It’s that time of year, and my children are at a life stage where education options loom up.  I was chatting with a fellow parent on the sideline of some sports event recently, and he made me think a bit with his statement about private schools: “Well, they really are businesses”. 

But actually, they are charities.  This made me wonder what actual charitable purposes they purport to fulfil.

The Charities Act is based on legal precedents with an Act passed in England in 1601.  At that time of course, Queen Elizabeth 1 was on the throne.  My knowledge of that era is coloured by Phillipa Gregory, but it strikes me that culturally, we have changed our belief sets quite a bit – I’m not sure Catholics are quite the worry they once were, most the witches were dealt with at the time, and rich white men no longer are in charge of everything (well…).  However, the current Charities Act 2005 is heavily based on case law dating from 1601.  The 2005 Act stated that “charitable purpose” must fall under one or more categories.

• The relief of poverty.
• The advancement of education.
• The advancement of religion.
• Other purposes beneficial to the community.
  

Now, many of these provisions, under a modern first world country, are probably a bit redundant.  Education is widely provided by the government, as is poverty relief, health services.  We can argue over the execution, but no one is suggesting we remove any of the above from state mandate.  Religion?  Well, the growing group of New Zealander’s stating no religion is growing.  In the 2013 census, almost 42% of us said we had no religion, up from 34.9% in 2006. 

This then got me thinking what it did mean to be a New Zealander: what are our core values.   I think it’s about equity, respect and creativity.  My forebears came to this country to start a new life without the shackles of European social structures.  Respect comes to respect of our planet and of each other.  New Zealand has a narrative around number 8 wire which I think is pretty cool.  We will all have a different take on this of course, but would be interesting for us as New Zealanders to have a yarn about this.

If you follow the news you will have seen that the Charities Registration Board has upheld an earlier decision to remove Family First from the Charities register as they felt it did not have charitable purpose. They considered that “Family First has a purpose to promote its own particular views about marriage and the traditional family that cannot be determined to be for the public benefit in a way previously accepted as charitable.”

Now, the Board made the initial decision to remove the above organisation from the register in 2013.  It was challenged, but the decision upheld 2017.  There will be numerous lawyers over this, and at least one economist report.  How much to deregister this one organisation?  I would hate to think. 

You may also remember the kerfuffle almost a year ago when over 100,000 New Zealanders called for a deregistration of Destiny Church.  This was not backed by Charity Services as there seemed “insufficient evidence” to warrant an investigation.  The charitable purpose of this organisation, from the Charities Office website, is religion.  Which is entirely valid, so yes, like it or not, under our current rules it’s a charity.

Religion is an interesting charitable purpose.  The NZ Herald has done an interesting piece of analysis which shows where atheists live… and it’s all in those wealthier suburbs.  So is there a link between poverty and religion?  Does religion (through tithing) actually drive poverty?  This Samoan chap certainly thinks so.  I can’t find much in the way of academic studies on this sadly.

If we look at private schools, their charitable purpose is education.  Which is all well and good, and entirely consistent with legal purpose.  But unlike 400 years ago, in New Zealand we have universal education for all children.  In 2017 does education need to be a charitable purpose?  Further, one of the elements of Charitable purpose is around public benefit.  The benefit must be for the public, or a sufficient section of the public.  And halfway down the page it states “unjustifiable fees that exclude many people would not be acceptable”.  Hmmm.

If we use my Kiwi values as a surrogate for charitable purpose, for the sake of argument, then how many registered charities fit where New Zealand is as a nation? And if we use 400 year old legislation to define what is important to a modern first world economy today, how can we make sure we get the best possible charities sector and services sector which meets the needs of our increasingly diverse communities? 

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting. Check out my website www.delfi.co.nz.

Apologies to those new readers of my blog. My last blog on Invisible Women which, by my standards, went viral, has attracted a few new people who may not be so keen on this stuff. So I’ll try not to take the smaller readership personally, and completely understand if you just quietly drop me. I actually write about some fairly niche stuff in the grant making ecosystem, so back to this.

Wellington funders got together a while ago and have now produced a report on the grant making space in their city. Heralded on Radio NZ as something done “for the first time” – a claim that I let go after kicking the dog and knocking back a bottle of chardonnay – nevertheless, it’s an interesting look at the grant ecosystem in Wellington.

Below is a comparison with Wellington, Canterbury and Otago – the South Island data you can find on my website. I confess to being a bit surprised by the similarities in the results given my rather dubious categorisation methodology, and the (likely) well-debated methodology of the Wellington work.

There are some clear similarities, with Sport again getting the largest slice of funds. Arts and Culture is interesting: whether this is driven by CNZ’s grants into the capital city (which will, of course, have national bodies) I don’t know. 

Of course, there are numerous issues in the above comparison.

