Messsage from Natasha

Meet the new Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector

Charities Services staff met the Minister for the first time at our Annual Meeting on 2 November; his first engagement as the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector and his first opportunity to get “stuck into the mahi” and meet the new sector he serves. The Minister said he was honoured to be appointed to the Community and Voluntary Sector portfolio because “the community and voluntary sector is an important part of our democracy, it’s a place where ordinary citizens can do extraordinary things… and develop organisations that create our rich and diverse civil society.”

A new government means a new work programme and “the government has a busy agenda ahead, and it involves all of you,” he told attendees at the Annual Meeting. The Government is committed to working together “with communities in an inclusive way that understands and builds on their strengths because we believe that strong and engaged communities lie at the heart of a strong, brave and resilient Aotearoa”, said the Minister. With five children, we think the Minister knows a thing or two about team work and we’re looking forward to working together to build stronger more resilient communities.

Charities Services Annual Meeting

The meeting was opened with an address from Hon Peeni Henare who said how excited he is to get stuck into the Community and Voluntary Sector portfolio, and the government's busy agenda ahead.

The Chair of the independent Charities Registration Board, Roger Holmes Miller then spoke about the Board's decision to register two charities engaged in advocacy activities: Clevedon Village Trust and Restore Christchurch Cathedral Group Incorporated, illustrating the complex nature of charitable purpose and how it's shaped by court decisions. 

Next up was Charities Services' new General Manager, Natasha Weight who presented on Charities Services and our sector's year in review, and highlighted the release of our report on the 'New Reporting Standards - One Year On'. This lead into our focus for the year ahead: to transform Charities Services into a more modern, responsive and risk based charities regulator.  

The floor was then opened to attendees to ask our staff panel of experts questions during the Q&A session. The questions from the audience ranged from new reporting standards and tax, to debate about whether charities should pay salaries. The Annual Meeting is always a great opportunity for staff to meet charities and hear what issues are directly impacting the sector.

The meeting closed with the New Zealand Charity Reporting Awards prize giving, run by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ). New Zealand Country Head for CA ANZ, Peter Vial, said the awards recognise the progress New Zealand’s charities have made to improve transparency and accountability in their financial reporting.  "The judges were really impressed by the quality and depth of performance information provided by registered charities...we got a real sense of the value that charities contribute to New Zealand society,” Vial told the audience.

View the full list of winners and highly commended on CA ANZ's website here.

Ngā mihi to all the charities who joined us and to those who tuned in on Facebook Live. We're always looking at effective ways to reach charities and it was great to see 650 views of the video from viewers as far away as Queensland, Australia.

Missed the meeting?

- Watch the video recording of each section of the Annual Meeting 
- Read our  'New Reporting Standards - One year on' report
- Check out 'Our year in numbers' data sheet

Who is Charities Services at DIA, and what do we do?

What do we do? 

Charities Services, Ngā Rātonga Kaupapa Atawhai, is part of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). The Charities Act 2005 defines Charities Services' key functions and shapes our work that contributes to promoting trust and confidence in the charitable sector. The Act also establishes an independent Charities Registration Board that makes all decisions about registration and deregistration of charities under the law. In practice, the Board delegates most of its decision making to Charities Services with complex, novel and controversial applications taken to the Board for their consideration. Read more about the Board’s decision making process here.

How do we do it? Charities Services is largely divided into two groups: Regulatory that comprises the Registration and Investigation teams, and Engagement & Business Improvement that comprises the Capability and Customer Support teams. One of our key functions is to maintain the integrity of the Charities Register - the database of almost 28,000 registered charities in Aotearoa. We do this by:

• ensuring applications for registration as a charity and rules changes meet legal requirements
• providing resources and guidance material to help charities meet their obligations
• investigating charities that may be in breach of the Charities Act; and
• by providing ongoing support to charities such as assisting with Annual Return filing, making changes to officer and charity details, and answering general queries.

To enable us to help you, please ensure that your charity’s contact details are up to date (learn how to do this here).

Registered charities also play an important role in ensuring the integrity and transparency of the register. The information registered charities tell us in their Annual Returns is published on the register and the data is used to tell a story about the wider charitable sector in Aotearoa. That's why filing your charity's Annual Return correctly and on time is so important.

Facts about us

• One of the first charities to be registered under the Charities Act ten years ago is still registered today and the Analyst who registered it is still with our Registration team.

• We receive more than 1000 applications for registration a year and around 90% of applications we receive are registered.  
• We publish decisions made by the independent Charities Registration Board (on complex applications and deregistrations) on our website.
• We conduct regular surveys to measure public levels of trust and confidence in the charitable sector.
• There are 38 staff members at Charities Services and almost 28,000 registered charities in Aotearoa - that’s roughly 700 charities per staff member! However, we are also supported by the wider DIA for shared functions such as the contact centre, communications team, human resources and IT.

​What we don't do

• We don't set financial reporting standards. Our friends at the External Reporting Board are responsible for setting the standards and we're tasked with supporting charities to comply with them.
• We don't do tax. We talk to Inland Revenue everyday (we notify them when a charity is registered or deregistered) but the benefits of tax exemptions that comes with charitable status is managed by Inland Revenue.        
• We don't provide grants. We support the effective use of charitable resources, but we don’t have any funds to administer. We leave this to the experts.
• We don't direct the independent Charities Registration Board. We have a constructive relationship with the Charities Registration Board but ultimately they make decisions independently. Read more here.

We hope this provides you with some basic information on who we are and what we do, and how it all fits in together. If there's anything else you'd like to know about us, please get in touch. 

SECTOR USER GROUP UPDATE

The Social Enterprise World Forum was held in Christchurch just before the meeting and it was clearly top of mind for many sector representatives who wanted to know how Charities Services could work to support charities operating in this space. (See below)

The next Sector User Group Meeting will be held in early 2018.

Good to know: What's a social enterprise?

Social enterprises and charities are not necessarily the same thing. Social enterprises can take many different forms. What they may have in common is that they combine a desire to achieve social good through commercial methods.  When a social enterprise provides a private benefit or profit, this will usually prevent it from being a registered charity.  
Check out our website guidance for more information.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Professional perspectives on charities law and regulation in New Zealand conference

NEWS OF INTEREST

Survey - Help map the NZ Social Enterprise sector

This is an important step in New Zealand’s journey to becoming a more sustainable and innovative global leader in Social Enterprise. By participating in the Social Enterprise Survey, you’ll have the opportunity to be listed on Ākina’s future directory of social enterprises. If you're an organisation that trades to make an impact, or you know of one who should, take the survey by clicking here.