Sports (was New Zealand Child and Youth Education Trust) |
$387,662 |
12 |
19-11-18 |
New Zealand Multiculture and Arts Exchange Centre (was New Zealand Chinese and Arts Exchange Centre) |
$419,472 |
20 |
07-09-17 |
Supreme Sikh Society of New Zealand |
$419,513 |
21 |
30-06-08 |
Happy Valley Women and Children's Foundation |
$447,246 |
25 |
20-10-22 |
Asian Community Engagement Trust (was Natural Environment Defence Foundation) |
$475,510 |
26 |
08-07-20 |
Indian Association (Manakau) New Zealand Inc |
$489,000 |
3 |
15-12-81 |
New Zealand Sports and Community Development Trust |
$559,498 |
31 |
20-09-23 |
Inspired Families Foundational Trust |
$660,679 |
39 |
13-04-18 |
New Zealand Culture & Media Group Ltd |
$2,074,570 |
62 |
27-04-21 |
We can look at groups in the Top 50 funded that have been registered in 2024. There are four groups which make my list:
Now, I'm not saying that anything is off here: it could be that these four pokies are helping organisations to start up, but if I were in charge I would have hard look at this. What set these organisations apart of the multitude of others to get such support in start up phase?
I also note that New Zealand Sports and Community Development Trust are pulling in the grants. The investigation into their money must have found no issues.
If anyone is interested in having a look at the database I’ve pulled together please let me know. Its all publicly available data, but just assembled in a manner that makes it easier to interrogate.
I write about this stuff as I believe that we need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. These groups gave $22.4m into our communities last financial year via 2512 grants. In the greater scheme of things its rounding, but for many organisations surviving and doing great mahi it’s a lot of money. 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/
- Greater Bay Sports Association Inc (Incorporated Society, 3 officers, $171k in 29 grants, registered 14 March 2024)
- Wushu Development of New Zealand Trust (5 Trustees, $233k in 18 grants, registered 25/7/2024)
- Wish Foundation (2 Trustees. $236k in 19 grants, noted on NZBN as registered 24/7/2024 but not registered on the Charities Services register)
- New Zealand Education and Creation Center (2 Trustees, received $166k in 12 grants, registered 20/6/2024)
Now, I'm not saying that anything is off here: it could be that these four pokies are helping organisations to start up, but if I were in charge I would have hard look at this. What set these organisations apart of the multitude of others to get such support in start up phase?
I also note that New Zealand Sports and Community Development Trust are pulling in the grants. The investigation into their money must have found no issues.
If anyone is interested in having a look at the database I’ve pulled together please let me know. Its all publicly available data, but just assembled in a manner that makes it easier to interrogate.
I write about this stuff as I believe that we need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. These groups gave $22.4m into our communities last financial year via 2512 grants. In the greater scheme of things its rounding, but for many organisations surviving and doing great mahi it’s a lot of money. 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/
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