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Some musings on things

Rata's latest funding

14/10/2016

2 Comments

 
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At the risk of never picking up paid work again, I thought it would be quite interesting to have a wee gander to see how Rata’s funding decisions have changed over the time.  Last year Rata announced the new funding framework.

They have recently published their year end 31 March 2016 grants, and published their YTD grants to 31 July 2016.  Now, those eagle eyed readers will of course know that I’m developing up a mega database of grants, so I thought it might be interesting to look at some trends.

The chart below shows the Canterbury sector, and the percentage of their funding to go to each sector since 2013 (excluding earthquake funds).

What (I think) is interesting here: this year’s growth in the proportion of Youth sector grants, Health and Arts.  Now, with the latter two this could be driven by the “old” model in terms of timing of their sectors.  But the Youth in interesting: traditionally their sector closed in March, which means they pretty much got their funds from the 2015 year, and then turned around and applied again.  Something Sport, with their old February timeframe, didn’t quite think to do.

So, using the magic of Pivot Tables, let’s have another look.  In blue are the numbers of applications approved.  And in pink are the average grants given (in thousands) above.

 So what this is showing: fewer organisations are getting funded.  Those getting money are getting larger on average amounts.   Rata looks to be funding fewer groups in all areas, except for Education and Young People.   So it should be some good news if you are getting money from Rata as you are likely to be getting more.  The list of those who are declined is not provided, so it’s uncertain as to whether this is driven by groups not applying, or groups being declined.  And its early days yet on the new funding framework, so it remains to be seen if this results in a significant change in the sorts of organisations receiving money. 

Would love to talk with you if you think this is just a little bit interesting.

2 Comments
Dave
14/10/2016 04:31:01 pm

"So what this is showing: fewer organisations are getting funded. Those getting money are getting larger on average amounts."

On its own, this could either be a good thing or a bad thing. It may be the case that there is scope for rationalising the charity sector, for instance. Or it could be a case of unearned privilege. Or it could just be interannual noise. How would you go about finding out which (or which mixture)?

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Bridget link
14/10/2016 05:01:16 pm

In the spirit of academics... I think more research is required. Yes I think its mostly a good thing, as hopefully the funding is going to better groups who actually impact their communities. Middle class capture... well that will be happening too, particularly in some sectors. More on that later. To be honest for this funder it will be difficult to see whats going on until year end. And without information on who has applied and been declined its difficult to see whether the numbers are driven by groups not applying (perhaps easier funding elsewhere), or groups being declined. In the past with the sectors, budgets have been set, and we all know how they work. But now, I don't know. But I think its important to keep on examining these entities and understanding how the ecosystem works.

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