Community organisations doing it tough
“There are fewer and fewer people having the capacity, or wanting to, or whatever the reason is, being able to contribute to community organisations.”
Maria Busching
Community organisations are getting hit by rising costs, an ageing population, and growing hardship in the community.
Last Monday, Kai With Love, a charity that supplies food at locations in the Nelson Tasman region, announced on social media that it doesn’t have enough funding to reopen the service this year.
The Nelson Women’s Centre is also potentially facing closure, with an $80,000 funding shortfall, and has scheduled a special general meeting on Thursday to explore options for its future.
Manager Maria Busching said the troubles that charities were facing were “not a sudden event, but a long complex issue”. Many charities had “just gotten by” before Covid, and then were faced with the pandemic and inflation.
They also faced added bureaucracy in terms of reporting standards and requirements for financial and legal reports, which required more manpower, and more staffing costs, she said.
“If you have more staff costs, the overall costs increase, and then you've got all the other overhead costs, in terms of electricity and the internet, for example. All costs have risen and it's just an ongoing thing.”
Another difficulty community organisations were facing was a shortage of manpower, as baby boomers hit retirement and the population aged, a cohort that made up a “big chunk” of volunteers.
“There are fewer and fewer people having the capacity, or wanting to, or whatever the reason is, being able to contribute to community organisations,” Busching said.
That in turn added to even more reliance on paid staff.
Nelson mayor Nick Smith said the women’s centre, like many community organizations, was feeling the squeeze of difficult financial times.
The Nelson City Council had a community investment fund, which it had been increasing in line with inflation, he said.
Last year, that had an allocation of $70,000, but had applications for $281,000, four times what the council could fund.
“There will always be a limit, and the council's pockets are not sufficiently deep that they can bail out every community organisation when it gets in difficulty,” Smith said.
Tasman mayor Tim King said if central government looked to reduce costs, and some of the funding that had traditionally or historically flowed from central government agencies to these community groups was reduced, they then looked to the council.
That put even greater pressure on the council, which was already finding it “incredibly difficult” to fund their core business.
Asked if that inevitably would lead to disappointment, King said that was fair to say, as the council had a limited ability to fund across a “massive spectrum” of community organszations and volunteer groups.
Nelson MP Rachel Boyack said having sat on the board of several community organisations in Nelson, it wasn’t unusual for them to face challenges from time to time.
Part of what organisations did need to do, she said, was work towards having a sustainable back up of reserves.
However, King said, while in an ideal world groups could put money aside for a rainy day, usually if someone provided them with funding, they expected to see it spent providing services in the community.
Boyack said the need for services was growing, and there was a large need in the community for support - whether that be help with food, income, family violence, housing, or mental health.
“It’s not new, but we are facing a particular time ... where there is constrained funding with the Government looking to make public service cuts, and people doing it really tough,” she said.
Fifeshire Foundation kaiwhakahaere executive officer Shanine Hermsen said there was an increased number of people approaching the foundation for assistance.
A changing demographic of people needed support, including two income households, she said.
Department of Internal Affairs general manager community operations Clare Toufexis said there was an average increase of 877 applicants over the last five years across all lottery funds.
“With over 115,000 community groups and organisations contesting for various funds throughout Aotearoa,” she said, “the demand for funding support has always been more significant than the amount of funding available for distribution into communities.”