Message from Julia

Your feedback and questions are absolutely vital in helping us to prioritise our work programme to ensure we best support you in your charitable work. The discussion we have at the Annual Meeting helps us to better understand key issues and opportunities in the sector and focus on what matters most, so I urge you to join the conversation if you have something you would like to ask. 

This year’s meeting will be held on October 4, at the Fale O Samoa at the Consulate of Samoa in Mangere, Auckland. You can register your attendance using the details below. If you’re not able to make it to the meeting in person, a recording will also be available on our website afterwards. 

Last month we held a Charities Services ‘Open Day’ at the Department of Internal Affairs in Wellington. Registered charities, along with organisations considering registering, were able to drop by to meet some of our team in person, take away information and guidance materials, and get free advice on a range of topics relating to charities.  We’ve never held an ‘open day’ before so this one was really a test-run to gauge what appetite exists for these kinds of events. The feedback we’ve received so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and we were delighted to be able to meet representatives from over forty five groups on the day.

While the team puts a lot of effort into creating a range of tools and resources to help charities, like webinars, online tutorials, blog posts, and content on our website, we know it’s still important that there are opportunities for face to face engagement. Based on all the great feedback from the open day, we’re excited to look at how we might be able to hold more sessions like this in the future - we’ll update you as our planning progresses.

In the meantime, if you have a particular question about your charity or about our work, we have a dedicated team ready to help! Our contact details are below.

Ka kite anō,

Julia Wootton

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

New appointment to the Charities Registration Board

Dr Bev Gatenby has been appointed as the new member of the independent Charities Registration Board to replace Caren Rangi who has stepped down after six years on the Board. The Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Hon Peeni Henare, announced the appointment along with the reappointments of Chair Roger Holmes Miller and Simon Karipa. 

Meet the Board

The Charities Registration Board is an independent three-person Board makes decisions about registering or deregistering charities from the Charities Register under the Charities Act.

For more information about how the Charities Registration Board works with Charities Services, see the blog post 'How the Charities Registration Board makes decisions'.

Seeing double? The Performance Report vs. the Annual Return Form

A question we often get asked from Tier 3 and 4 charities is "why do we have to complete an Annual Return form AND a Performance Report? Isn't this just doubling up?"

While it can feel like a duplication of effort, there are reasons why both must be completed as part of your annual reporting.

Performance Report

Your charity’s Performance Report is a detailed document about your organisation that contains information about your activities and performance during the year. This report can be a really powerful resource for your charity because it gives the whole story of your charity. It shows not only the financial information, but also non-financial information such as your vision statement, your achievements throughout year, and anything else your charity considers useful for the reader, including funders and people considering supporting your charity.

Annual Return Form

The Annual Return form on the other hand, only includes a snippet of the information contained in your performance report. This data is useful for informing policy or for understanding charities at a sector level, for example the number of charities in a particular region, and what type of charities they are.

There is a wealth of information on our website to guide you through preparing your performance report and completing the annual return form. You can also contact us if you have any specific reporting questions relating to your charity.

SECTOR SHOWCASE

Life Unlimited Charitable Trust

You know you’ve found a diamond when you come across a video blurb that reads, “Freedom Nathan tells it like it is with an infectious sense of humour. She’s a farm girl who likes to go fishing and hunting with her cousins…the fact she completely lost her sight at age 5 hasn’t stopped her living life to the full”.

Life Unlimited’s award winning series of 21 short videos featuring people with disabilities talking candidly about their lives was a lucky find. Honest, insightful, and empowering (and always with a healthy dose of that classic kiwi humour) the videos take on an interactive question time concept. It’s no surprise the series recently won the Diane Rangi Innovation Award from the New Zealand Federation of Disability Information Centres.

Q: What's been instrumental to Life Unlimited's success?

A: Strong governance by the Board of Trustees has been instrumental to us always moving and developing new ideas and approaches. Their guidance and the management teams appointed have seen us expand into national roles from the beginnings as a purely Waikato organisation.

Q: Has there been any hurdles along the way?

A: We have a strong history of delivering on government contracts, however this means that a lot of our focus is on providing what we are contracted to do and we sometimes feel we have limited time and resource to meet the needs we see in the community that are not covered by the government.

Q: What are your hopes for the future of Life Unlimited or the disability sector in New Zealand?

A: To increase our social enterprise ventures to meet needs and gaps we see in the community in areas over and above the limitations of government funding.

