I was privileged to recently co-present a series of three workshops for funders based in the Waikato recently alongside Peter Glensor from Hui-E Community Aotearoa. At the invitation of Trust Waikato, we first explored the nature of philanthropy and the community sector, then how philanthropy can do a better job of supporting communities organisations 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 →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…
Continue reading →Community funding often isn’t as transparent as it should be; games get played and thorny issues are sometimes unacknowledged and often unaddressed. I explored some of this recently at a breakfast meeting with the Fundraising Institute in Auckland: – here is my presentation: “Beyond the game, through the thorny issues and towards thriving communities.” The…
Continue reading →Here’s another voice urging funders to reduce our compliance costs and think differently about how we measure our performance – see what Caroline Fiennes in the Stanford Social Innovation Review has to say. She asks whether “a funder is essentially spending a grant on itself”. Good question Caroline!
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