Multi-year funding
As Te Upoko-o-te-Ika-a-Māui, the Greater Wellington region’s community foundation, Nikau is committed to listening, leaning in and reflecting, so we are funding in the most meaningful and impactful ways.
As a funder, we acknowledge the many advantages and certainty that multi-year funding provides to organisations. We get it - it means you know that you have the funding coming in to support key projects, allow programmes to keep running, and great team members to stay on board.
However, multi-year funding is a little trickier when it comes to community foundations, like Nikau.
Here’s why:
Instead of one big pot of money, we have over 80 funds with different focuses. For example, we have The Blake Fund, which supports youth, the O’Dea Illingworth Fund, which supports climate change action and the Kāpiti Disability Support Fund, which supports (you guessed it!) organisations supporting people with disabilities.
Every year, we calculate the amount that each fund can grant through our distribution model – this is based on the balance of the fund, our investment returns etc. Because of this, it can be much harder to determine how much we have available from each fund beyond that year.
Although we acknowledge the drawbacks of not offering multi-year funding, we also see so many benefits from funding year-on-year.
Funding priority areas: as a community foundation, we want to make sure we maintain as much flexibility as possible, so we can respond to priority areas and support the people and places of our region in the most meaningful, relevant and practical ways.
Working alongside donors: at Nikau, we work alongside our donors to make sure that their generosity gives back in meaningful ways in line with their interests. From time to time, a donor will change their giving focus based on causes close to their heart, or in response to challenges we are seeing in the community. Bringing our donors closer to the challenges in the community is a great opportunity for engagement but also to prompt further giving.
High trust: With multi-year funding comes a greater focus on milestones and reporting, which would change our funding from unconditional gifts to conditional. As a high-trust funder, we want to make sure that we are allowing space for flexibility, so if plans change or you need to use the funding for another purpose, you have the freedom to do so.