Since 2006, Foundation North have been investing in journeys of change. We’ve worked with them to produce an overview of the development of their venture philanthropy.
The Foundation’s focus was to provide support to initiatives addressing major social issues for Auckland and Northland. The venture philanthropy approach combined multi-year grants with support to grantees to build organisational capacity, design their programmes, develop their leadership, and monitor and evaluate their work. The goal was to create an evidence base which captured what was learnt, identify success, and help grantees ‘tell their story’ so they could engage other funders.
Foundation North strategy manager Chloe Harwood says, “Today the Foundation looks to the Centre for Social Impact to provide the support to our high-engagement grantees.’
The Foundation is now piloting another approach to support innovation; a ‘seed, scale, system’ grantmaking framework that allows it to support initiatives from prototype to pilot to system –wide application of proven innovations. This approach is being applied first to Foundation North’s The Gulf Innovation Fund Together (G.I.F.T.). G.I.F.T. is a $5million fund created to support innovation that has the potential to turn the tide on the environmental degradation of the Hauraki Gulf and restore its mauri. Read more here