We should have been celebrating a 21st birthday this month, but it wasn’t to be. In 1994, our baby boy Robin died in utero at 20 weeks from heart failure caused by severe Noonan’s Syndrome. Some months later, my composer sister Susan Frykberg recorded my story, from which she created a six-minute long composition for…
Continue reading →The following article was originally published in Australia’s “Generosity” magazine in 2015: What if we gave a $10,000 grant but only $9,000 was received? And what if our $100,000 funding programme delivered only $45,000 of community benefit? We’d probably be outraged. Unfortunately, due to a concept I call “funding burden”, this happens frequently – and…
Continue reading →Philanthropy New Zealand’s Philanthropy Summit 2015, held 15-16 April in Auckland, challenged us with nothing less than rethinking our philanthropic paradigm and embracing other cultural approaches to giving. And, in case that seems a little too ambitious for this week’s to-do list, we were also invited to consider impact investing and to take a hard…
Continue reading →Thursday April 2 was my last day as Executive Director of Todd Foundation, and here is my farewell speech: *** It is hard to know what to say in a farewell speech. There are hundreds or thousands of people I could or should thank – but that would take a long time and be somewhat…
Continue reading →What is funding burden, you ask? It’s the term I am using for the value of the time community organisations spend applying for and reporting on grants – a value which is often wildly out of proportion to the actual money on offer. This is a concept I have been exploring, developing and blogging about…
Continue reading →Four years on from the deadly February 22 2011 earthquake in Christchurch / Ōtautahi: I remember the 181 people who died and the many, many others who were injured or lost their homes. I acknowledge that the recovery is far from over, with swathes of deserted land, unaffordable housing and increased mental health issues. I…
Continue reading →The other day I witnessed a minor shopping-mall accident where someone reversed out of a car-park without looking and drove into the back of a passing car. The reversing car was a new 4WD; the car passing by was a beaten-up old sedan. The driver of the 4WD was Pākehā (white); the couple in the…
Continue reading →If you are based in Auckland and want to help build a thoughtfully generous Aotearoa New Zealand, have a look at the job ad for a Philanthropic Advisor for Philanthropy NZ. This is a new role with lots of scope to engage deeply and grow generosity – and Philanthropy NZ is a great little organisation…
Continue reading →I will be leaving my role as Executive Director of the Todd Foundation on April 2 this year (more on this below), so if you are looking for a really great role in New Zealand philanthropy, check out the job ad, or talk to recruitment agent Annabel McCallum from Jackson Stone. Applications close on Monday…
Continue reading →Funders, both government and philanthropic, often have a strong focus on measuring the outcomes, impact and effectiveness of the initiatives they fund. Which is great – but is that focus equally directed at measuring the outcomes, impact and effectiveness of ourselves as funders? Often the answer is no – and there’s some good reasons for…
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