Charities tread a fine line when trying to secure funds

Chester Borrows PHOTO/FILE

Last week, I spent a couple of hours volunteering at the Wanganui East Hospice site.

It doesn't make me an expert in these matters but it brought a number of issues back to the surface about funding charities and non-government organisations that we all want to remain in place. They are mostly expected to run on the smell of an oily rag.

The hospice shops are a great example of making a lot from little; turning the things people have decided they no longer need into thousands of dollars a year by on-selling for a few cents or a couple of dollars to a customer who has a need.

The "op-shop" business is booming with other charitable organisations opening stores doing exactly the same thing. But it seems a dubious practice, opening more and more outlets marketing a shrinking pool of second-hand goods.

But my bigger concern lies with the lack of co-ordination around formal funding which comes from state and community. I have spent a number of hours visiting charities that contract to government and also those that rely on community funding to learn that the rules have changed with no explanation and now their budgets won't balance.

One group supporting the disabled had 100 per cent of their funding from one trust declined with no explanation and now wonders if the doors can remain open. Another group has lost tens of thousands of dollars in just three years with no comebacks.

Their underlying concern is that if they get stroppy and argue with their funders, they might fall from grace completely and receive zero funding as a form of punishment.

The drop in funding does not reflect a lesser workload or expectation that they will survive and continue to provide social outcomes despite the lack of money.

Government agencies contract with non-government organisations for the delivery of the government's aspirations for the community, particularly in welfare. They fund the organisations in a parsimonious manner believing that not-for-profits have no right to complain regardless of how difficult the job is of making ends meet.

Funding from these agencies never seems to be generous or even realistic in terms of paying for the service that is being contracted. The mantra has been that community organisations are for community benefits and so communities should help pay.

Organisations do this through making applications for lotteries grants, to pokies machine trusts, community trusts - like the Whanganui Community Foundation and Powerco Trust - and to private philanthropic trusts, as well as running street appeals, sales tables and barbecue stalls.

That is all well and good, but there is no collaboration between funders and no regard for each other's priorities, limitations or rules.

It raises questions about why one trust will fund wages but another won't? Why will some trusts only supply gear they can put their name on, when the real need for the provider is to pay the power bill, the rent, or train its volunteers?

Why will one trust take an interest in sports but not welfare, others the arts but not sports? Who decides where these priorities lie and who is prepared to justify them to the community they proclaim they serve?

A broader question might be why government funding agencies don't explain themselves.

Wouldn't it be great if the ministries of education, health, social development, youth development, tertiary education, Te Puni Kokiri and justice came to town to explain their reasoning for a change in funding policy or to collaborate?

They could sit down with the Whanganui Community Foundation and Powerco Trust and sort out who will pay for what and to what level.

I wonder how many organisations are stretched for the cash that these decision-makers sit on? How many applications for grants they have completed with little hope of success and in what way they actually give freely of their own time for a charitable purpose?

I wonder if they haven't showed because they haven't been asked. Well, we can soon sort that out.