In 2018, the Todd Foundation stopped having contestable funding rounds.
We made a bold shift to fund pro actively, meaning staff now spend their time seeking things to fund that connect to achieving our strategy. This has meant larger grants to fewer groups and prioritisation of high-trust, longer-term relationships when it comes to how we fund.
But this shift didn’t mean we stopped responding to community needs when they arose. In fact, staying connected to what’s important and changing in Aotearoa’s communities is more vital for us now than ever.
Having grant rounds open is the way most funders listen to community need – so the Todd Foundation has had to stay listening in new ways. We research and provide regular landscape updates to Trustees, we go to more community-led events, we have deeper relationships with our funding peers and the communities we serve, we have relevant media alerts set up, and we survey and convene those we fund.
We usually spotlight our largest grants, change funding partners, and capability funding decisions in our stories, so this year, we thought we’d take a moment to spotlight some of our smaller, more responsive funding decisions.
2024 was a big year for change and unrest in Aotearoa. So what did we fund in response to Aotearoa’s shifting landscape?
Social cohesion, or community connectedness and collective well-being is an area of increasing interest and relevance for Aotearoa. In 2024, we did some exploratory funding in this space. We contributed funding to the Social Cohesion in New Zealand 2024 Report and to a collective pool of funding for social cohesion work held by the Gift Trust.
In July 2024, the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry reported to the Governor-General, presented to Parliament, and made its final report available to the public. Five years of investigations and 3000 survivor accounts contributed to this report, and a crown apology was delivered in November 2024. We wanted to respond in a small way, and found an organisation led by survivors for survivors with ongoing wānanga plans to contribute funding to; as well as providing a small co-funding contribution to TE4CL, an initiative led by state care leavers which aims to support more care experienced rangatahi into tertiary education.
The Understanding Police Delivery Independent Panel completed their research into how policing is delivered and collaborative philanthropic funding ensured the findings were published and disseminated.
July 2024 saw the launch of the new standalone Social Investment Agency, with a social investment fund promised to follow in 2025. We funded a collaborative community-led project, spearheaded by Powerdigm to build the community sector’s capability to better tell their stories of social impact to get ahead of this government funding adaptation.
Finally, as funding for the community sector continues to fall, we opened an ‘email us’ professional development fund for our partners so that continual learning didn’t get cut as budgets continue to tighten.
The Todd Foundation team always listens and notices what is happening in Aotearoa’s shifting landscape. While responsive funding is not our main strategic focus, and this is only a small part of what we do, we’re still proud to be a funder who listens and responds to the changing needs of Aotearoa’s communities.