• Classification. One of the issues identified in the Wellington study was a consistent and meaningful classification system. They adopted a standard classification system, but when I looked at this I felt it did not represent the richness of grant making. When I did the Canterbury and Otago work, I did sort of make it up into something that, as a user, was meaningful to me. This included classification by sports code. It's likely that there will be differences in classifications.
• Missing data. My data missed some of the smaller district councils, as getting good data out of them is a challenging task - although they are not perhaps material in any case. And Lotteries, of course, are missing from the Wellington data: in both South Island regions Lotteries make up about 10% of the grants into the area.  Lotteries grants tend to go on the community side of things. And of course, we have to remember that grant income makes up only a percentage of total income for NFPs. Income will include taxpayer funded contracts, self-generated funds, individual giving and fundraisers.
• Effect of gaming trusts. Within the Wellington data is information on NZ Racing Board, Lion Foundation and NZCT. There are another five or so gaming trusts which operate in the region whose data is not within the dataset. Further, when I did research on Otago and Canterbury I ignored NZ Racing Board. Although they are a large operator, they do not give grants out to general organisations. They are counted within the Wellington data, so will skew the sport number accordingly.
• Region.  As the capital, Wellington data could possibly be skewed by national organisations based in the city. This happens quite often: Canterbury funders will give funding to the likes of Royal NZ ballet to give performances within the region. 

It is great that this analysis is happening, and awesome that they have published. However, the devil is in the detail: NFP groups will want to see which funders will fund organisations or specific costs in their sphere. Sports codes may want to see who is sucking up all this sport funding.  Struggling art organisations might want to see who's getting it all.  Funds that go to schools, and may be tagged as education – are often used for things like sports.  And the headline that funds are not getting to those most in need ignores the rather huge role that government contracts play in that space. 

The Wellington decline information is quite interesting, in that they have actually looked into the issue, identifying some 32% of requests as declined. As a grant maker, a decline can be a bit angst ridden and of course high cost. Real time information about this would help decision makers understand other organisations’ concerns.

And as an aside talked about on the wireless during the interview was a concern about a lack of special interest groups applying for funding. Looking at the Wellington data, one could make some assumptions around this. However, I see that most NFPs deal with everyone. A cancer charity works with anyone with cancer. A school educates those who are enrolled. A sports club caters to members. A community group caters to those who live within the community. So to put in some sorts of percentage on special interest has the potential to result in some fairly silly outcomes, with even more replication for a sector with over 27,000 charities.

So where to from here. While the Wellington report talks of this as an interim report designed to encourage funders to share their data, and ends on a desire for funders to pitch in on this, I see that Central Government has to come to the party. They fund themselves, they oversee many other grantmakers, they regulate gaming trusts, and they monitor charities and societies. Funders are, by and large, disparate, regionally focussed, small (within the national context) and I hate to say, see themselves as central to the ecosystem rather than as an enabler. So, while I hope for their sake that they will be able to pull something off, I think that some sort of information solution where Central Government is a key stakeholder (not necessarily project owner) is the best way forward. Looking forward to the DIA’s Community Engagement Feedback due in September to see if there is more on this.

And one more thing. I confess to being a big fan of the 80/20 rule: putting 20% of the effort in to yield 80% of the result (good thing I am not a brain surgeon). My point is that we don’t need to design a perfect platform up front. Something now is better than an almost perfect solution in five years’ time. Be good to get started.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting. Check out my website www.delfi.co.nz.

I went to a women’s networking thing a few weeks ago.  Six speakers, some fabulous ideas, and good wine and food.  But... it struck me there is a big elephant in the room which we don’t talk about enough.  The C word.

The C word.  Yes, throws many of us on the corporate slag heap, unable to deliver quite the career potential we had.  Puts us waging an invisible sister to sister battle, unseen by many, but oh so passive aggressive.

Of course, I am talking about children.  

Now, my corporate career pretty much finished on or about 1 March 2004.  Nine months later the baby pops out.  I had this grand vision of having nannies and au pairs, while I could continue to have what I deemed a successful career.  However, number one, a return from parental leave, and the side-lining to a “project role” was followed by number two, a move, and then number 3. 

During this time, I went on a work retreat to some fabulous location.  The purpose was to develop team skills, strategic planning blah blah blah.  We had an inspirational after dinner speaker who had done some marvellous things and was a real success in his field.  But I discovered two things about myself on this trip.

Firstly, I didn’t really want to be away from my children and husband, making small talk with colleagues who, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t socialise with.  The whole exercise seemed a bit pointless, and the co-ordination required for me to attend this three day event was a logistic challenge.  My career was no longer mine: we had to make joint decisions about work.  From Me to We. 

Secondly, I thought the inspirational speaker was a selfish jerk who did what he wanted to do without much thought for his long suffering wife and children.   Long periods away from home, many missed family occasions.  “Success” seems to be a fairly one dimensional measure, and I rethought what success meant to me.

So, while everyone makes different decisions, as a family we felt it best that they have a parent who is there after school, able to talk when the taciturn one wants to, able to be vented to after a day of challenge, coach their sports team or reading group, chauffeur them and their mates, and help nurture them into amazing human beings.

