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 →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…
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 →I have never had to walk 10 kilometres then catch a train in order to work at a minimum wage job. I haven’t gone hungry so I can feed my kids like Tina, nor have I been one of a family of eight in a cold, damp, two-bedroom flat like Helen. Instead I have led…
Continue reading →I was part of a story on TV1’s Seven Sharp programme today asking “are kiwis givers?” See the clip here. Journalist Emma Keeling did a very nice job of talking about philanthropy and the Todd Foundation funded Y-men project, (which gets unemployed young men into work and training as ECE teachers in kindergartens), was inspiring. …
Continue reading →When Dave and I moved back on Aotearoa New Zealand in 1990 from the San Fransisco Bay area, one reason for returning was that we felt uncomfortable that the US was so wealthy yet had so many homeless people begging on the streets. That sort of thing didn’t happen in NZ. That was then. This…
Continue reading →Philanthropy and I have been in the media lately: First out was an article in the April 2014 North and South magazine by Joanna Wane called Does money make you mean. (I am quoted on page 45, thankfully in a positive light). This was followed last month with Karle Du Fresne’s “And the Giver is”…
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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