I have just spent quite a bit of time looking at where money comes from in Otago, and where they spend it.  If it goes public I’ll put up a link. 

There were some really interesting things coming out of the work which I’m keen to explore in the next few weeks.  But the first big thing that struck me was how little Otago funders spend on “Youth” - or perhaps how much Canterbury funders spend on “Youth”.

So I’ve dived into this a wee bit, as have some suspicions that spend is driven by supply, rather than demand.

In 2015 Otago funders put $798k into groups I would classify as “Youth”.  In 2014 Canterbury funders put $4.4m into the same sorts of groups. 

Using the 2013 census, if we define “youth” as being between 10 and 19, the spend per person = $29 in Otago, and $75 in Canterbury.  If you argue that youth is actually 15 – 24, then the spend is $25 per head in Otago, and $70 per head in Canterbury.  So however you cut it, these numbers look a bit out of kilter. 

What I did then was to look at the purpose of the organisations getting funding, delving into the rules of the charity, the website, and sometimes the Facebook pages of the organisations.  And here’s where it gets interesting – and possibly slightly uncomfortable. 

In Canterbury, around half – that’s $2.2m – of funding from the community go to groups with a faith based background.  In Otago the figure is 30% - that’s $245k.  This can be manifested in board membership: perhaps their Board need to be active congregation members, the objects of the trust were about promoting the Christian faith, or that the Church needs to vett the board.  In at least one case there was a line in the job descriptions that paid employees needed to be active members of the congregation.  The other thing that is readily apparent when I look through the list of underlying entities is the sheer numbers of evangelical churches involved in this work, and that many of these have only been around in the past decade or so… curiously enough since the growth in funding sources.

Now, provided they make the community a better place then good luck to them all.  It would be great to see some good data on this.  But at the back of my mind is a niggle about recruitment under the guise of youth work.  In my younger days I recall a youth worker trying to recruit me: things could well have changed in thirty years!  But as a parent, I am concerned about normalisation of this work in schools.   

Non faith based providers doing similar work received $780k – that’s 17% of funding – in Canterbury.

Also of some interest is what I have called Rehabilitation: working with those people who are at risk of hard core offending.  These groups get less than 10% of funding in both Canterbury and Otago – although they do receive considerable government support. 

Of course these numbers ignore Sports clubs, who often have programmes to keep the youth off the streets, and schools and alternative education providers, who of course how a vested interest in making sure that kids stay in school, and become fabulous citizens of the world. 

We often wring our hands about Youth.  Whether these programmes help those kids teetering on the edge of making some bad choices in their lives it’s hard to say.  And I have not answered by question about if Otago is tight on Youth spending, or if Canterbury is lavish. But if anyone is interested in this part of the grant making ecosystem, please get in touch. 

My mother was a pioneer in her field.  As a female aviator she had many doors closed to her in the sixties and seventies, but ticked off a few firsts: NZ's first female chief flying instructor being one. And for the women she trained, those doors closed to her were opened for the next generation. She was 100% on her passion – which made for a dedicated career woman, but perhaps a mum who was not there as her kids grew up. 

We all make choices in our lives. As a woman in my twenties I was all about career, and wore what I did as a badge of who I was. When my first child came along, in my mid-thirties, I thought I might outsource some of the work to nannies so I could continue that career. And then a couple of things happened: a move, a restructure, and third baby on top of the two growing interesting little people.

Now that my kids are at primary school, I am really enjoying being around my kids, watching them grow, being there for funny, awkward conversations, playdates, taxiing to the things we do. And I can see those relationships developing over the next ten years. And these kids have at least 12 weeks of holidays per year, finish school mid afternoon… I have made some proactive choices to be there, and be part of my kids’ tribe, and am fortunate to have a partner who supports this choice. But in my head, I struggle with the badge – what am I?

I am painfully aware of women underrepresented in the higher echelons of business and government. I hear the discussions around paid parental leave, which seems to be seen a panacea for getting women to engage with the top jobs. But actually – that baby becomes a toddler, a school kid, a teenager, a sibling. And then (hopefully) a functioning member of society. A parenting process which takes years.

Two things: some of the most talented people I know are at the school gate. They have had amazing careers, and are now the sports coaches, the parent help, the PTA. They are part of the tribe who are bringing up my kids – yet their skills, experience and insights are largely unrecognised by the traditional workforce.

