Everything from the workshops, minus the workshop.

A grant isn't a donation, and it definitely isn't a loan. Unlike a donation, it's conditional — the funder can ask for the money back if you haven't spent it as agreed. Unlike a loan, you don't pay it back if you have.

Every grant sits inside three layers:

• Funding frameworks — the structure funders use to score applications fairly. These rarely change.
• Priorities — what a funder currently cares about. These shift as boards and elected members change, so success one year doesn't guarantee success the next.
• Eligibility criteria — fixed rules about who and what can be funded. Common exclusions: individuals, and political or religious activities.

Don't try to squeeze your project into criteria it doesn't fit — it's a waste of everyone's time. Read the criteria fully before you start writing.

Funding for a community organisation is a puzzle you assemble from several pieces, not a single tap you turn on. Build an income strategy that doesn't rely on grants alone.

Personal giving — historically the largest single source of community funding in Aotearoa, and unrestricted, which grants rarely are. Even small, regular gifts (a Friends scheme, a bequest in someone's will) add up.

Sponsorship — local businesses often support causes they have a personal connection to, or want the marketing value of. When you approach a company, be confident about what's in it for them.

The goal: a mix of income that gives you some unrestricted funds to work with, not just project-tied grants.

Philanthropic and public funding in Aotearoa tends to fall into six broad categories. Each behaves differently, so treat every relationship as its own thing.

Gaming trust money in particular can only be granted back into the area it was raised in — the venue that generated it matters, and which trust operates which venue can change over time.

• Sign up to the funder's online portal early — almost all funders only accept applications this way now.
• Draft your application in a separate document first, in case the online form crashes.
• Keep your "authorised purpose" a little vague, so you have room to adjust if your plans shift — "towards rent" beats "September and October rent." Spend outside the authorised purpose and you may have to repay the grant.
• Provide two competitive quotes for costs, each less than three months old.
• Check whether the funder covers salaries — some only fund existing, filled positions, and will want contracts and job descriptions.
• Get any funding resolution signed properly — some funders also want the meeting minutes.

Only spend the money once you've received it. Keep a clear paper trail — invoices, receipts, money in and out — and be ready to be audited at random. Always acknowledge the funder publicly, and submit your accountability report as soon as you've spent the funds, even ahead of the due date.

Evaluation doesn't need to be complicated. Simple, honest data goes a long way:

• The number of enquiries you receive about your service over a year
• Attendance numbers, split by age or gender where useful
• The kinds of questions people ask, or their level of engagement at events
• Feedback — a survey, sticky notes, a follow-up call

Don't promise anything in your application you can't later prove in your accountability report.

Keep a spreadsheet or CRM tracking every grant, its reporting deadlines, and when you're next eligible to reapply. Store it in the cloud, not on one person's hard drive — and note down conversations with funders so the relationship belongs to your organisation, not just to you.

Link your costs to potential funders — not the other way around — and be genuinely okay with deciding not to apply somewhere, as long as you note down why.

For budgets: don't overprice, but explain costs that look high for a good reason. Don't undersell yourself either. In-kind support counts — if a $500 venue costs you $300, the $200 difference is a legitimate budget line. The Community Matters budget template is a solid starting point.

A case for support explains, in one place, why a funder, sponsor or individual donor should back your organisation or project. It's your story, your rationale and your pitch — usually 5 to 8 pages, sometimes a short deck.

Build it once, internally, and it becomes the base for grant proposals, major donor meetings, newsletters, social media appeals and speeches — so nobody on your team starts from a blank page, and everyone tells a consistent story about your work.

Funders and donors are looking for the same three things, whether you're approaching a philanthropic trust or a local business:

Head — logic. You've correctly identified the problem, and your solution is the right one, right now.

Heart — feeling. A real story or example a person will remember, not just data.

Hands — practical. It's obvious exactly what the money will be used for, and how you'll know it worked.

Miss any one of the three, and even a well-run project can be a hard case to fund.

