Trust adopts climate focus in grants strategy
A rise in the availability of information on climate change issues and “the need to respond” have led Community Trust South to introduce a new focus for the grants it dishes out.
Chief executive Jackie Flutey said the Invercargill-based trust had consulted Southlanders and found the main thing they wanted from it was more funding for climate change and sustainability initiatives.
A desire for more funding to meet people’s basic needs came in second, she said.
Community Trust South is one of 12 such trusts around the country that provide grant funding and support to a range of community-based organisations.
Its funding area covers Southland, Queenstown, Glenorchy, Arrowtown, Tapanui and Heriot.
The consultation was held with more than 390 people including council representatives, mana whenua, people living with disabilities, rangatahi (youth) and people from the rainbow community.
After a strategic review, the trust’s new strategy came into effect this month and included a focus on sustainability and the climate.
As part of that focus, the trust would provide grants to people seeking assistance in four areas: creating awareness and responding to climate change; opportunities or access to opportunities for people in the future; protection and restoration of the environment; and enabling or developing low-cost alternative food sources with lower environmental impact.
“We expect that as we promote the new strategy, we will start to see more applications for projects and programmes in these sectors,” Flutey said.
The community’s desire for this type of funding had not come as a surprise, she said, given the increased availability of climate-related information.
More traditional areas of trust funding were various activities and initiatives in the sports, education, community, cultural development and environmental sectors.
While the trust would not be taking funds away from these areas to focus on climate change, it only had a single pool or general fund from which it provided grants and scholarships, Flutey said.
“We do have a spending policy which dictates limits around how much we can spend in terms of operations and granting over time. That’s done on a long-term basis.”