Secondly, women’s own attitudes towards each other can hinder females in the workplace. Earlier in my career I confess to being rather passive / aggressive about working mothers, thinking that they clearly were not fully driven. With the benefit of hindsight I can see this was rather ridiculous, and these women brought a lot more insight into the office than I did for the life stage I was at. Indeed, in the last couple of years I have developed up proposals with another mum while our kids had swimming lessons, validated budgets through connections at school, and developed strategy for an organisation or two at the school crossing.  This isn't to say anyone's choices are better than others: just different.   Diverse, if you will. 

Mothers – as let's face it – it's mostly women - who want to work but on their own terms are possibly the largest underutilised resource in New Zealand. My tribe – the only workforce who relish a zero hours contract. Wouldn’t it be great if organisations could not be so obsessed about FTEs, but rather getting stuff done with great people. And there are some organisations doing it out there, enabling their staff to live full lives – awesome work. But there’s not enough. And quite frankly it's hard to see much change in some of those metrics that governments like to measure until more organisations offer choices.

As my daughters get older, I commit to moving beyond the age old question of what they want to be when they grow up. If I start with a base view that they live to their potential, then that can drive conversations about ways to enable that and allow them to live to their potential, and find their own tribes.

My working life has been dominated by corporate, with over ten years at Shell New Zealand.  Shell took its approach to Health and Safety very very seriously, with some hard zero targets around harm to people. 

Putting safety at front and centre of an organisation is challenging, and requires people to make some change to both their thinking and doing.  There were several models that they used to help change behaviours.  One was Iceberg model (pictured- I found this image on Google), which suggests that for every event resulting in a loss, be it to people, an asset, or the environment, there are a huge bunch of either near misses or potential incidents which could have occurred, but did not.

To help identify potential risks which may then result in actual incidents, we were required to report at least two per quarter into our Incident Reporting system.  We had targets as a part of our performance appraisal.  As management team we looked at what had been reported and determined whether any actions or processes needed to change.  So within reporting, there was a carrot, with development of a safer workplace, and a stick, in that if we did not submit two per quarter that was reflected in our bonus.

A good friend of mine was passionate about rugby.  She spent many hours training to be a referee, and was really excited about being a part of the nation’s game.  She approached her first game with huge excitement.  However, within a month she had quit, after abuse from both players and spectators made her come to the conclusion that, as much as she wanted to participate, she deserved to feel good about what she did, especially as a volunteer in low grade games.

Bullying in sport hits the headlines every year, and people huff and puff about racist spectators, pushy parents, and what we are teaching our children.  But I’m also wondering how we define bullying.  I read something the other day about pushy parents yelling at the children during running races.  Now, I do this, and during their netball and footie games too.  I want my kid to clock the fact that I am there and present: for children, parental attention can be like crack.  I see grins and then an extra bit of speed.  But do some parents consider this bullying the opposition? 

Well, perhaps we should do something about bullying.  We all sign up to behaviour guidelines when we sign our kids up for the sport, but they are rarely enforced. Indeed, sometimes it’s hard to have that conversation with the over-enthusiastic coach or parent about aspects of their behaviour which are challenging to others.  Can we use a tool such as incident reporting back to the club, to help change both player and spectator behaviour?  Could codes encourage clubs to have a reporting system?  Could funders only fund clubs who look to manage behaviour?  Will it make sport more appealing to those of us with more enthusiasm than talent?  By thinking about and modelling behaviours around graciously winning and losing, will that create better experiences for our kids, keeping them active even if they only make the C squad.

Behavioural change takes time, focus and resource.  But if these things are important, then perhaps its worth an effort.

Its been an interesting old week.  I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at Christchurch’s local TedX ChCh on Saturday 3 October.  I have uploaded the presentation to my website (with notes).  A truly terrifying experience but amazing.  And if you read the notes you can see how I actually intended to finish the presentation – a wee panic at the end sadly.  The actual presentation itself will be uploaded in three weeks or so for ever onto YouTube. 

This then resulted in a piece in The Press on Monday, http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/72681419/social-services-not-sexy-enough-for-grant-money which again generated some interest, and some negative stuff.  Someone has accused me of not doing the research, and that it takes $25k to generate a $10k grant.  I do think he is talking at cross purposes: in the speech my comment was it takes at least $200k going into the machine to generate a $10,000 grant. 

