Issue 13 - 9 October 2007

The Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship is driving the OCVS team's approach to three key collaborative projects underway in our 2007/08 work programme.

The projects will address challenging issues highlighted again and again by the community and voluntary sector.  Each project will be led by a working group made up of community and government stakeholders who will shape the terms of reference, priorities and approach as each project progresses. 

In the OCVS, we have assigned a specific team member to each project, however we'll also be ensuring that there is cross fertilisation of ideas and learnings amongst the three working groups, and the whole OCVS team will be involved in elements of each project.

The three collaborative projects (and the assigned OCVS staff members) are:

• building better government engagement with the sector ( Diana Suggate )
• improving government funding and accountability arrangements with the sector ( Hugh Lawrence )
• developing non-tax incentives for volunteering and philanthropic giving – also known as the generosity project ( Kat Paton ).

Each project is progressing at a different speed and involving different stakeholders as appropriate to the topic.  Each will also find new ways of seeking wider input to identifying solutions and the way forward. Real progress will only be made with involvement from the sector at national and grassroots levels, local and central government officials, and where appropriate, business and academia.

We'll add information on the OCVS website in coming weeks about the working groups and how you can be involved in the projects, if you aren't already.  If you are keen to be more actively involved, please contact a member of the OCVS team.  You can read more about the generosity project in item 3 below.

The publication of the Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account was a long time coming, but well worth the wait!

The OCVS thanks all those whose efforts helped bring the publication to fruition. The Statistics NZ team worked long and hard on this, but we also acknowledge the important role the community and voluntary sector played in this long journey.

Five years ago, the Community Trusts brought Lester Salamon, the head of the Centre for Civil Society at Johns Hopkins University, to New Zealand and from there they persisted until they were successful with their goal of getting New Zealand to join the International Comparative Study of the Non-Profit Sector.  Their ability to look to the future and to appreciate the importance of collecting this information together in one place is to their credit, and epitomises one of the real strengths of the non-profit sector. This significant contribution was acknowledged by the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, when she spoke at the launch of Defining the Non-Profit Sector: New Zealand.

We again thank the community and voluntary sector for initiating this opportunity to join together with government to better understand the economic contribution of non-profit insititutions, and we look forward to ongoing collaboration and co-operation as our shared knowledge grows.

If you’d like to become involved in the initiative to take promoting generosity in New Zealand to a whole new level, the generosity project team wants to hear from you.

Philanthropy New Zealand, Volunteering New Zealand and the OCVS are inviting communities of interest to come together to talk about a sustainable, multi-sectoral approach to encourage and support giving and volunteering at both national and local levels.

An increasing body of research suggests individual and company generosity is most likely to occur when it:

• is promoted in a number of ways
• recognises the unique character of a local community and the wide diversity of potential donors and volunteers within it
• creatively uses multiple strategies to cultivate giving within diverse populations.

There is already considerable interest from the philanthropic sector, the community and voluntary sector, central and local government, the business sector, and academia in the topic of giving and volunteering. We want to build on this and encourage more New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses to think about their giving – by this we mean giving of time, of money and in-kind.

By bringing all the different sectors into the conversation, we hope to come up with some innovative, kiwi-made initiatives that will really make a difference.

If you are interested in joining the working group that will lead this initiative, or if you would like to be part of a broader community of interest, please contact Kat Paton on 04 918 9579 or e-mail kathryn.paton002@msd.govt.nz.

Recent changes to the OCVS website aim to make it easier for community groups and public servants to find key links and information that should help them in their work.

A new webpage entitled Help and information for community groups highlights key resources such as CommunityNet , the Community Development Kit, Keeping it Legal, Managing Well, Grants Online and other sources of funding information. We get a number of requests for information via our website and we hope that this page will help point community people in the right direction for more detailed assistance.  We welcome your feedback on how useful this page is to you.

