We know community organisations go through ups and downs. So Hui E! Community Aotearoa regularly checks in to see how it’s going.
Our first sector hauora research was in 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic started. We knew non-profits were doing more with less and we wanted to get the data to show government and funders that something needed to change.
Our 2020 research, in partnership with Centre for Social Impact, Philanthropy New Zealand, and Volunteering New Zealand, gathered responses from more than 1400 community organisations and painted a clear picture. The sector was struggling, but also finding new and innovative ways to support their communities.
Our 2021 research, in partnership with Volunteering New Zealand, showed how community organisations were going nearly 18 months after the pandemic started – what had changed, was the work getting better or harder. In addition to an online survey, in 2021 we held eight focus groups to elevate the voices of our underserved community organisations.
We made the open datasets and research reports available on our website. In 2021, we went on to develop the Community Hauora dashboard to visualise our findings, deep dived into the impacts of COVID on our smallest community rōpū, and published three Pepa Mā | White Papers that identified key asks for change.
With the baseline data now in place, we are repeating the research in 2023 to:
- capture the challenges and mahi of our sector, including pain points and examples of innovation
- highlight the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and other events on our sector
- collect data which can be used to continue to advocate for systemic change.
