Blog

Social Investment and Communities Webinar

The level of interest in this webinar held on 26 November 2024, with almost a thousand registrations, demonstrated interest in engaging with the Government on the issue of social impact. The level of interest also comes from a place of concern. 

Hui E! coordinate a new group of over 20 community peak body and infrastructure organisations, called the Community Constellation, working to collaborate across communities to be more impactful, together. Collectively, the Community Constellation has thousands of member organisations, from the largest providers to the very smallest of community groups.  

This webinar was hosted by the Community Constellation as an opportunity for the community sector to hear from, and engage with, the Minister for Social Investment, and for the Minister to hear about the opportunities, and the challenges, for communities. It was facilitated by Katie Bruce from Hui E! and Zoe Witika-Hawke, Kaiwhakahaere Matua | Chief Executive of E Tipu e Rea Whānau Services and co-chair of Te Pai Oranga Aotearoa SSPA.

The webinar was recorded and can be watched here

This is the start of a conversation that we hope will continue, grounded in the experiences, expertise and impacts within hapū and communities. Below is a summary of some of the realities, concerns and ideas shared, along with follow-up questions for the Minister and the Social Investment Agency that we have passed to them and will be sharing the answers we receive.

Some current realities shared by webinar participants at registration (quotes): 

    • I am seeing and hearing more vulnerability, more isolation, less support and less ability to find support or even information

    • It is difficult to jump through the hoops to access government funding when you are a small organisation

    • Demand for our services is rising while we’re simultaneously losing contracts and resources, and our internal stress levels are soaring with that

    • Grave concerns regarding the wholesale cutbacks to front line contracts and the damaging effects on vulnerable clients and communities, if social services are no longer picking up the pieces who will?

    • Many of the changes to disability funding in the last year have been the opposite of social investment

    • The direction isn’t too clear for many in the sector, some clarity would be useful for future planning.

Concerns shared about social investment at registration: 

  1. Impact on grassroots 
    1. Concern about smaller hapū and community organisations lacking resources to navigate social investment, when they are the ones with the relationships with marginalised whānau and communities
  2. Giving effect to Te Tiriti 
    1. Indigenous models of wellbeing with evidence base may not be considered and therefore these approaches under-valued and under-resourced 
    2. Ensuring cultural integrity in research and evaluation 
  3. Government responsibility 
    1. Concerns about government reducing funding for social services, including prevention supports 
    2. Increased burden on local hapū, communities and volunteer-led organisations 
  4. Measurement and evaluation
    1. Challenges in measuring intangible outcomes (eg. changes in mauri) 
    2. Risk of non-clinically trained policy writers designing clinical measures 
    3. Balancing data-driven approaches with lived experiences of communities 
    4. Difficulty in quantifying quality of life and wellbeing impacts, particularly when whānau are involved in a number of services 
    5. Concerns about cherry-picking evidence to suit predetermined government decisions 
  5. Equity and access
    1. Risk of further marginalising whānau and groups where supports are more costly but transformational 
    2. Concern about equitable access to social return on investment models and tools 
  6. Implementation challenges 
    1. Support for NGOs to demonstrate impact, including Social Return on Investment (SROI) without high costs 
    2. Concerns about increased bureaucracy and justifications required for funding 
  7. Long-term vs. short-term approaches 
    1. Risk of proposing simplistic short-term solutions for systemic inequities 
    2. Value needs to be placed on early intervention and prevention services 
  8. Capacity building 
    1. Ensuring investment in upskilling hapū and communities in social investment 
  9. Specific challenges 
    1. Tight timelines for providing independent SROI in funding applications 
    2. Difficulty in securing government buy-in for successful local initiatives (e.g. truancy prevention programmes). 

Ideas shared by participants at registration: 

  1. Long-term, bipartisan solutions 
    1. Desire for non-partisan approaches to social problems requiring long-term solutions 
    2. Call for continuity of social investment initiatives across election cycles 
  2. Sharing success stories
    1. Need for mechanisms to share on-the-ground success stories with policymakers 
    2. Examples shared: North Auckland Place Based Initiative’s Collective Impact Evaluation Framework and Data Project, Waikato Regional Council Biodiversity Partnerships https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-wEMb-3JCk and the Hauraki Opportunity https://www.waikatowellbeingproject.co.nz/hauraki-opportunity_/  
  3. Place-based solutions 
    1. Recognise that social needs are place-based rather than centrally solved 
    2. Emphasis on enabling organisations already serving their communities 
    3. Example: Ngāti Maniapoto Marae PACT Trust’s model https://maniapoto.org.nz/  
  4. Community sector recognition
    1. Importance of valuing and prioritising iwi, hapū and community work 
    2. Inclusive design process: 
    3. Ensure iwi, hapū and communities at the centre of designing social investment changes 
    4. Provide sufficient technology support for effective change implementation 
  5. Measurement and data
    1. Prioritise kaupapa Māori measurement frameworks and indicators 
    2. Balance quantitative and qualitative methodologies and “measure what you treasure, not just treasure what we measure”  
    3. Call for a comprehensive, transparent, freely accessible “bank” of social impact indicators 
    4. Desire for regular data streams and feedback loops to inform decisions and support learning cultures 
    5. Ensure social investment will broaden and strengthen the evidence base collectively 
  6. Resource allocation 
    1. Invest in grassroots hapū and community-led development and initiatives 
    2. Need to include data capture costs in iwi, hapū, community project budgets. 

Questions for Minister of Social Investment Nicola Willis and the Social Investment Agency (collated and themed from the webinar): 

Community engagement 

  1. How will the Social Investment Advisory Board engage with iwi, hapū and communities? 
  2. What is the channel to engage with, and provide feedback to, the Social Investment Agency (SIA)? 