Parenthood in a corporate sense seems to focus on the baby stage: covering off parental leave and ensuring jobs are still available.  However, as those babies grow into children, and then teenagers, we have the challenge of 12 weeks of school holidays, and a school day of 9 till 3, along with all the demands (and rewards) of community involvement.  Public dialogue drives me a bit batty, with continued discussion about why there are no women in senior roles on boards / in management.  It’s really quite obvious (to me anyway..): the C word.  Many of the women I went to university with are in the same situation as me, and deal with this by making things work as well as we can.  But careerwise: we are out of the game, we are invisible, and we can’t get back in.

And yet we hear, constantly, about the skill gap, which justifies the immigration numbers.  In fact, I heard some words yesterday which made me shake my head: “those who want work are in work”.  Another employer was moaning about how they had to settle for two people job sharing a role, like that was a bad thing.  How about the nature of work changes to make this more accessible for working parents?  Surely employers don’t need to “own” people through employer / employee relationships.  Can projects be done in ten week chunks?

But very few employers offer the flexibility that we need, so we go and create our own niches where we can balance all the elements in our lives.  Talents and experience are enormous, social conscious is usually pretty high, but skills, by and large, are wasted.  We are labelled as Liam’s mum, a school mum.   No longer an individual in our own right. 

Now, this is really a first world problem.  And I could be perceived as a grumpy middle class housewife, and perhaps my corporate career would have petered out if we had chosen not to have kids, or if we had backed my career and not my partner’s.  But here’s my challenge.  As a parent of three girls, how do I counsel them on managing career?  Encourage them into traditional female roles?  Those roles are really flexible.  Choose a partner with a flexible career?  Volunteer myself to be there for their kids? 

Yes, I feel like a total gender traitor writing this: but under current conditions we simply can’t have it all.  The “have it all” narrative is where women must get educated to support themselves well, travel the world, get a great job, pay off debt, find the right man, afford a mortgage and deposit, squeeze out kids, all before the age of 34 when our fertility (apparently?) falls off a cliff.  No. 

Those people I see as successful are those amazing people who manage all the facets of life: they have found something they love to do, they contribute to the community, and they are doing a great job of the juggle.  So, while we may not be headlining conferences, on the rich list, or engaged in discussion of the issue, we are doing what we can to raise great humans, and make some impact on the lives of those around us.  You may be invisible to many, but I see you.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting. Check out my website www.delfi.co.nz

I went to a lunch (and a discussion) on the grant making ecosystem yesterday.  They are being held across the country by Minister Ngaro and the Department of Internal Affairs.  Canterbury’s was the first where it was co-hosted by another funder: in this case, Rata Foundation.  Kudos to Rata for being part of the discussion.  From Delfi’s 2014 grant data, those two organisations make up around 30% of the money going into the region. 

But missing… gaming trusts, and the Council.  It’s difficult to have a discussion about the whole ecosystem if those who are part of it don’t see it as important.

Here were a few things I found interesting.  Firstly, most of the tables identified that “Relationships” with funders were desirable.  I kept quiet: frankly I do what I can to avoid said relationships: every conversation about the grants process puts cost onto the charity I do things for, and cost onto the grant maker.   

I was seated next to a woman I admire a lot.  Her job is to find grants to fund a fabulous charity.  She sources money from over fifty grant makers every year.  50 funders.  Ferreting all these obscure sources of money to keep an essential underfunded service helping families.  This is a similar figure for many of the larger charities.  What value does a relationship with a grant maker add to the organisation?  Does it ensure funding will continue?  Well, no.  Those decisions are generally not within staff discretion.  And just because the grant is a high amount for a specific grant maker doesn’t mean it’s a significant amount for the charity.  What purpose do relationships serve?  If its transactional (how do I fill this form in) then fine.  And if both parties get something out of this, then fine.  But if cost is forced onto the charity because the grant maker thinks it’s the right thing to do, then perhaps no. Or perhaps if the grant makers share the job of strategic partnering the it could make some sense.

Secondly, information.  We talked a bit about this, but I guess it’s difficult to understand what could be if the information was available.  Benchmarking, across sector, region, within code.  Sliced data: there is so much rich information available if only there was a model to support its creation.  We talked about reasons for declines, and all the costs replicated in many NGOs on understanding who gives to who.

Thirdly, I think we should take process away from the discussion.  What is the purpose of community grants?  To fund organisations which service the community (dur).  And what is the purpose of those organisations?  Well, to serve the community I guess (again, dur).  So, rather than a grant maker centric model we have now, how can we create a community centric one.  One where communities get to decide which groups actually deliver worthwhile stuff within their communities.  I pitched this idea to my table: comment from one was “What say we don’t get supported”.  Well, that’s sort of the point.  If you are not actually delivering worthwhile stuff, then perhaps it’s time to do something else.   Our communities deserve a strong NFP sector, and healthy constructive critique beyond brand and into substantive delivery, is one way to help achieve this.

The new reporting standards help identify this, with the development of the Performance Report.  These can provide some great reading (for charities anyway), and staff should totally be aware of what they do and how that impacts what is achieved by the group. 

