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November 2009
The Community Trust of Southland is pioneering a community-led development approach to funding.
John Prendergast is Chief Executive of the Community Trust of Southland. In 2007 he was sent by the Trustees on an exploratory excursion to Canada, led by Mary-Jane Rivers of what is now Inspiring Communities (then an idea and a broad network of parties interested in or simply curious about the concept of community-led development). John admits he boarded the plane with some scepticism, unsure how community-led development was relevant from a funder's perspective.
"Before Canada I really didn't understand what community-led development meant in practice. Afterwards, as I thought about the people we'd met and what we'd seen, I realised a funder can have a pivotal role to champion the idea."
The Community Trust of Southland lost no time finding a way to apply the new way of thinking, adopting a proactive approach. The same year, community leaders of the Southland town of Mataura had received some concerning research about the health of the community, and rallied the locals to come together to do something about it. The Mataura Taskforce was born. John met with them and expressed that the Community Trust of Southland (CTOS) was keen to help and support - asserting that the ownership would always remain with Mataura and the Trust was not offering an open cheque book.
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The Mataura Taskforce
While the planned revitalisation of Mataura's main street may become the most visible improvement to visitors to the town, locals would no doubt argue that the most powerful successes of the Mataura Taskforce have not been of bricks and mortar.
The town's positive achievements to date have included forming productive partnerships with Council, government agencies, local health and social service providers and funders; Increased participation from the many sectors of the community (with children, Maori, Pacific Island and elderly people involved in a Planning Day); Community initiatives including community gardens, a Mataura gala and community market, arts development and a revitalisation of kapa haka; involving school children in environmental restoration work on the riverbank, new early childhood education options... and behind it all: a focus on creating visions rather than fixing problems.
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Indeed in the 18 months or so since that first meeting, there has been no big building project, no ribbon cutting or grand opening. What the Trust has provided is possibly more powerful in terms of supporting long term community resilience - namely, access to information and inspiration: CTOS has supported Mataura Taskforce members to attend networking conferences and Inspiring Communities Core Learning Cluster forums, and enabled facilitators to visit Mataura to impart ideas and experience. A CTOS employee is also on the Mataura Taskforce. All this has provided the taskforce with sources of expertise, encouragement, and importantly, a network of other communities walking similar journeys.
This approach is quite different to the business-as-usual grant making activity of CTOS, and the markers for success are almost unrecognisable. This requires a lot of trust and buy-in from the Trustees - which has been readily forthcoming. That said, the actual funds invested in Mataura to date would be far less than some large projects CTOS has funded, which, while meeting a need, may have had less impact for the community as a whole.
"It's a totally different approach - instead of funding a project we are funding the process";
"The success to date in my mind has been very good - in that the Mataura Taskforce is still totally owning and driving the work, and they have sustained enthusiasm. There may not ever be a ‘report' on the ‘results', since they are not tangible, but I expect our involvement will continue for probably 10 - 15 years".
CTOS has recently provided funding for a facilitator to work with the Mataura Taskforce on revitalising the town's main street (perhaps a ribbon cutting is in the future - for a whole street).
CTOS is in the early stages of supporting an initiative on Rakiura/Stewart Island, and they expect to end up working ‘alongside' many other communities in the same way as Mataura - while not departing from traditional grant making.
John also presents on his experience and findings from the Canada trip regularly "to anyone who will listen", including government departments, conferences, and recently Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, along with Mary-Jane Rivers and David Hanna of Inspiring Communities. He is finding, along with healthy doses of the same scepticism he had at first, that the concept of community-led development and how funders can support it, is gaining traction. It may even be helped by the recession, which he says is forcing many to question the traditional ways of doing things.
John is optimistic about the uptake of the message and says "the time is right for this approach."
Leigh Strange |