Recognising that public servants also need reminding of some of the key material designed to help them in their work, we have created the Guidance material for public servants webpage, which includes links to the two good practice websites, the policy development toolkit on the public sector intranet, guidance from the Auditor-General and Treasury, as well as information on how to effectively hook into the information service provided by the Citizens Advice Bureaux.

We hope to make further improvements to the usefulness of the OCVS website over the coming months, so if you have ideas and suggestions, or wish to be involved in user testing or focus groups, please e-mail ocvs@msd.govt.nz.  

Although an organisation may have done its best to comply with the law, manage its risks and work within safe boundaries, circumstances can arise making the organisation liable for losses suffered by another person or organisation. The purpose of liability insurance is to cover the organisation in situations such as those.

Insurance policies usually include a condition requiring the insured person or organisation to act responsibly in carrying on their business. The policy may also specifically state that the company will reject a claim if the insured chose to deliberately disregard the law. It’s therefore important that your organisation genuinely attempts to comply with the law or your insurance may be ineffective.

» You can read more about different types of policies in the free legal resource Keeping it Legal E Ai Ki Te Ture.

» Check out Fact Sheet # 17 on Insurance as a Risk Management Tool on the Keeping it Legal website. 

If you have an event, conference or meeting related to community or voluntary issues, you are welcome to send a brief description of the event to us for inclusion in our email updates.

Registration numbers for Volunteering NZ’s 8-9 November conference are close to reaching the maximum that can be accepted. Anyone who has not registered and wishes to attend should do so now. If registration numbers pass the 120 maximum, a waiting list will be established to enable any cancellations to be filled. The conference programme is also nearing finalisation with most of the speakers and presenters confirmed.

Other forthcoming dates in the volunteering calendar include International Volunteer Manager Appreciation Day on 1 November and International Volunteer Day on 5 December – so start planning how to celebrate these now.

Toi te Taiao: the Bioethics Council will shortly begin working on an issue that touches the lives of many men, women, and children: pre-birth testing.  The Council will be using a new deliberative process for this project.  The process should enable people, even those with very different values and beliefs, to find common ground and ways forward on this issue.

The Council is calling for expressions of interest from people who would like to participate in one of the nationwide deliberative events taking place between 23 October and 19 November.  To find out details of dates and places, and to express your interest, visit www.bioethics.org.nz.

Family violence is a community problem. We all have a responsibility to support efforts to put an end to it in our communities. The Campaign for Action on Family Violence is a major initiative of the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families. The Ministry of Social Development and the Families Commission are jointly leading the $14 million campaign.

The campaign has a simple message: Family violence is not ok, but it is ok to ask for help.

The campaign consists of three components:

• Communications including mass media advertising, an 0800 number,  a website, media advocacy and resource development
• Community action including a Community Action Fund and partnerships with non-government organisations and the corporate sector
• Research and evaluation to measure and inform the campaign.

The 0800 Family Violence Information Line (0800 456 450) provides support, information and access to services to help people understand the impact of family violence and how they can make changes in their lives. Community providers and government agencies with a range of experience in running helplines have helped to develop the line. The website has links to the many government and non-government websites that have a connection to family violence, such as Women’s Refuge, Relationship Services, The Family Violence Clearing House and Preventing Violence in the Home.

A new toolkit to help manage flexible working arrangements and work-life balance has been launched by the Minister of Labour and Small Business Minister. The toolkit represents the experience of New Zealand managers whose staff already use flexible work, and offers practical advice to other employers on topics such as roster management, job sharing or working from home.

The working paper series endeavours to make publicly available information from several series of studies, particularly research into community organisations and the social services they provide within the Waitakere region. To access the papers, visit here.

AUT's Institute of Public Policy has recently produced a new book entitled Community Development Practice in New Zealand: Exploring Good Practice.  The case studies and projects contained in the book illustrate how community development practitioners in NZ have attempted to give voice to the less powerful whose voice is often ignored and excluded from governance policy and decision-making processes. 

