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Our big bold disruptive future in a post COVID funding world does not seem to have happened, and we are going back to BAU. The Government’s fairy dust to Sport seems to have displaced any tension for change, and there seems no engagement or discussion on the whole ecosystem by any party (save TOP). So back to my knitting.
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Trust publishes their grants fairly promptly after the decisions are made. I have written about them previously. Below is a chart showing grants by month for the last 3 or so years. Now, they are a fairly small player (which makes analysis simple) giving out $2.8m last year, but I am a fan as they seem broad church in their approach to grants.
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Trust publishes their grants fairly promptly after the decisions are made. I have written about them previously. Below is a chart showing grants by month for the last 3 or so years. Now, they are a fairly small player (which makes analysis simple) giving out $2.8m last year, but I am a fan as they seem broad church in their approach to grants.
As someone who occasionally looks for grants I am pleasantly surprised by this. Obviously there were no distributions when our nation was in lock down in April and May so that will reduce the total given by around 16%. And in June, when we opened up again, they have only dropped 25% off the average for the previous 3 years, 30% compared to last year. My previous work suggested that we would see a 40% reduction… so my guestimate turned out OK. It will be interesting to monitor this moving forward to see if gaming habits have structurally changed.
I have started capturing declines in my database, and noticed an interesting new tag for CERT. Bug 4/2, which runs the Imagination Station, has been turned down by CERT in the last financial year, with a comment “Inconsistent with CCC Gaming Policy”. We can see in the Annual Report that “CERT accepts Christchurch City Council’s sinking lid policy. To be consistent with Council’s approach, CERT does not favour grant applications that involve Council”. They also turned down Canterbury Literacy Association, Christchurch Symphony Trust and Vikings Swim Club for the same reason. Tough luck for those organisations, and an interesting quandary for organisations who are CCC supported should this get picked up by other funders.
CERT have also started capturing and reporting the NZBN. This is a Government issued number to organisations to help these businesses manage their relationships with Government It also happens to be a handy unique identifier just in case any entity did want to construct a database with many of the third sector organisations, so nice to see disclosure here.
No real change where their money goes: below is a graph showing the quantums by sector. Sport is getting just over half of the money, but there are some decent dollops going to other sectors. Education too is often sport related so we must be careful about interpreting this.
I have started capturing declines in my database, and noticed an interesting new tag for CERT. Bug 4/2, which runs the Imagination Station, has been turned down by CERT in the last financial year, with a comment “Inconsistent with CCC Gaming Policy”. We can see in the Annual Report that “CERT accepts Christchurch City Council’s sinking lid policy. To be consistent with Council’s approach, CERT does not favour grant applications that involve Council”. They also turned down Canterbury Literacy Association, Christchurch Symphony Trust and Vikings Swim Club for the same reason. Tough luck for those organisations, and an interesting quandary for organisations who are CCC supported should this get picked up by other funders.
CERT have also started capturing and reporting the NZBN. This is a Government issued number to organisations to help these businesses manage their relationships with Government It also happens to be a handy unique identifier just in case any entity did want to construct a database with many of the third sector organisations, so nice to see disclosure here.
No real change where their money goes: below is a graph showing the quantums by sector. Sport is getting just over half of the money, but there are some decent dollops going to other sectors. Education too is often sport related so we must be careful about interpreting this.
The average grant in 2019 was $5,519. Interestingly this has dropped from $8374 in 2014. I would suspect that this is because more organisations are applying to it. The top 10 organisations supported by CERT in 2019 are below. What I find interesting about this is that all have multiple grants. We also have some “unusual suspects” at the top of the list: although with the drama over sport funding for basketball at a national level at least this gaming trust is a big supporter!
The average grant in 2019 was $5,519. Interestingly this has dropped from $8374 in 2014. I would suspect that this is because more organisations are applying to it. The top 10 organisations supported by CERT in 2019 are below. What I find interesting about this is that all have multiple grants. We also have some “unusual suspects” at the top of the list: although with the drama over sport funding for basketball at a national level at least this gaming trust is a big supporter!
However, when we look at where the money goes by sector, old patterns are restored. In the financial year ended 31 March 2020 Rugby received 7% of the total amount given ($206,470). This was followed by cricket receiving $148k, Golf on $140k, Basketball $133k, Football $86k and Bowls $84k. What is happening here is that there are fewer organisations asking for funding in Basketball. Indeed, only two clubs receive funding from this organisation: the money mostly goes to organisers. I have a kid just started playing basketball amongst other sports: as parents we pay the cost of the competition, school provides the uniforms thanks to the good old PTA, facilities are CCC funded by ratepayers, and the coach is a wonderfully passionate teacher. Simple.
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 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/