What will the Trust make grants for?

All of the Trust’s funding programmes are directed at community organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand that:    

• Have aims and activities compatible with the Trust’s purpose (“to improve the quality of life of New Zealanders who have special needs, or face disadvantage” - see here for more detail)
• Have charitable purposes (preferably with charitable status from IRD)
• Are incorporated (although groups yet to be formally established may apply under the umbrella of an incorporated organisation)
• Do not seek assistance with activities that are on the list of exclusions.

What activities will the Trust support?

The Trust makes grants towards a wide range of activities, including both core operating costs and project-related costs.  Here are some examples:

• Training of paid and unpaid staff
• Salaries, volunteer expenses, other programme delivery costs
• Administration, rent, phones, websites, publications
• Equipment, materials
• Advocacy – adding voice to the people with and for whom your organisation is working
• New and creative approaches to social problems
• improvements to the ways organisations operate, to make their services more effective and empowering; this includes strengthening governance, management and administration skills and processes
• improvements to the strength, collaboration and effectiveness of the wider community and voluntary sector
• Formative evaluation and evaluation of programmes.
  

The Trust may give priority to groups that include evidence of any of the following:

• They measure the results of their activities, learn from experience and seek to regularly improve their services
• They involve clients/members/consumers in their management and decision making structures
• They work with other groups where this is efficient, and beneficial to service users
• They seek to address the causes of social problems – creating positive social change by “healing problems rather than organising them”
• They promote human rights and social justice for disadvantaged members of the community
• There are likely to be benefits from their proposal to other groups in the community sector, for example through sharing resources or lessons learned.