Part of the challenge is having the discussion challenging status quo at the right level.  We can see many organisations (by no means limited to NFP) where the needs of the staff are put before the needs of customers. 

So lunch?  Was it worth it?  Yep.  A great appetiser to an exciting and potentially disruptive future, and refreshing to feel the discussion and engagement is being held.  However, hard to have substantive discussion and development of concepts in such environments.  However, I am heartened that the Minister “gets it”, having had considerable experience with the sector, and he can certainly see some of the challenges and opportunities.  Feedback will be communicated by September (hopefully sooner), and then we will see if we have a chance for something more substantive than the appetiser enjoyed yesterday.  And, from Delfi’s point of view, it would be amazing to contribute to a better, stronger ecosystem which really delivers strong communities.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting. Check out my website www.delfi.co.nz.

Super excited to be having a lunch shortly.  The occasion is a Community Engagement Workshop, where we are invited along to look at “…make it easier to register as a charity or access grant funding”.  They want to know what works, and opportunities to make processes easier and less of a demand on time.

I am really hoping that we move beyond the standard stuff: online, multi year funding etc etc.  It would be quite marvellous to address some of the big issues across the funding ecosystem.
So in the interests of putting my thoughts onto the interweb, here’s what I want to talk about.

I question to view of making it easier to register.  Actually – no.  The last thing we need more charities.  Right now we have about one charity for every 166 New Zealanders.  The usual narrative around this is how generous New Zealanders as a nation are, but actually – not sure that’s the case.  How many charities have been formed because of the way grant makers demand their accounts be presented?  How many volunteer hours are churned up in governance of very small groups which achieve very little?  And what sort of back office costs could be saved if we could rationalise and co-operate. 

Let’s look at Health charities.  There are 2000 of these.  How many have cancer in their name?  I don’t know, but surely the task they are doing is the same?  Support, lobbying and awareness?  How about social services?  Again, almost 2,000 charities in this space?  How many of these have relief of poverty as their charitable purpose?

While thinking of social services, why are they asking for grants at all?  As a society we don’t really talk about why these organisations who generally have government contracts are only funded to 80%.  Should it be 100%?  Should grant makers just work with these organisations on trying new stuff?  In Canterbury in 2014, grant makers gave social services $7.6m. If we extrapolate this up nationally, that’s around $76m put into social services by grant makers.

And seeing I have gone there, then why is the Canterbury community raising money for a helipad at the hospital?  Core DHB function?  Library?  Surely a council obligation.  Same with the ambulance – other emergency services are 100% funded, so why not ambos? Air rescue is interesting again, with some funded by government to 80% operating cost, others to 30% of their operating cost.  Why? 

Let’s look at grants processes and time liberation.  Now, I have a paid gig doing grant applications.  Nice people.  Rubbish role.  I call myself something that doesn’t sound like Funding so I can get money to make sure I am paid.  I photocopy reams of paper, find something to wrap a request around, and send it off into the wind to hear about six weeks to six months later.  I fill in forms to show that yes, indeed, we spend that grant on that stuff.  It’s a paper shuffling, box ticking role.  And frankly, the DIA application process is the best I have found (so far).  

But how can we reinvent the whole grant making process to cut my job from the books, reduce the cost burden from the grant maker, focus on outcomes for the community not spending cash, and get more funds through to those who do actually make a difference.   Imagine a world with a transparent grant system, open data on approvals – and declines.  A world where organisations are judged and funded on the outcomes they achieve for the community, rather than the “heart wrench” of the charity’s brand, or the “fingers crossed” nature of income generation.  A place where charities are not beholden to the crumbs from the corporate table.

I also think the grant makers could do with some better information, like benchmarking.  I have previously looked at regional funding differences, which show real data on what’s happening in Canterbury and Otago.  Is the ecosystem really demand driven?  Or driving by supply of funds?  We can also look within category, such as the Air Rescue example above, or at club level for football (some clubs get $400 per registered player – others ask for and receive none), or grants going into specific codes (from the Delfi 2014 data, Rugby Union gets $240 per registered player, Touch $15).  I touched on this stuff in my TedxCHCH talk in 2015 and received a wonderful supportive email from a woman who had been involved in a club for years.  “Those who provide grants need to get 100% smarter checking on accountability and sport needs to get off it's collective butt and do something for itself.”

There are a bunch of reasons we struggle to have these discussions.  Like it or not, there is a power relationship between grant makers and NFPs which reduces the ability for candid conversation.   There is little scale in both grant makers and NFPs, little tension for change, and besides, it’s probably not core business.  The people who are most involved with the process are the ones whose jobs are most likely at risk, which again, reduces objective thinking.  And lastly, do the gaming trusts actually see themselves as grant makers?  Last year they put over $340m into the community, so they certainly are.  Of the 86 members of Philanthropy NZ, around 0 gaming trusts are members.  And PNZ members include one licensing trust and four councils.  Given the importance of the gaming trust sector to the conversation (in Canterbury they were responsible for 51% of funds in 2014, and 29% in Otago) they need to be at the table.

