For the Greater Good – Overview of Findings from the Mapping the Social Sector Project

Mapping the Social Sector in the Western Bay of Plenty project emerged from a need expressed by the sector to better understand itself, provide data for future planning, and to demonstrate the value and contribution it makes to the region. The project gathered information about social service organisations and their services and the impact they have in the Western Bay of Plenty via desktop research (225 organisations, 742 services) and subsequent interviews (144 organisations, 530 services). The findings support what is already known about social issues impacting Western Bay of Plenty communities, with housing and accomodation, poverty and health identified as major challenges for social sector organisations and the communities they serve. The findings also highlight the sector’s resourcefulness and ability to maximise service delivery beyond what they are contractually funded to provide. The organisations identified many areas of unfunded work, including how lack of funding impacted on their capacity to collaborate with other organisations. Other findings are not so well known, particularly the number of people involved in the sector; the 123 organisations that provided staffing information employ 988 full time equivalents (FTEs) along with 4937 volunteers. Based on their number of FTEs, 88% of organisations are either small or medium-sized, with the sector dominated by five very large organisations that employed approximately half of the FTEs. Kaupapa Māori organisations (five interviewed) were staffed by Māori (58 FTEs), bar one staff member. Attracting Māori staff was a capability need identified by nearly all very large organisations, while small and medium sized organisations tended to identify marketing and communication and fundraising as their capability-building needs. Digital infrastructure as a capability need was more likely to be identified by the large organisations. Most services in the Western Bay of Plenty (355) are funded by philanthropic and community agencies, followed by central government (263 services). Although this does not capture the relative size of funding, it does demonstrate the sector’s reliance on philanthropic and central government funding, with central government being the sole funder in more than half the services it funds.We hope this report initiates discussions by the social sector, funders and other stakeholders along with the Western Bay of Plenty community as a whole. Specifically whether the sector’s configuration and funding arrangements produce the best social outcomes for our communities; this report provides a useful baseline to examine those questions. Please note the summary report has been uploaded (the full report was too large). The full report is available on SociaLink’s website www.socialink.org.nz.