OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE
The Foundation has a number of purposes but an important one – primarily because of its strategic impact, is providing support to community develop-ment-focused organisations, volunteer groups and practitioners situated principally in New Zealand with a range of needs and services that facilitate continual community development and growth in a sustainable manner, in these areas:
- Developing strong and inclusive communities;
- Supporting families, children and young people;
- Building strong and resilient whānau, hapū and iwi;
- Empowering vulnerable organisations serving disadvantaged people; and,
- Strengthening the Third Sector through initiatives and projects that sup-port a diverse set of community development-focused organisations who work with high-need, low-support populations.
DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS
Most voluntary and community development-focused organisations in New Zealand often experience hand-to-mouth existences. It is a systemic symptom which characterizes our country’s Third Sector. In many cases often than not, these well-meaning organisations run their daily operations on an ad hoc ‘empty tank’ basis. When crisis does happen, many shut down.
In terms of capacity they lack human resources, skills, systems and processes that are required to operate efficiently and sustainably. They are unable to produce meaningful outcomes for their communities – particularly those with high needs on low support, because their levels of governance training, man-agement systems, strategic planning and communications, funding and fund-raising capabilities are at best, minimal or non-existent. They have very limited access to appropriate, effective and affordable capacity-building advice, support and services.
As a foundation, we actively seek and develop partnerships. We co-promote other community-based organisations with similar aims, purposes and object-ives. We advise and help them strengthen their internal and external capacities, capabilities and expertise in developing and delivering community-related pro-jects and services.
Among other things we do, we engage with partners who generally are involved in strengthening the Third Sector particularly those with a focus on supporting families; those involved with providing community and social service across all sectoral levels and demographics; those who work with faith and regional communities; those who encourage enterprise and employment; and, those who face barriers to progress as a result of the digital divide.
OUR CURRENT FOCUS
Currently, our focus is to develop, promote and provide a range of online in-formation, communication and technology capabilities using connectivity provi-ded by the Internet and new Web-based tools and techniques designed to serve, assist and encourage other organisations, communities and their stake-holders to grow together sustainably.
Having said this and for avoidance of any doubt, however, the Foundation wishes to make it clear that it is not an ICT service provider.
OUR STRATEGIC APPROACH
The Foundation’s strategic approach towards developing communities and part-nerships stands on three pillars:
- Enhancing the capacity and effectiveness of organisations and stakeholders involved working in the field of community devel-opment and social change;
- Introducing and implementing innovative user-centric solutions that allow it and its partners in community development to func-tion optimally for today and the future; and,
- Bring those solutions downstream to benefit other community-based organisations as beneficiaries until more individuals in communities they serve become themselves end-users.
Taken together, what this actually means is that their success becomes the Foundation’s success.
| What Do We Do | Scanning The Environment | A Situation Analysis |
| What We Want To Do | The Immediate Beneficiaries | Our Commitment |
Visit Site
This is the total number of vi-sits people have made to indi-vidual published web pages on this site as of a week ago.
I actually think so too. I have been looking around the web for some time this week on ideas for better community development approaches, and its really hard to find anything that’s authorative, substantive, comprehensive or makes sense. But your Foundation’s website actually keeps catching my attention. Great stories, content, logical, straightforward and cool design! Ill be sure to give it more visits now.
It’s a beautiful idea that’s becoming a reality and I’m going to share it with everyone I know in Facebook and Twitter!
Thank you all for your comments. We’re humbled by your responses. Please feel free to share this website’s links on the Web.
For those familiar with web design and development, the Foundation has set out to achieve these objectives:
a) First, to create user-centric and user-friendly web interfaces, features and functionalities relevant to needs of site owners, which in this case, will be members of The Community Well.NZ group;
b) Second, keep in mind who the target audiences will be and allow them to engage and interact online with a group member and others. That leads to establishing networks;
c) Third, content published or contained in such sites should address a need or provide relevant information which keeps audiences interested and engaged.
d) Fourth, the power of the Web is awesome if you begin to understand how you can make it work for you and your stakeholders. It’s part of what The Community Well.NZ is about — employing 21st Century tools to address 21st Century challenges that surface at the coalface of communities so that ‘voices’ are allowed to come out into the fore. That’s how and where knowledge is acquired.