It’s great DIA is showing leadership around this: now we need to leverage this opportunity and make sure that all arms of the organisation, grant making, regulatory and gambling compliance work together to make our ecosystem as healthy as it can be.  Here’s to great lunch.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting. Check out my website www.delfi.co.nz.

Some headlines last week have looked at kids in poverty who have been unable to access Saturday sport, almost a rite of a Kiwi childhood. Us parents spend hours driving kids to all parts of the region, encouraging our little darlings in their pursuits.

The press release seems to have been coordinated by Variety NZ. We’ll come back to that.

I reckon grant makers would have been a bit puzzled by reading the article. Grant request after grant request comes in talking the talk about enabling kids from poorer backgrounds with the same sporting opportunities as richer families. So why was this family left out?

The article looked at costs of subs, and found many to be around $150. So why are sports fees so high? I know when my husband ran a footie club we had junior fees pretty low, and there was a waiver if families could not afford it. Let’s face it – there are not a lot of expenses. Rate payers cough up for the grounds, parents are (generally) coaches, so all that’s needed is a bit of equipment and uniforms. And then there is the affiliation fee: that fee paid to the organising code. This overarching body is generally populated by people with a passion for the particular sport, and I reckon (based purely on personal experience) fail to take account that (usually) kids and parents want childhood to be full of many different experiences, be that sport, music, art and play.

I have written previously about football, where I suggested that money rolls up to the elite level. Indeed, our own team were recently asked to sell raffle tickets at $25 / book. The proceeds are going to “Canterbury United (the provincial team largely supported by grants), Women’s and Youth team (again - top level) and member clubs for their own use.” Looking through a few accounts, I see little evidence of “trickle down”: in fact it seems to be simply a player tax for the elite players placed on all players.

Now, I happen to believe that users should pay something: that if you financially commit to something then that provides some certainty that you will in fact show up. But at the end of the day, sport is a hobby, so why should everyone else subsidise the best players to participate in their hobby?

Leeston Rugby Club’s accounts can be found on the Societies office website. These show that the club is fairly small. They don’t get a lot of grants, but don’t really need them. Subs are fairly low as well: $80 for junior players. And in response to the article they stated on their Facebook page that “As a Club we do not turn away any players and we have policies in place to assist with financial issues. We are a Community Club and as such we support the community and all those in it.” Quite frankly, I reckon these guys have been painted unfairly in this article.

Variety is interesting however. Check out their annual accounts. They state that they helped 2,680 kids, and gave away $2.18m – an average then of $813 per child. They earned just over $3m last financial year, spent $1.3m on operating costs, and gave away just over $2m to their beneficiaries. There is no evidence provided that what they do makes a difference to lives of the kids.

I hate to say this, but am feeling a bit discomforted by the poverty porn element to this. Good on them for trying to do something to alleviate poverty in New Zealand. The idea that kids in New Zealand go without stuff goes against the grain. However, there are so many many many organisations set up to help such families. If you want an awesome view at this, check out Dame Diane Robertson’s TedX Chch talk where she presented the findings of the 100 Families programme. The outtake of this study for me was the sheer complexity of service agency relationships for those in poverty. The more I look at this stuff, the more I am not convinced that this organisation will help families break out of the poverty cycle. Families are where kids are raised: enabling the family with the cash and the skills they need to raise successful kids should be the main focus, and this is what I love about the new Social Investment thinking of Government. Fewer charities doing more with stronger relationships is, I dearly hope, a way to break intergenerational poverty and behaviours.

I confess I went into this blog thinking that sport was to blame for not doing what they say they do. However, I think there has been an unfair beat up by Variety to drive donations. And looking at subsequent articles, and the comments, they have achieved success in terms of new kids sponsored. So those donors will now feel they are making a difference, but actually – I think they have been played. 

To answer the question I posed myself: unlike summer holidays at the beach, Saturday sport can still be a rite for Kiwi kids.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting.
 

Interrupting our family’s viewing of The Bachelor recently were some TV ads for Z Energy’s Good in the Hood.

This is an annual campaign they do whereby four local charities for each service station are profiled and customers get to put their plastic disc into the bucket of the charity that resounds with them.  Each service station has around $4,000 to give away from a total pool of $1m.  You may recall last year I had a look at one of the recipient charities.

I have a bit of discomfort with the whole deal.  It’s really a popularity contest, where those groups with the best “brands” get the most tokens.  Not really taken into account is what the organisation actually will do with the money, nor if they actually need it in the first place.  For some of these charities, $1,000 (assuming each charity gets ¼ of the money) that’s a big help, for others, its hard to see how this makes any difference.

I would love to know how much they are spending marketing this programme: images of the charities are all over their social media and website.  The annual accounts show that Z spent $36m on marketing in the 2017 financial year.  I am guessing that most of this went on other stuff, but it’s interesting to contemplate eh.  How much is spent actually giving and how much is spent telling people about it?  Is this perhaps Virtue Laundering?

