Monday, 3 February 2020

Rotorua Lakes Council and Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust collaborate to provide funding opportunities to local community groups

Rotorua Lakes Council and Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust announce their partnership to help provide more funding opportunities to local community groups through the Strategic Grants’ Grants Expertise Management Systems (GEMS) funding portal. The aim of the partnership is to increase the funding received by Rotorua community groups, helping support activities that make Rotorua a better place to live, work and play.

Strategic Grants aims to build the capacity of community groups seeking funding, and GEMS is an online funding portal that connects grant-seekers (e.g. community groups) with grant-makers (funders). The Trust and Council are collaborating to provide 100 community groups access to the GEMS data, free, for one year. Strategic Grants provides access to all local, regional, national and international funding opportunities, relevant to non-profit organisations and community groups.

“Council and the Trust know that for many community groups, securing funding to support their outcomes is a necessary and sometimes difficult and time-consuming activity. It’s great to be able to open up a wider range of opportunities through this collaboration,” says Rotorua Lakes Council Strategic Advisor, Leigh Richards.

The subscription to Strategic Grants’ GEMS is a year-long trial. Whether the subscription continues will be determined by the increase of funding that is secured for Rotorua across the 100 participating community groups.

Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust Grants Co-ordinator Jackie McCullough says, “The funding portal can be customised to your organisation so you only see what is relevant to your eligibility, projects and services, and our Rotorua location. It will also provide a management tool to keep all application details in one location, with reporting prompts.”

Thus far, 63 of the 100 spaces have been filled, with Council and the Trust having already approached a number of known groups in the area. Council and the Trust now invite any community groups interested in filling one of the remaining spaces to register their interest before Monday 10 February.

The main eligibility criteria for groups include:

• being non-profit

• being a legal entity (e.g. Trust, Incorporated Society)

• having annual revenue under $1.5M

• delivering projects that benefit the community and are located within the Rotorua area

• the ability to attend a training session at the end of February

• completing and submitting a 10-minute participation survey after six months and 12 months.

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