I’ve had a few fun conversations of late. This has sparked up fun time data analysis.
Last month I had a look at Lion Foundation, a grant maker who run a national Class 4 gaming trust. They changed the way they report, bunching all the South Island grants under one banner about three years ago, moving from a far easier regional analysis. So that was scary, but I’ve jumped in and done the work. They have a financial year ending 31 March.
This is one of New Zealand’s largest gaming trusts, giving away over $35m in the last financial year. Their Authorised Purpose seems to be very wide, indeed looking at the Trust Deed from some time ago it almost mirrors the definition of Charity. I have used all the information I have dating back to 2014, because, well, why not.
Let’s see where the money goes. I’ve put the various grants against their March financial year. Using the magic of excel and my pretty weak data cleansing skills we can see that Lion really do have a wide approach to granting funds. We have a couple of outliers from post earthquake days where large licks of capital went into various projects. I suspect back in those days Canterbury may have got more than our fair share, but lets keep that between us shall we.
Last month I had a look at Lion Foundation, a grant maker who run a national Class 4 gaming trust. They changed the way they report, bunching all the South Island grants under one banner about three years ago, moving from a far easier regional analysis. So that was scary, but I’ve jumped in and done the work. They have a financial year ending 31 March.
This is one of New Zealand’s largest gaming trusts, giving away over $35m in the last financial year. Their Authorised Purpose seems to be very wide, indeed looking at the Trust Deed from some time ago it almost mirrors the definition of Charity. I have used all the information I have dating back to 2014, because, well, why not.
Let’s see where the money goes. I’ve put the various grants against their March financial year. Using the magic of excel and my pretty weak data cleansing skills we can see that Lion really do have a wide approach to granting funds. We have a couple of outliers from post earthquake days where large licks of capital went into various projects. I suspect back in those days Canterbury may have got more than our fair share, but lets keep that between us shall we.
There are some other interesting facts about this chart. The numbers of gaming machines that are a part of Lion’s network in Greater Christchurch have swung up and down a bit too. You can see that with the line which tracks the numbers of machines at 31 December of each year. Canterbury has a pretty small share of Lion’s machines: at the end of last year they had 1600 in the country all up, only 99 of which were in Canterbury. This leads to a relatively small amount given to Canterbury, around $1.6m last financial year.
The chart below looks at the amounts given in 2021, by segment. You can see the average grant given by sector, the total amount given and the number of grants given in 2021 by sector. You may be surprised by Education as the number is quite high. Unlike some other gaming trusts Lion don’t disclose what the money goes to. I’ve just had a look at the organisations who received support in 2021, and not all of this will be for sport! Indeed they cover a range of schools and early learning centres, including The Canterbury Mathematical Association. Stoked to see this.
The chart below looks at the amounts given in 2021, by segment. You can see the average grant given by sector, the total amount given and the number of grants given in 2021 by sector. You may be surprised by Education as the number is quite high. Unlike some other gaming trusts Lion don’t disclose what the money goes to. I’ve just had a look at the organisations who received support in 2021, and not all of this will be for sport! Indeed they cover a range of schools and early learning centres, including The Canterbury Mathematical Association. Stoked to see this.
The most popular sector to give money to is sport. This chart shows the 2021 granting profile for Lion: Rugby number one! Super surprised to see Gymnastics up so high. I suspect that could be a small capex amount, but they don’t disclose this so I’m unsure. Under Other there are about 24 different codes of sport which get a average of $6,600. This is around the average dollar value of grants given to sporting organisations.
The next most popular category is the catch all Community and Economic Development. This is driven by a substantial donation to St Johns which accounts for around 60% of the total amount given to this category.
The next most popular category is the catch all Community and Economic Development. This is driven by a substantial donation to St Johns which accounts for around 60% of the total amount given to this category.
I mentioned before that Lion put all their South Island data in one spreadsheet. To get the Canterbury material I had to categorise the whole South Island. So here it is. You can see from here that, as expected, the amount given to Canterbury is lower than other regions, due to the location of the pokies. You can also see the amounts given to sport across the island. And it doesn’t look like any other region got an ambulance this year: although there was a generous gift for a rescue helicopter in Nelson. Lion is very strong in Otago, and in Ashburton.
So who makes decisions? Lion have a regional grants committee. There are three on this, including a woman. That seems so 1970’s to write that, but some gaming trusts seem to be there in terms of diversity, so snaps to Lion for making sure different voices are heard. I imagine that ideally there would be a preference for more diversity, but I also suspect the financial model for Class 4 gaming trusts won’t allow that.
I’m quite impressed with the range that The Lion Foundation give to. That said they tend to give small amounts of money to lots of organisations, all adding costs to both the grant maker and those receiving the money. While they are fairly small within the Canterbury context, they certainly are very important within the New Zealand grant making ecosystem.
I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. 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/
I’m quite impressed with the range that The Lion Foundation give to. That said they tend to give small amounts of money to lots of organisations, all adding costs to both the grant maker and those receiving the money. While they are fairly small within the Canterbury context, they certainly are very important within the New Zealand grant making ecosystem.
I write about this stuff as believe that as need to understand where funding comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there. 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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