DCC defines placebased grant criteria
THE type of organisation eligible for a slice of the Dunedin City Council’s $300,000 for placebased group grants has been decided.
The Dunedin City Council voted yesterday to adopt a funding criteria for its placebased group grant scheme, which is included in the 10year plan.
To qualify for the grant a group must work in a defined localised geographic area, such as a suburb, and not represent one particular group of people.
Council community development and events manager Joy Gunn said there were about 16 such groups, which ranged from small volunteeronly groups to larger formally structured groups with paid staff.
Money from the grant would be used for core operation costs, such as wages, overheads, rent and power.
In July, council staff would begin investigating longterm funding options which could include models like the Porirua community village scheme, where individual communities developed a vision for their neighbourhoods and then partnered with the Porirua City Council for funding, Mrs Gunn said.
Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust manager Scott Willis said any assistance for placebased groups was welcome, but the money needed to be allocated wisely.
Realistically, the council’s contribution would be a small proportion of what each group needed and there was a risk the small amount of funding could be spread too thinly, Mr Willis said.
‘‘If you give some groups some money to do something with no look into the future or certainty it will keep going, what you could do is give a little money to a group to do one thing but it then falls over.’’
To ensure community groups could survive, they needed to be given money not just to survive but to also grow and boost the activities they were already running, he said.
He supported the council investigating longerterm funding.