The book was edited by Dr Love Chile, Research & Development Programme Leader in Community Development at the IPP at AUT.

The following reports from overseas provide some different perspectives on topics relevant to the community and voluntary sector:

• Why Volunteer? Evidence on the Role of Altruism, Reputation, and Incentives from The Institute for the Study of Labor
• Voluntary Work, Australia 2006 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Young People's Volunteering and Skills Development from the UK
• Neighbourhood Management: Empowering communities, shaping places: Review 2006-07 and Neighbourhood Management and Social Capital from the UK Department for Communities and Local Government
• A Method for Measuring and Partially Testing ‘Charitability’ – in three parts from the Tax Policy Center in the USA
• Demystifying Outcome Measurement in Community Development from the Joint Center for Housing Studies, USA
• Is the UK government killing civil society with kindness?
• Helping Out - A national survey of volunteering and charitable giving - prepared for the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office,  UK
• UK Prime Minister promises 'a new type of politics' in announcement of plans to broaden consultation in government decisions, with  comment from Involve and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
  
• UK Prime Minister sets out 10 year vision for how government can support a thriving third sector.

The Community Accounts Mentoring Service (CAMS) provides training and up-skilling in accounting and financial management by a chartered accountant with adult education experience for community and voluntary organisations in Wellington. Initiated by Wellington Council of Social Services Inc (WELCOSS), the service has been in operation for nearly five years.  The service is mobile and works alongside client organisations.

The CAMS Model is available on compact disc (cd-rom) in MS Word and MS Excel format and includes a complete set of all the client forms and guide sheets CAMS has so far developed, together with operational procedures. This free resource is suitable for agencies that support a number of community and voluntary organisations. Family and Community Services in the Ministry of Social Development assisted with funding for the resource.

» For more information, write to:  Maria Phelan, CAMS Model Resource, Community Accounts Mentoring Service, P O Box 11-706, Wellington.

The Not-for-Profit Sector Advisory Committee (NFPSAC) has prepared the material for the web. The NFPSAC is a committee set up to assist with mainstreaming not-for-profit issues and activities in the Institute and to progress a work programme intended to ensure the availability of key business tools for the not-for-profit sector.

The section includes information and links on Financial Reporting, Audit and Assurance, Tax, Governance, Financial Management, and Not-for-Profit Research.

These awards provide recognition of the ways young people help to build supportive communities.  They promote the concept of volunteering and the value of working without pay for the common good. 

Volunteering Canterbury invites you to nominate a young person or group (under 25 years) from the Canterbury region for an award. Nomination forms can be found on the Volunteering Canterbury website or phone 03 366 2442.

This one-day course will help you develop funding strategies for your organisation that focus on long-term survival and success.  Hosted by Volunteering Canterbury in association with Unitec, the course is free for those social service providers that receive FACS or CYF funding, and $75 for others. 

Development of a web-based research clearing house is the first major project of the Tangata Whenua, Community and Voluntary Sector Research Centre. The clearing house will be the place to find good community research and researchers. It will offer free access to research, promote a code of practice for researchers, connect people to research, allow groups to find researchers, and has the potential for email lists, virtual conferences, and a 'how-to' section, etc.

The clearing house is currently building its initial knowledgebase of research, so if you have research you want to share online, visit the website and register to upload your resource.

If you do not want to receive any further email updates from the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector, please reply to this email with ‘unsubscribe’ in the subject line, or e-mail ocvs@msd.govt.nz.

If you wish to be added to the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector distribution list for this e-newsletter and other regular communications, send an email to ocvs@msd.govt.nz with your name and postal address.

The Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector exists to inspire co-operation and superb relationships between the government and the community and voluntary sector. You can find out more about the OCVS on our website: www.ocvs.govt.nz, by email at: ocvs@msd.govt.nz, phone: 04 918 9555, or by fax: 04 913 3080.