Since the budget announcement this year, more information is slowly being released on the “Social Investment Fund”– a new pot of money that the government will be distributing to the social service sector through the newly formed Social Investment Agency (SIA).
The requirements of this fund will look very different to other government funding in the sector, and reflects the expected shift in the government’s interest from compliance to impact – and from collecting data on outputs, to reporting on outcomes.
These outcomes-based contracts will require greater rigour around understanding your organisation’s impact, and how to demonstrate that impact through data.
The recordings of the first two introductory information webinars are available on the SIA website here. (A webinar covering a more technical briefing on evaluation and data methods collection was held last week and is expected to be uploaded to the website too.)
These introductory webinars shared further details on what to expect. We’ve summarised some of the key points below:
- The fund will initially focus on early intervention initiatives to improve specific outcomes for tamariki and whānau
- These outcomes will be set at the ministerial level (which were due to be announced in July, watch this space still!) but you can “expect that initially these will align with the areas identified in the Child Youth Strategy and programmes in family violence and sexual violence, housing, education and attendance”.
- The first round of funding will be focused on testing and learning from this new way of working – therefore the agency will be looking to organisations that show greatest promise of achieving these outcomes, and will be favouring those already placed in the community to do this, with a proven track record. The SIA team also mentioned that scale will be important, with organisations needing to reach several hundred families over the 4-year contract, so that impact can truly be understood and demonstrated.
- As well as alignment with the outcomes, to be successful in receiving funding organisations will need to have:
- a strong evidence base
- a good theory of change
- built in evaluability
- There are two ‘pathways’ to funding that will be available in the first round of applications: ‘new initiatives’ and ‘contract consolidations’.
- They are anticipating investing in 20-30 new initiatives over the next 18 months
- They’re interested in consolidating govt agency contracts that are across multiple contracts, with different requirements & funding timelines, but servicing the same people.
- There is $200m of funding to be distributed in this first round, and each contract will be a 4-year contract (interestingly this is still a very small amount of overall govt funding – 0.3%).
- Once the priority ‘cohorts’ and the associated outcomes are announced by the ministers, the SIA team will summarise application criteria and publish a self-assessment tool for organisations to understand best fit.
- Applications for the first round are due to open at the end of August, with a decision made before Christmas 2025.
How the sector is responding
If you’re interested in hearing how the sector is responding, RNZ hosted Rahul Watson Govindan – CEO of Philanthropy NZ, and Belinda Himiona – CE of Social Service Providers Aotearoa. The 20-minute conversation is very much worth a listen! The Social Service Investment Fund | RNZ
Their discussion goes into the need for co-design of fund requirements with the community, and the need for government to invest in data capability and capacity in the sector, if they are going to require it as part of this new fund.
There are still lots of questions about how the fund will actually work, and which organisations will likely be successful – but it’s becoming clearer as more information is published by the agency each week, so we encourage you to keep your finger on the pulse in the next few weeks before applications open!
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