In the final analysis, it’s one of the important ways how one becomes a knowledge-based community development organisation. The gains which knowledge brings contributes to best practice in service development and delivery.
On the surface of The Community Well.NZ website it looks like what is says it is, a community group website for nonprofit and charity-based community development organisations.
But after taking a little more time to browse around the site’s various sections and pages it turns out to be far more than what it appears to be. It’s something more like a hybrid portal containing some very cleverly-insinuated social networking functionalities I haven’t seen yet on the web. It’s easy to see that each group member’s profile has unlimited potentials to extend further out and beyond to several levels of wider contact and engagement in communities. So it isn’t a portal exactly but much more than that. I don’t think this invention of sorts has a name yet.
It’s the most innovative thing I’ve seen around lately and I’m glad it’s done by us here in New Zealand.
I do a lot of HTML and CSS code work myself and I can tell you the end product that is The Community Well.NZ demo website site your Foundation has put up recently reflects some very sharp and focused minds of people in your Foundation who’ve conceptualized it.
What’s more, the whole touch and feel of it is painfully simple and very user-friendly. To achieve that ‘zen-like’ stage of design and development on the Web means you guys know exactly how all this new technology works, or better yet, how to make it work for all eventual users of your target group that are the community development-based organisations.
From the USA I salute you fellas. Keep it up!
I’ll do the same thing too! It’s wonderful what your Foundation is doing for Māori, Pacifica and other communities in New Zealand. I think it will help build a socially just and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand sooner rather than later.
If you don’t mind I’d like to share this website’s link to a number of Māori hapū, iwi, and whānau community-based organisations I know up and down the coasts of both islands of Aotearoa who need this kind of exposure. I think it’s exactly something they’d be interested in getting into.
Thank you. The Foundation has on hand a list of about 300+ Māori hapū, iwi, and whānau community-based organisations and volunteer groups situated across the whole breadth of Aotearoa New Zealand who at one time or another in the past were participants of an evaluation study undertaken by the Ministry of Social Development to determine their status in terms of capacity building.
The results of that study showed that an exceedingly large percentage rated very poorly in terms of enabling themselves to build and grow capacity. A few of the major stumbling blocks cited were lack of knowledge, expertise, funding support and very little or no access to the Internet and the Web.
Regarding your Community Well.NZ project, here’s another great example how your Foundation and its people are extending technology for nonprofits beyond the edge of the envelope. Absolutely brilliant!
If I lived in New Zealand I’d certainly beat a path to your doors to learn a few things about innovation and its practical applications. I can see a lot of wannabe designers and developers trying to copy your model but you guys continue to extend the line further and further ahead. I get a feeling you guys are going to come up again with a few more surprises soon.
I’ve just finished browsing through your TCW.NZ demo website and I can tell you it’s is verrry good! I really like it. You’ve got it all ready to switch on down into deeper levels of networking on the Web I haven’t seen before. Brilliant, just brilliant. And to think it’s just a demo site yet. Can’t wait to see the full versions of members belonging to The Community Well.NZ group once they’re all done.
Your strategic approach is compellingly sound.
It’s not often you find a charity organization that uses its head ahead of its heart. But when it comes to heart, I can see why you’re doing this stuff first. Serves as an inspiration for me. Go for it. More power to you guys!
As an academic, I’m just curious to find out more from you how and why your Foundation formulated a priority focusing on capacity building that inlcudes others in the third sector of New Zealand?
In response to your enquiry Mr. Channing, we attach a much earlier post we published in January of this year as a link below. We hope it sheds light on why the Board of Trustees of Faith in Families Foundation decided to include others belonging to the Third Sector of New Zealand in its priorities and plans.
Page Link: http://faithinfamilies.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/what-the-survey-says/
Thank you.
Editorial Staff-Faith in Families Foundation
Your survey findings are similar to what we know here too in France. Merci de le partager.
This Foundation and what it does or wants to do makes absolute sense to me.
I’m amazed that funding organisations haven’t discovered you guys yet. I’m impressed!
You guys are simply amazing. I know of a lot of charitable foundations here in New Zealand but yours has both the head and heart balance that others often lack. An excellent set of attributes!
You’ve got it right!
I must say, your foundation has one of the better, if not clearer set of strategic approaches I’ve come across in years as it relates to developing communities. Keep up the good work!