Criteria tightened as demand exceeds grant funds

Two of the Far North's three Community Boards have tightened the criteria on which grants are made as the demand for assistance outstrips available funds.


The three boards had a total of just over $279,000 available for distribution to community groups and organisations in the current financial year. With still four months to go, requests for assistance have totalled $531,500 –close to double the funding available.


As a result two of the boards, Eastern (Bay of Islands/Whangaroa) and Northern (Te Hiku) have placed ceilings of $3000 and $2000 respectively on grants and will be giving priority to applications that support the provision of "community infrastructural facilities or services" or alternatively applications that are likely to result in "wide community benefit."


"The ceiling on individual grants will enable the assistance available to be spread over more groups or organisations. This doesn't mean we will not look at larger grants, but the applicants will need to have a pretty compelling argument to convince the board to go above the ceiling," Eastern Board chair Paul Gorringe said today.


"In tough economic times I can understood the level of demand for grant assistance, but the reality is the board is not a social funding provider. This is ratepayers' money we are spending and there is simply not enough funding available to go around.


"Organisations seeking grants need to be providing a wider level of ratepayer benefit. Projects or programmes which fall into the social funding category should more properly be funded by Crown entities," he said.


Mr Gorringe said his board was meeting with M.P. John Carter, a representative of the Ministry of Social Development and deputy Mayor and Northland District Health Board representative Sally Macauley in March to discuss ways in which communities could fund social requirements without a call on rates.


"There has to be a better and fairer way of meeting community needs," he said.


A similar approach has been taken by the Northern (Te Hiku) Community Board. However the Western (Hokianga/Kaikohe) Community Board has decided to see the current financial year out before making any changes to its funding policy.


In the eight months since the Community Funds scheme was set up, the Western board has had 38 applications seeking a total of $178,700 (available funds $69,280), the Eastern board 38 applications seeking $236,430 ($135,290) and Northern board 25 applications seeking $116,400 ($75,130).