I triple checked my numbers, and also found an interesting picture on page 6 of the 2014 NZCT Annual Report: 90.5 cents in the dollar goes back to the punter, 3.8 cents to grants, 1.5 cents to operating costs, 1.6 cents to the venue, and 2.6 cents to the Government.  And, as I said, most the money goes back to the punter.  His comment is about the gross profit after gaming proceeds.  This is equally valid, but a different measure. The headline of course was designed for clicks, and was never something I said. 

And I wish I was “obscenely paid”.  This is some weird hobby I am developing, and yes I am trying to develop a bit of a profile in this space, but only because it seems no one else seems to be looking at it, and I think we should! 

I am a bit sad that this is coming across as anti sport.  I received a lovely email from a woman who has had a long history in sport, who sort of confirmed what I felt.  In the eighties and even nineties, the kids in her club did things like sausage sizzles, selling fertiliser and all those community sorts of things.  It was hard work, but built communities.  And the kids came away with a sense of achievement having worked hard for things without entitlement.  And isn’t that what we criticise today’s youth about?  Her words in italics: “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.”

We have been involved with a footie club for five years, with numbers since the earthquake growing around 25% year on year.  The balance sheet is now fairly healthy, funded on subs and a generous local business who buys our shirts.  And if people can’t afford it, there are some ways around the sub.  Our kids compete aganst teams with flash stuff, like names on the back of their shirts.  I see the kids loving being on the field: they love to compete, and they also love playing with the coaches, be they their own parents or someone elses. 

If people do have some reaction to the model, then perhaps they can voice these concerns to their own clubs.  Stand up and volunteer yourselves.  Seek out clubs which don’t have different funding models.  Organise quiz nights.  Find some great skills in your own membership base.

Anyway – some fabulous people have got in touch, so I guess we shall see where this all ends up from here.  Any thoughts??

So you may remember that Canterbury received some $65m from grant making organisations last year.  The last post looked at where the money has come from, but it’s pretty interesting to look where it goes to. 

Again, anyone surprised?  I know I was!  Of course, there are plenty of other sources of money for the entities that get the funds: private, central government contracts and crowd funding.  But this is a pretty interesting view of those grants which can be applied for, and where the money goes.

Looking at this cut:

• Sport accounts for just under a third of the grants made:
• 15% of grants are going into Community and Economic Development:
• 12% of grants are going into Social Services:
• Arts takes 12% of the grants.

I have then cut the data to look at where its gone to by sector.  This breaks down the money given by funder.  I think that its pretty interesting to see who gives what to each sector – and quite interesting to see the stand out sector getting funds. 

So – how does this look?  Do you think it reflects what we, as a society, value?

A Look at Grants in Canterbury

From what I have seen, there really isn’t a holistic look at grants over New Zealand.  We can see funding of registered charities, through work the Charities office does, but there are also 25,000 incorporated societies who are able to access funding from grant making bodies.  It is quite interesting to look at this.

I have gone through a bunch of publically available pdfs and spreadsheets, categorised all the grants, and summarised them below.  I have tried to exclude any special funds made up of earthquake money, such as Rata’s Special Fund, or Canterbury Earthquake Appeal Trust’s funding.  I have restricted my review to those trusts who call for applications, again to make the job more manageable, and because I am only using publically available information.  I have also confined the analysis to Canterbury as I am familiar with Canterbury and many of the names, and the sheer volume of data with my rather manual way of analysis has made the national job slightly daunting – especially as I am still trying to find out if anyone is actually interested!



Total grant money going into the region is around $65million. 

Surprised?  The Rata Foundation (formerly The Canterbury Community Trust) makes up around 20% of total grants into the region.  Christchurch City Council puts in around 11%, Central Government through CNZ and DIA (through Lotteries) put in 13%, larger family trusts of Todd, Tindall, Ngai Tahu and Wayne Francis make up around a 4% contribution... and the balance (51%) is made up of gaming trusts. 

Of course there are plenty of other funding sources: organisations in here get money from central and local government through contracts, individuals and families, and of course business. 

This can be interesting if we consider that Canterbury has around 10% of New Zealand’s population.  Does that mean there is at least $650 million going to Not For Profits from grant making organisations nationally?  

From what I have seen, other grant makers contributions are fairly immaterial: but if I am missing someone please let me know!