Q: What's something you wished that everyone knew about the work that you do?

A: Not everyone knows that we have a nationwide team of hearing therapists providing free hearing evaluations and support. We are also autism specialists and we offer personalised responses to a wide range of topics about disability and living independently. Our online information hub provides a wealth of information and stories relevant to living independently.

Q: What tips do you have for other charities?

A: Tip 1: Passion is for keeps! Find and keep a staff team who love what they do - there is great strength in a team who come to work believing and knowing the difference they are making in people's lives.

Tip 2: Remember you are a business. Live within your means so that you can sustain the effort and be around for the long haul.

To watch the question time videos or to find out more about Life Unlimited, visit their website www.lifeunlimited.net.nz

NEWS OF INTEREST

Update from DIA Policy on the Charities Act review

Work is on track preparing for the public launch of the Charities Act review. Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Hon Peeni Henare, announced the review in May.

We’re publishing documentation relating to the review, including the terms of reference, an indicative timeline, and frequently asked questions, on the review webpage at https://www.dia.govt.nz/charitiesreview

The review is currently in its pre-consultation phase. The review team within Department of Internal Affairs’ Policy Group has had preliminary discussions with members of the Sector User Group (SUG) and the independent Charities Registration Board to hear their concerns and ideas about the current Act. We’ve had really useful feedback on all kinds of issues from reporting requirements to the appeals mechanism to the law around advocacy. Thanks everyone for your input to date. All of this information will feed into the public discussion document to be released later this year.

We’re also very pleased to announce the following members of the Core Reference Group established for the review:

• Anaru Fraser (General Manager of Hui E! Community Aotearoa)
• Charmaine Brown (Director of Creating Success and Trustee of Autism Intervention Trust)
• Dave Henderson (former positions include Chair of Kidney Health New Zealand and  External Relations Manager for Hui E! Community Aotearoa)
• Donna Flavell (Chief Executive Officer of Te Whakakitenga o Waikato Incorporated and Trustee of Waikato Ruapatu Lands Trust)
• Sue Barker (Director of Sue Barker Charities Law)

• Everdina Fuli (Research Advisor at Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa)                                   

This group brings enormous knowledge, skills, and experience to the table - a good range of perspectives. We will meet with the group regularly to test our understanding of issues, our approach to engaging the sector through the consultation phase, and other aspects of the review.

Work is continuing for the consultation phase of the review, including preparing the public discussion document for release. We’ll announce further details soon.

Steve Kerr, Policy Manager, Department of Internal Affairs

Full of Goodness - Home Grown Public Benefit

‘True to Label’ is a major research report looking at how value is measured in the non-profit sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Written by John Page, now a Consulting Partner at Boardworks International, the report looks at fifty five organisations across four non-profit groupings. Examining publicly available documents, it asks how an interested party can tell what has been achieved using time and money provided by others.

Tax Changes - GST on sold assets

On 14 August 2018, the Minister of Revenue released a media statement describing proposed tax changes which may affect your charity.

The proposals look to close a GST loophole which could allow not-for-profits to sell assets without being required to pay GST where GST has been claimed on the purchase of that asset.

They also propose to extend the current relief provisions relating to property affected by the Canterbury Earthquakes for a further five years.

You can find the media release and full details of the proposals here.

XRB amendments to the reporting standards

On 27 June 2018, the External Reporting Board (XRB) approved a number of amendments to the Tier 3 and Tier 4 reporting standards.

The amendments made mostly related to minor terminology changes but there is one new requirement that will impact all Tier 3 and Tier 4 registered charities. For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2019, it will be a requirement that performance reports include:

·       Date the performance report was approved and authorised for issue

·       Who gave authorisation for issue

·       Signatures of those people

At this meeting the XRB also approved for issue an exposure draft covering proposed changes to the PBE standards that apply to Tier 1 and Tier 2 registered charities. The exposure draft covers a broad group of changes to a wide number of standards. The most significant change proposed is to PBE IPSAS 2 Cash Flow Statements.

If adopted, this change will require Tier 1 and Tier 2 charities to provide more information on how their liabilities have changed from financing activities including making it clear which changes arise from cash flows and non-cash transactions.

Comments on the exposure draft are due by 28 September 2018 and details of how you can make submissions can be found here.

CHARITIES SERVICES ANNUAL MEETING 

RESOURCES