That said, they did pay $99m in tax last financial year: probably more than either Mobil or BP did given transfer prices are often used to expatriate income and minimise taxation: I suspect paying the correct amount of local tax does far more Good in the Hood than the programme itself. 

Z of course are not alone here: McDonalds is worth a look. When you buy a Happy Meal, I believe 10 cents is given to the Ronald McDonald Houses.  This is of course Cause Related Marketing, and is really a marketing initiative.  I did my dissertation on this stuff back in the day, so have been looking at it for a while. 

There are two operational charities linked to Ronald McDonald House: a body running both Auckland and Wellington, and Christchurch (which also runs Invercargill). You can see all this information on the Charities Office website.

So – how much did McDonalds put into these facilities?  All up: around $170k ($99k from a Global Grant, and $70k from an RMHC Operating grant) and only to the North Island Ronald McDonald House Charities NZ Trust. 

Now, there is little publicly available information about all this.  South Island received zip from McDonalds, at least as I could see by looking at their accounts quite a few times.  The exception is the item called Money Boxes, which I assume is the change box at McDonalds – but that money comes from customers (I think).

If we assume that both the Global Grant and operating grant were covered by Happy Meals, then McDonalds sold 1.6m such meals last year.  That sounds a little off, so I am guessing that the Happy Meals Cause Related Marketing covered the operating grant (meaning they sold 700k Happy Meals) and the Global Grant came from the PR budget.

The annual reports (as reported in the Herald) show some $40m sent offshore for trademark and service fees, and total NZ taxes of $16.4m. 

Whatever way you cut it, it really does seem to be a good deal for McDonalds. Be interesting to see if some other entity wanted to buy naming rights: I reckon this is a good deal!

We are seeing blurred lines between charities, social enterprises, B Corps and for profit organisations, and it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of corporate responsibility.  As we consumers get more cynical about marketing efforts, organisations seem to be using the virtues of Not for Profits to launder a positive corporate brand to the world.  And that’s great – provided its on equal terms.  However, looking at the above I can’t help but think of a phrase from my drinking days: go hard or go home.  Really… the numbers above are rounding.

Love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting.

My kid asked for some money the other day for mufti day.  “What’s the cause?” I asked.  “Some cancer thing” was the response. 

At the back of my mind were the articles I looked at in my last blog and the comments which were made on the Stuff website about the sheer number of cancer charities.  “Ah.  Well, let’s find out more shall we?”

The mufti day was for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer NZ.  They are also the ones which do the Shave for the Cure, which seems to very popular as a fundraiser.  I thought it might be interesting to put this charity through the GiveWell criteria – or rather, a more concise and desk top version thereof.  It’s a tricky one: our hearts tell us to do what we can, but what should our heads say?  I believe all information should be easily accessible, transparent and publicly available – and found this one a bit lacking on information.

What does the charity do?
According to their website, they are “the leading organisation in New Zealand dedicated to supporting patients and their families living with leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma and related blood conditions.”

This sounds encouraging – although I would have thought the local DHB would be the leading organisation to achieve the above vision.  I have looked at their latest 2016 accounts on the Charities office website to see where their costs lie to get an understanding of what they actually do.

1. All up they generate some $6.5m in revenues, coming from various sources such as fundraising, bequests, grants and income from the Bone Marrow registry.  Expenses total some $5.6m, and net assets of $5.3m.
2. The biggest cost (at just over $2.1m in 2016) relates to the Bone Marrow Donor registry, the national register for bone marrow.This lists around 8,000 people who are willing to donate cells to patients worldwide.  The costs seem largely covered by income (I’m assuming) from the DHBs, so stands alone.
3. The second largest cost is Patient Support, which comes in at $1.3m in 2016 ($1.4m in 2015).These I am guessing will be largely staff related costs, who support patients and their families.
4. The third biggest lump of costs is Administration, made up (I think) of 7 FTEs, one CE and six senior managers.  The total cost of the 7 senior managers (as noted on page 14 of the accounts) looks to be just over $700k.
5. The fourth biggest cost is Awareness and Advocacy, at $580k. This is measured by hits and views on various social media platforms.  Part of the purpose of the advocacy is global best practice, working with other cancer NGOs and lobbying.
6. The fifth biggest expense is the costs related to the special events that they conduct to raise funds.
7. The sixth is grants and research, coming in at $139k.In 2015 the number was $184k, which they allocated to 21 recipients for research, travel and summer studentships.

 How cost effective is each programme area?

1. The Bone Marrow Donor registry has around 8,000 people on it who have registered as donors.  There is no data on how many donations are made per year – at least that I could find.  That is a cost of around $260 / donor, which seems ok, but without the data on how many matches are made, well, it’s hard to say this is cost effective.
2. Patient Support. Their Winter 2016 magazine has some metrics around what they did in 2015: 9 staff, 133 education and support groups, 38 family emergency assistance vouchers, ad daily contact with 130 patients or family members. So that’s quantitatively what they do: there is no reporting back on the website as to the quality of those services.
3. Salary costs of senior management are tagged that the roles have been independently sized and remunerated accordingly. Although I’m not sure how this compares with other organisations sector: would a business with revenues of $6m have such a salary bill for senior management?
4. Awareness and Advocacy. No comment
5. Event costs.  If we assume that the money tagged as “fundraising” income relates to events, then every dollar spent on an event raises $4.87.That’s pretty good – although may not include internal staff costs.
6. The average grant is $8,761 per grant.  I assume that the costs of making those grants is boxed into the administration expenses.Given what I have previously looked at with cost of grants (around $4k per grant administratively) this seems not cost effective.

