Of course you will remember Stuff's story on NZ Edutech Trust. But just in case you don’t here is the start of the article:
Two government departments are investigating the mysterious NZ Edutech Trust charity, which took $500,000 in public funds without any clear evidence of what it’s been spent on - and a chairman who was already under scrutiny by Internal Affairs.
BlueSky had given NZ Edutech the above funding in two years. BlueSky, Dragon, Milestone and Rano have the same underlying management company, Dawn Management, so I tend to review them together. You can see this with some grants: for example, Woolston Brass is clearly a Canterbury based organisation and usually get a couple of grand, mostly from BlueSky. Yet BlueSky don't have a Christchurch venue whereas Rano has one. These four pokies have now all published their 2024 grants (BlueSky and Rano 31 July, Dragon 31 March and Milestone 30 June), so I reckon it's time for review.
I looked at these guys last year: you can read this here. What I found was that the top 30 of their supported charities get 78% of available grant money. For reference, Pub Charity's grants to their top 30 is around 21%. 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 it's STILL ongoing based on DIA's response in the Edutech article. 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 some growth in grants given although that is plateauing. This is due to an increase in the number of venues under management: in 2017 they had 17 venues and 269 machines: by 30 June 2024 they had 36 venues and 586 machines. Rano didn’t start until 2018. The four also have a skew for Auckland / Waikato region, who of course were most affected by COVID in 2022.
Two government departments are investigating the mysterious NZ Edutech Trust charity, which took $500,000 in public funds without any clear evidence of what it’s been spent on - and a chairman who was already under scrutiny by Internal Affairs.
BlueSky had given NZ Edutech the above funding in two years. BlueSky, Dragon, Milestone and Rano have the same underlying management company, Dawn Management, so I tend to review them together. You can see this with some grants: for example, Woolston Brass is clearly a Canterbury based organisation and usually get a couple of grand, mostly from BlueSky. Yet BlueSky don't have a Christchurch venue whereas Rano has one. These four pokies have now all published their 2024 grants (BlueSky and Rano 31 July, Dragon 31 March and Milestone 30 June), so I reckon it's time for review.
I looked at these guys last year: you can read this here. What I found was that the top 30 of their supported charities get 78% of available grant money. For reference, Pub Charity's grants to their top 30 is around 21%. 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 it's STILL ongoing based on DIA's response in the Edutech article. 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 some growth in grants given although that is plateauing. This is due to an increase in the number of venues under management: in 2017 they had 17 venues and 269 machines: by 30 June 2024 they had 36 venues and 586 machines. Rano didn’t start until 2018. The four also have a skew for Auckland / Waikato region, who of course were most affected by COVID in 2022.
This chart looks at how much these entities have distributed since 2017. This last financial year as a group these entities have given away $24.3m: much of the growth in the past three years is primarily COVID related as the venue numbers have not changed a lot since the end of 2020 when they had 37 venues between them.
I thought you might be interested in the top ten community organisations that have been granted funding by these four trusts in the last financial year, along with the number of grants, and the date they were registered as an entity. You can see these ten organisations are getting 28% of the total grants from the four pokies.
I thought you might be interested in the top ten community organisations that have been granted funding by these four trusts in the last financial year, along with the number of grants, and the date they were registered as an entity. You can see these ten organisations are getting 28% of the total grants from the four pokies.
Do they all do what they say they do? I assume so given no action has been taken in the two years since first reported. Although I raise an eyebrow with a few: one only has a single Trustee, one was the subject of this Stuff story, and two have the same trustee. Only three have more than three trustees on their community organisation.
New Zealand Culture & Media Group Ltd is very interesting. It's a charitable company that was registered on 27 April 2021 and operates the Chinese TV station Channel 33. Their charitable purposes aren't dissimilar from the goals of TVNZ:
Looking at Granted.Govt.nz tells me NZCMG is the tenth most pokie funded in the country. And if we look at their latest 2024 accounts:
I really don't know if pokies are the answer to the issues with media funding at the moment. Nor do I know how this station compares to the several other Chinese TV stations in NZ. But the sheer amount of dollars going to this relatively new organisation makes it worth having a good look.
I've really went down a rabbit hole I've been avoiding for a few years now and looked at the top 50 funded organisations of these four pokies from over the past six years. We have 114 groups in that bucket which suggests there is a bit of funding chopping and changing over the six years. Groups I’d have a good gander at:
Another way to cut the data is to look at groups in the 2024 Top 50 funded that were registered in 2023. There are six 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 a hard look at this. What set these organisations apart from the multitude of others to get such support in start up phase?
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 four pokies gave $24.3m into our communities last financial year. In the greater scheme of things it's rounding, but for many organisations surviving and doing great mahi it's a lot of money.
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/
New Zealand Culture & Media Group Ltd is very interesting. It's a charitable company that was registered on 27 April 2021 and operates the Chinese TV station Channel 33. Their charitable purposes aren't dissimilar from the goals of TVNZ:
- To operate a non-commercial TV channel, community radio station and/or other community media for charitable purposes; and
- Any other charitable purpose.
Looking at Granted.Govt.nz tells me NZCMG is the tenth most pokie funded in the country. And if we look at their latest 2024 accounts:
- 91% of their total funding comes from grants with the balance from advertising and Youtube revenues
- Salaries are $777k
- The two officers of the charity are listed in the accounts as on the payroll both as employees and directors
I really don't know if pokies are the answer to the issues with media funding at the moment. Nor do I know how this station compares to the several other Chinese TV stations in NZ. But the sheer amount of dollars going to this relatively new organisation makes it worth having a good look.
I've really went down a rabbit hole I've been avoiding for a few years now and looked at the top 50 funded organisations of these four pokies from over the past six years. We have 114 groups in that bucket which suggests there is a bit of funding chopping and changing over the six years. Groups I’d have a good gander at:
- At least two who have the same registered address as a pokie pub. We have seen this before with a charity which had received $1.3m since inception now moved off to Queenstown and I suspect not receiving any support since 2022.
- A number have been registered by the same person. Reckon those a worth a look.
- A few have some interesting documentation. I'd poke around that.
- There are a number with large rent payments. I’m not convinced of the rights and wrongs of a grant for my private dwelling when I’m operating a charity. Should I apply for rent for my PTA work?
- A few were set up, got a lot of money and then deregistered. Was the charitable purpose achieved? Or was something else going on.
Another way to cut the data is to look at groups in the 2024 Top 50 funded that were registered in 2023. There are six groups which make my list:
- Auckland Community Education Centre (2 Trustees, $142k in 6 grants in 2024, registered 9/6/2023)
- Caring Hearts Foundation Inc (Incorporated Society, $179k in 13 grants, registered 10/7/2023)
- New Zealand Sports and Community Development Trust (3 Trustees. $641k in 31 grants, registered 20/9/2023)
- Sustainable Horticulture Society Inc (Incorporated Society, received $106k in 4 grants in 2023, none this year, registered 2/3/2023)
- Tamariki First Charitable Trust (3 Trustees, received $146k in 14 grants, registered 30/6/2023)
- Te Karere Community Trust (2 Trustees, received $100k 2023 in 4 grants and $106k 2024 in 10 grants, registered 2/5/2023)
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 a hard look at this. What set these organisations apart from the multitude of others to get such support in start up phase?
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 four pokies gave $24.3m into our communities last financial year. In the greater scheme of things it's rounding, but for many organisations surviving and doing great mahi it's a lot of money.
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/
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