The Star: April 01, 2021

The Star Thursday April 1 2021
18
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Rata Foundation grants
crucial for community groups
The Rata Foundation
provides millions
of dollars a year to
Canterbury groups
and organisations.
Matt Slaughter spoke
to some of the those
who benefit from its
funding
REBECCA ROPER-GEE has
met with people at Shirley
Community Trust’s community
cafe most Fridays for the last two
years.
She lives and runs a business
in Shirley and goes to the cafe to
connect with people.
Said Roper-Gee: “I’ve definitely
made loads of connections.”
She said if the community
cafe did not exist, “I think that
networking opportunity would
be a huge loss.”
The cafe may
not be possible
if it was not for
the support of
fundraising
superpower,
the Rata
Foundation. It
provides $20
million a year
to groups and
organisations,
including $16
Leighton
Evans
NETWORKING: Rebecca Roper-Gee values the connections
she has made at Shirley Community Trust’s community
cafe. ​
million to those in Canterbury.
The trust has received $40,000
each year for the last three
years from the foundation to
help it run its services like the
community cafe for those who
want company and support, a
clinic offering foot treatment
from a nurse, and school holiday
programmes for children
from challenging financial
backgrounds.
Without these grants, the trust
would not have been able to pay
the wages of its seven part-time
staff.
If it were not for the foundation,
trust finance manager Ann
Powley said it would have: “Less
hours and less staff capacity
to support such programmes,
which means you have to start
looking at which programmes
to continue with and which programmes
you need to not run,
or cut down on, or not develop
further.
“Their support has been constant
over the last few years and
to have a grant that is constant
gives you confidence to plan into
the future, rather than facing
uncertainty of how much you’ll
be able to do or not do.”
Powley said without the trust:
“I think there would be less
connection and I think mental
health as a whole would deteriorate.”
Trust staff member Jane
Mitchell, who helps run the
community cafe every Friday,
said: “It [foundation grants] pays
for staff and you need staff for
everything you do. We wouldn’t
be able to do what we do [without
them].”
SUPPORT: Shirley
Community Trust volunteers
Colin Renouf, Jane Mitchell
and Sharyn Burnett.
The grants which helped the
trust are just some of the between
700 and 1000 the foundation
provides each year.
Since forming as The
Canterbury Community Trust
in 1988, changing its name to
the Rata Foundation in 2015, it
has granted more than $380m
in Canterbury. More than half a
billion dollars has gone to its four
funding regions, Canterbury,
Rata Foundation facts
• It provides between
700 and 1000 grants a
year to a range of groups
and organisations.
• These grants add
up to a total of about
$20 million a year, for
groups across Canterbury,
Marlborough, Nelson, and
the Chatham Islands.
• About $16 million
a year is granted to
Marlborough, Nelson, and the
Chatham Islands.
Foundation chief executive
Leighton Evans said other
groups and projects it has supported
include Māori health
and social services provider He
Waka Tapu and Christchurch
Aunties, a network of more than
4200 people helping women and
children.
The foundation played a
pivotal role in the Halswell
Hornets rugby league club being
able to start building their new
clubrooms, a replacement for the
earthquake-damaged original at
Halswell Domain.
“If it hadn’t been for Rata
Foundation (plus the Lottery
Grants Board and Canterbury
West Coast Air Rescue Trust)
supporting us in the last two
or three months we basically
wouldn’t have been able to do
it (the $2 million project),” said
Halswell Hornets vice-president
Jeff Whittaker.
The foundation contributed
about $100,000 to help the club
deal with a $400,000 shortfall.
Construction began on March
17.
Evans said it has also
given grants to the New Migrant
Quilting Group, which teaches
quilting skills and addresses
loneliness and social isolation
within Christchurch’s female
refugee and migrant community.
Canterbury groups.
• The foundation has
granted more than
$380m in Canterbury
since forming in 1988 and
more than half a billion
dollars to groups
in all of the regions it
funds.
• Its funds are made
through investing and it
invests these funds back
into the communities it
supports.
Evans said some of the
foundation’s most noteworthy
grants have been $5 million
for The Court Theatre to help
open its new premises after the
February 22, 2011 earthquake,
$500,000 towards the new
helicopter pad at Christchurch
Hospital and the ongoing grants
it provides to the Christchurch
Symphony Orchestra for
programmes supporting groups
including Maori and women in
prison.
“What we find is that behind
every organisation is an amazing
story, and that’s not only stories
about the communities they
serve, but also, I suppose, the
people that actually directly
benefit from that.
“Our tagline is to invest in
communities, so we love that
face to face engagement and that
real human connection, and
that’s what separates us, I think,
from a lot of the other funders,”
said Evans.
Any incorporated, not-forprofit
society, association or
organisation can apply for grants
from the foundation.
Evans said the foundation is
funded through a portfolio of
investments it has made since
forming.
Its funds originated from the
proceeds of the sale of Trust
Bank, which it distributed to notfor-profit
organisations.
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