How robust is the evidence behind the programme?
No evidence provided.  They are part of a cross industry group, and do participate in international forums.
How well is each programme implemented?
No evidence provided.
Does the charity need additional funds?
Probably not.  The balance sheet is pretty strong, although both the investments of $1m and term deposit of $264k reflect only about 4 months of operational funding (taking out the operations of the Bone Marrow registry). 
How does this group compare to others doing a similar thing?
Unable to tell as have not looked at any other cancer non profits.

The diagnosis of cancer is dreadful, and one where all affected by that diagnosis, be they family, friends, colleagues or neighbours, want to do something to help.  It’s likely that every family is affected by this scourge.  Indeed, bowel cancer killed my mother, and pancreatic almost got my dad.  But thanks to some great surgeons and world class research, he is still here, a modern medical miracle.  However, rather than shave off my hair, or give money to high profile charities, I think we should think more with our heads: if we want to cure cancer, then perhaps a direct donation to a cancer researcher, such as the Malaghan Centre will provide greater benefit.  Globally, billions and billions of dollars are spent on research every year by governments, pharmaceutical companies and NGOs.  And while we can’t discount those breakthroughs happening locally, we can perhaps afford to be realistic in what we can achieve. 

Furthermore, a charity should show that it is a learning organisation.  I do hope that the new Charities reporting standards will help with this, but given both the tax free status and the high regard society has for many not for profits, I believe it’s incumbent on them to show the good, the bad and the ugly. That means showing not just that they are busy, but that they are efficient, effective, and look to meet their charitable purposes.

But back to the charity.  I have broken down the expenses in the 2016 accounts.  We can see that the bone marrow registry looks after itself, so I have not included that expense.  If I wanted to give my kid $100 for mufti day to cure cancer, only $4 of that money would go to grants and research.  If I wanted it to fund advocacy and awareness, then $16 goes into that, while admin would get $40.  If I wanted it to support those with the cancer, that line of business gets $38.  But there is no evidence about the effectiveness of those programmes: there are plenty of stories, but as a very brainy man once said to me, “the plural of anecdotes is not data”. 

So my poor kid had to raid her own money box for mufti money.  We work hard for our money, and as such, want to make sure that we can achieve the most good we can out of that spend.  And with this organisation, there is not really enough information for me to make that call.

Would love to talk with you if you think this is at all interesting.

There has been a flurry (well, two) articles in the local rag about the charitable sector.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/90430465/increasing-number-of-charities-creating-duplication-donor-fatigue
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/90937970/editorial-ever-expanding-charity-sector-needs-a-vigilant-eye

They pose some interesting questions that I have looked at over the past few years: notably about duplication.  Nicola Woodward from Aviva I think summed this up well:

"There's also a lot of duplication and competition that isn't helpful for the people charities are here to support. The fact that we're charities doesn't make us entitled to funding – or that it should be assumed that we're doing great work."

Charities needed to be transparent and accountable and had a responsibility to work together to provide the best possible services "as effectively and efficiently as possible", Woodward said.

The editorial poses some great questions, ones I have been pondering about for a while now and boring my friends and family, but puts a lot of the onus onto DIA. 

It would be helpful if in the name of transparency, Charities Services could find a way to rate charities on what proportion of their income goes to front line services and how much to admin.

Now, this is a sterling idea – although only really shows a small piece of the puzzle.  At the moment, this material often exists (and where it doesn’t it sure should), but no one really looks at it, except those with a passion here.  Through this blog, I have looked at various charities: yep there are some great ones, but ones where the community benefit is clearly questionable.  Others look at charities via the letters to the editor channel.  However, it’s a hobby (and a fairly weird one at that).  There is no current business model to open up the sector for scrutiny, either for an individual charity’s effectiveness, nor benchmarking across sector.  There are also some big questions which remain unanswered around the role of local and central government in funding things which are more and more falling to private philanthropists or community grantmakers. 

However, I am not convinced it should be the role of the DIA to do this sort of thing given the breadth of activities they do, but rather it would be rather fabulous if DIA can help facilitate this amongst independent researchers. 

The Doing Good Better book by William MacAskill (sent to me for free thanks to the Effective Altruism people thank you very much), provides some good rating points, which he is turn has borrowed off GiveWell.  To steal theirs:

• What does the charity do?
  
• How cost effective is each programme area?
  
• How robust is the evidence behind the programme?
  
• How well is each programme implemented?
• Does the charity need additional funds?
  

I would suggest another: How does this group compare to others doing a similar thing?

