The Win-Win Solution For Cash-Strapped Councils

Sunday, 18 May 2025, 7:34 pm
Article: RNZ

Libby Kirkby-McLeod, Reporter

One Waikato council has found a win-win solution for cash-strapped councils that still want to support community initiatives.

For the last two years Hauraki District Council has employed a community advocacy officer to help clubs and volunteers access community funding from organisations such as Grassroots, Lions Foundation, and the Lotteries Commission.

In the last few months alone, more than $400,000 worth of funding for community groups had been successfully secured this way.

Lyn Randall said when a community group first got in touch with council, she sought to get a good understanding of what they wanted to achieve.

"It's identifying their projects or their service that they want to provide and then trying to make sure that I can identify for them the opportunities that we've got in our Hauraki District. And then I just walk them through how that might look."

She would help the group get the right documentation together and prepare a funding application, while encouraging them to be persistent if at first they did not succeed.

An example was Paeroa Bowling Club. The club had worked closely with Randall and the council and recently succeeded in securing $5000 for renovations to their greens from Akarana, and $4036 from TAB for a set of bowls specifically for community use.

Kevin Lockley had been club president for eight years, and said it had to look outwards to grow.

"There's so much more expectation on councils from ratepayers now to ensure that the council, the elected bodies, are actually spending their money in the right places. So, from a club's perspective, they need to probably look more towards the community and just see the council as a conduit to helping them bring that outside money back into the club."

He thought the council employing ana dvocate had paid dividends for the community.

"Not only the application side of it, but she's also a conduit for speaking with other people and council that we may need to, she can go and talk to them and put us in touch with them, and that makes life a lot easier."

Randall saw the job as an example of the council providing good customer service to community clubs, volunteers, and groups, which were the beating heart of the district.

"It's usually that relief from them when they know that there's somebody there that they can contact for all the questions with regards to funding and they've got that support network there, that's a big thing for them."

Local Government New Zealand did not immediately know how common this type of role was in councils.

However, Hauraki mayor Toby Adams said he would recommend it to other councils.

"Having a dedicated council community officer to support local groups in securing external funding helps maximise community outcomes without relying solely on council budgets. By attracting outside investment, this role effectively reduces the demand on ratepayer funding-particularly important at a time when council resources are already under pressure."

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