Enabling the grassroots 

  1. How will the government support small hapū, community and voluntary groups in building their capability to measure and report on their impact in ways that make sense to whānau?
  2. How will funding criteria adequately assess relationships as well as resources and size of an organisation to ensure the right group is resourced to deliver for whānau? 
  3. How will the government balance expectations with the resource constraints of hapū, community and voluntary organisations and groups that have already experienced funding cuts?
  4. How will the mandatory criteria for independent SROI reports be adjusted to make them feasible for smaller organisations and groups in future funding rounds, including timeframes? 
  5. How can we ensure that more investment reaches essential grassroots organisations and groups that often struggle to secure funding, and that these essential community supports are not lost? 

Giving effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi 

  1. How will Te Tiriti o Waitangi be given effect to in the social investment approach? 
  2. Where can people find information about the Iwi Chairs Social Investment roadmap? 
  3. How will SIA ensure they uphold (and not undermine) the Iwi Chairs Social Investment Roadmap, and learn from the vision and approach of iwi? 
  4. What resource will be dedicated to by-Māori-for-Māori approaches and initiatives? 

Equity and inclusivity 

  1. How will social investment address structural inequities? 
  2. What proportion of social investment will target specific groups that are currently under-served, including tangata whenua, Pasifika, disabled people, migrant youth etc? 
  3. How does social investment address systemic and societal factors, such as education systems not designed for neurodivergence? 
  4. How will a social investment approach ensure that whānau have their basic food, housing and health needs met? 
  5. How does the social investment approach align with the UNCRPD (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), the Children’s Convention and the UNDRIP (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)? 

Measuring impact 

  1. How will the Minister and the SIA work with iwi, hapū and communities to determine what will be measured and how? 
  2. Where can we find information about the developing standards and frameworks that SIA is developing for social investment? 
  3. How will Māori data sovereignty principles be upheld in this process? 
  4. How will data privacy issues be addressed in the social investment approach? 
  5. How will SIA ensure kaupapa Māori and Pasifika indicators are valued? 
  6. How will SIA support positive indicators of change rather than focusing on mitigating negative indicators? 
  7. How will the impacts of funding cuts to evidence-based approaches and initiatives be measured, such as cultural identity and belonging in schools, disability supports and prevention services? 
  8. How will SIA ensure the accuracy of any administrative data being used to make decisions, especially where demographic data is missing from the IDI? 
  9. Will other forms of evaluation and impact measurement be recognised by SIA and other government agencies besides one-off expensive SROI reports? 
  10. How will SIA ensure holistic supports and multiple initiatives that work collectively for whānau are valued and measured? 
  11. How will SIA ensure a right-sized approach to measurement to suit the scale of the initiative or organisation? 
  12. How will systemic and societal factors be measured through social investment? 

Role and priorities of government 

  1. What is the role of local government in social investment, especially in regions and small towns? 
  2. How does the removal of the four ‘wellbeing objectives’ from local government align with the Government’s focus on social investment? 
  3. What level of resource will the Government commit to social investment over this term and future terms?  
  4. What are the Minister’s priority focus areas for social investment? 
  5. What kinds of initiatives will be funded through the Social Investment Fund? Approximately how many each year? 
  6. How will you ensure transparency of the metrics and methodology behind frameworks developed by SIA, and impact reports commissioned or accepted as evidence to support funding being approved, in the social investment approach? 
  7. How does a “Social Investment” approach align with the funding cuts to service providers, particularly in prevention services and supports? 

Implementation 

  1. How will SIA ensure transparency of the approach being implemented across agencies?  
  2. What strategies are in place to support the culture change required in government agencies to enable better collaboration and procurement processes? 
  3. How will social investment align with existing Government strategies and action plans? 
  4. How will the Government initiatives (such as bootcamps) also prove their evidence-base and impact? 
  5. What assurance can you provide that hapū, community and voluntary organisations and groups can have confidence in partnering with the government, given recent issues with Oranga Tamariki contracting? 
  6. Where Social Investment Fund initiatives are successful, will there be a pipeline to (i) continue funding through mainstream agencies, and (ii) reduce funding of current BAU activities within these agencies? 
  7. What do you see as the role for social enterprises in social investment? 
  8. What policy supports exist for Responsible Investment pathways, such as ESG (environmental, social and governance), into place-based projects? 

Long-term vision and sustainability 

  1. How will social investment balance early intervention initiatives with support for older people and individuals and whānau with complex disabilities? 
  2. How will you balance investment in ‘bottom of cliff’ interventions with investment into communities to keep people away from the cliff? 
  3. What is the approach to social investment where the “cost-benefit” assessment of social benefits is not equivalent between different populations, such as for older people and those with complex disabilities, where all people can be supported in ways that meet their needs and aspirations? 
  4. How will you ensure the long-term sustainability of services, such as home and community care, through a social investment approach? 

Members of the Community Constellation

The Community Constellation has developed recommendations for the Social Investment Agency (SIA), which you can view a summary of here (p28-9). 

Community Constellation members include:

Ara Taiohi

Community Housing Aotearoa

Community Networks Aotearoa

Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa

Environment Hubs Aotearoa

Hui E! Community Aotearoa

Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono

Inspiring Communities

LEAD Centre for Not for Profit Governance and Leadership

New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services

NZ Navigator Trust

Philanthropy New Zealand

Platform Trust

REAP Aotearoa

SociaLink

Tangata Whenua Community and Voluntary Sector Research Centre

Te Pai Ora Aotearoa SSPA

Volunteering New Zealand

Wesley Community Action