Now, I am not proposing that these measures are appropriate for our NZ charities.  Indeed, the cost of such deep dives into our 27k charities, not to mention the over 25k incorporated societies which also ask for and receive community and individual funding, would be rather over the top for the return. However, I think it’s not too hard to scratch the surface on some of these big questions.  The onus should be on the charities to show to the community that they do what they say they do, that their programmes are effective, that they are learning organisations and play nicely with others.  It will help us make sure that those who get funding actually are worthy of our money.

Us randomly scattered cynical but community minded people could work with the regulator and develop a model.  It could have the potential to put more sunlight on the NFP sectors and help us pay the rent.  I think NZ Inc would certainly be better off, grant makers would have the opportunity to reduce their costs, individuals could have more confidence in where their money goes, and we might see some positive changes within the charitable sector.

Would love to talk with you if you think this is vaguely interesting.

One of my favourite ads of late is that Trumpet one “togs togs togs… undies”.  How far can you go from the beach before togs turn into undies?  I have been thinking of this ad (not in a pervy way) after reflecting on my last blog.  You may recall that I looked at a venue where the kids were not allowed into the Council owned loos at a venue managed by a community group.  I noted that the venue generated some $30k from the bar.  The metaphor is around core business: when is a sports club actually a pub?

So last week I went to a function at the Belfast Rugby Clubrooms.   Nice club rooms, great outlook. 

I had a wee gander at their latest financials (August 2016) just before I went to the meeting, just so I could understand how it sat regarding income.  They can be found on this website.  They generated a total revenue of just under $440k last financial year.

Of course there are direct costs associated with each revenue line around the “core businesses”: bar and as a sports club.  The accounts show the bar produces a net $59k, open grade footie lost $2k, touch provided $8k and juniors provided $3k.  These direct costs include coaching and uniforms, revenue includes subs, raffles and donations, grants and sponsorship.  So core business  provided a trading income of $67k.  Curiously enough, as I had expected some change over 16 years, these revenue items are fairly similar to the 1999 accounts: the bar made a net $30k, senior lost $2k, Juniors contributed $8k and touch $12k to produce a trading income of $49k.

However, its a different story when it comes to expenses.  There were then almost $300k of expenses which seem to relate to operating a venue, and which, BTW, are largely funded by grants.  In 1999, expenses were $90k.  The difference?  Wages in 2016 were $135k, minimal in 1999.  The 1999 ones showed no grants, although sponsorship came to just under $60k.  Hard to say whether this was grants or not: I assume not given the language.  In the 2016 Donations, Grants and Sponsorship figure of $175k, again it’s hard to say what’s sponsorship (i.e., a commercial transaction) and what’s grants.

As an aside, the accounts also identify a related party transaction: “The Club purchased product from Robbie’s Bar and Bistro, Belfast, of which … is the owner (of Robbies) and Chairman of the club.  These transactions occurred on normal commercial terms.”  Now, according to DIA data as at 31 December 2016, Robbie’s Bar have 18 Air Rescue and Community Services gaming machines in the bar.  I do imagine that this conflict has been checked out, as otherwise that could just contradict section 113 of the Gambling Act 2003.  For the record (from my mega database), in 2015 Air Rescue seemed to give $36k, Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Trust $40k.  Interestingly, the gaming trust charged with raising money for rugby in the top half of the South Island, Mainland, seemed to give nothing in 2015.  Two things; would be really helpful to see why these grants were made, and secondly, I reckon grant makers should disclose any related party issues in their decisions.  Shout out to CERT who are providing some good disclosure around this now.

Now I confess I have not been into a sports club bar since the seventies, when Mum and Dad would drag us down to the Southland Aeroclub on Friday nights for a bottle of Thompsons lemonade and a bag of chips.  That’s how things were then.  Invercargill was not a hotbed of wine bars, gastro pubs and craft beer.  Nor was the rest of the country.  But, times have changed.  Even in Invie.  Private businesses have had to adapt or die.  I catch up with my friends at the bar down the road, or at home.  Organisations like this: well, write a grant application, and keep the beer flowing. 

But this is by no means an exception: rather it’s very common.  I looked at a Bowls club the other day: same scenario.  In fact just this week Burnside Bowls Club won Club of the Year in the Nexia NZ Canterbury Sports Awards.  Last year they made a total revenue of $155k from the bar, at a gross profit of $75k.  This compares to a subscription and tournament income of $58k.  What are they?  A bar or a sports club?

I could suggest that this is a great example of how demand for funds has grown to meet supply, and how its symptomatic of the grant making ecosystem. I could also look at these accounts through a social enterprise lens and say they were doing a great job at diversifying income by generating money from trading.  And that would be fine were it not for the large grant component which these guys are both eligible for and receive which seem to support the costs of their venues, and yet a privately owned bar across the street would be unable to access. 

And on a different matter: DIA has just done a report on Gaming Trusts.  You can check it out here.  Interesting stuff, a good start. 

Would love to talk with you if you think this is vaguely interesting..