• What problem are you trying to solve?
• Why are you the right organisation to deliver this solution?
• Why is this important now?
• Exactly how will the money be used?
• When the problem is solved, what will be different for the people involved?
• How will you show the funder or donor their money was well spent?

Without all of these, a funder can't make an informed decision to back you — however good the underlying work is.

Taking an outcomes approach means working through five stages: the need, your intended outcomes, your activities, your indicators, and finally evaluating what happened.

Aim: Make Taranaki a great place for autistic children to grow up.

• Start with the future, not the past — paint the world you're building, not the history you're preserving.
• Make it personal, not institutional — use "you" more than "we." They're the hero, not you.
• Create urgency, not guilt — an opportunity expires; hope doesn't need to.
• Show momentum, not need — winners attract investment; losers attract pity.
• Promise transformation, not transaction — supporters are building a legacy, not buying a service.

• What changes if I say yes? What breaks if I say no?
• Why me, why now? Who else believes in this?
• What happens after I give?

If your draft can't answer these clearly, that's usually exactly what needs strengthening before it goes out.

• Head (logic): Have you clearly named the problem and shown your solution is the right one, right now?
• Heart (feeling): Is there a real story, example or image — not just data — a funder will remember?
• Hands (practical): Is it obvious what the money will be used for, and how you'll know it worked?
• Outcomes: Have you separated the need, the outcomes, the activities and the indicators?
• The ask: Is it specific — a clear amount, for a clear purpose — rather than a general appeal?
• Voice: Read it aloud. Is it active ("you change lives") rather than passive ("lives are changed")?

• Confidentiality: what's shared in your group stays in the room.
• Generosity first: assume good intent and real effort behind every draft.
• Both warm and cool feedback: what's working, and what could be stronger.
• When receiving feedback, just listen and take notes — you don't need to defend, explain, or act on every suggestion.
• Everyone presents, everyone reviews — it only works if everyone fully participates.

Warm feedback tells the presenter what's genuinely working, and why — it builds confidence in the parts worth keeping. Cool feedback offers another way of thinking about the draft, delivered with curiosity, not criticism. A good session needs both: warm feedback alone doesn't move a draft forward, and cool feedback alone is just criticism.

Use a phone timer — it keeps every person's turn fair.

Active voice puts the reader in the driving seat. Read your key sentences aloud and listen for the difference:

Telling a community's story is a privilege, and comes with a responsibility not to turn people into objects of pity — even while being honest about need.

• Lead with a vision — paint the concrete, better future before listing the barriers.
• Name the agents — say who is creating the problem and who can solve it. Avoid passive lines like "poverty has risen."
• Avoid negating or myth-busting — repeating a myth to knock it down just reinforces it.
• Sell the cake, not the ingredients — lead with the tangible change in people's lives, not the technical detail.
• Show people they're not alone — highlight who else is already acting.

The same logic applies to whole appeals: "Please consider… we would be grateful if…" reads weaker than "Imagine… join us… help us achieve."

• WHO: the people in your story — participants, whānau, your organisation, decision-makers.
• WHAT: your vision — the concrete, better future, stated before the problem.
• WHY: the shared values this serves — compassion, justice, manaakitanga, shared responsibility.
• BARRIERS: what's stopping this, with human agents named — not "poverty has risen," but who made which choices.
• HOW: your project or solution, tied to evidence of why it will work.
• ACTION: the specific ask, sized to match the problem you've described.

The full Funding 101 handout in one document — funder types, the funding puzzle, application nitty-gritty, and accountability tips.

The complete Grant Writing Lab handout — peer feedback ground rules, the case for support cue card, and the language and framing cue cards, all in one printable document.

Funder directories are always regional — this is the one I keep for Taranaki, listing local trusts, councils and energy funders with typical amounts and deadlines. If you're outside Taranaki, use it as a template for the kind of list worth building for your own region, alongside granted.govt.nz and gets.govt.nz.