Community Group Funds: How Local Charities Are Building Long-Term Sustainability
Financial sustainability is an ongoing challenge for charities and community groups across the Western Bay of Plenty. Each year they face the same balancing act: covering core costs, delivering vital services, and responding to growing demand, all while relying on grants, one-off donations, and sponsorships that are often short-term or restricted. These income streams remain essential, but they rarely offer the reliability of an additional source of flexible funding that organisations can plan around with confidence.
Community Foundations around the world have long offered donor-advised funds, giving individuals and families a way to ensure their generosity supports the charities and causes they care about most. In recent years, foundations like Acorn have adapted this proven model to meet the specific needs of charities themselves. The Community Group Fund is an endowment designed to give charitable organisations a practical tool to build their own long-term financial sustainability.
Once a fund reaches $25,000, it begins generating annual income. Each year, Acorn’s Board determines the distribution rate that is paid out as flexible funding that can support staff, cover core costs, or seed new initiatives. It can be used wherever it is needed most. The balance is reinvested so the fund continues to grow. Because the charity is the sole beneficiary, the support is permanent. As more money is added to the fund and investment continues, the annual income will continue to grow.
Each organisation grows its fund in the way that works best for them. Some take a gradual approach, adding small contributions from reserves as they are able, with their sights firmly set on long-term growth.
Others build theirs through their communities, inviting supporters, families, and local businesses to contribute so that every gift, large or small, becomes part of a lasting resource. Many blend both approaches, balancing careful planning with collective generosity. However it is built, the outcome is the same: a permanent base of capital that provides dependable income year after year.
Their supporters can also play a part in building a Community Group Fund. Some choose to give a little now when they can, while others take the longer view and leave a gift in their will — an easy and meaningful way to ensure their organisation’s fund will always be there to support the work they care about.
Tauranga City Basketball is a strong example of long-term vision in action. Only a few years ago, they established their Community Group Fund and began contributing steadily, adding what they could, when they could. That consistent focus on the future enabled them to reach distribution level in a short time. In 2025, their fund made its first annual distribution payment, marking the beginning of a reliable income stream that will continue to grow in the background. What started as a patient, deliberate investment is now providing lasting security for the organisation and for the players, coaches, referees, and families it supports. Not only this season, but for many seasons and generations to come.
Across the Western Bay of Plenty, more than sixty organisations now hold Community Group Funds with the Acorn Foundation. What unites them is intent: these organisations are deliberately adding an additional stream of reliability to sit alongside their regular grants and fundraising, creating a stabilising layer that strengthens everything else they do.
Sustainability in this sense is about more than money. It is the breathing room to plan beyond the next funding round. It is the ability to keep core services running when other income dips. It is the confidence to try something new, knowing a portion of costs will always be met. And it is the reassurance for supporters that their contributions will keep working long after the first gift is made.
Community Group Funds are, at their heart, partnerships between charities and the people who believe in them. They give organisations a practical way to invest in their own future. They give communities a simple way to help not just for today, but for tomorrow too. Quietly, year after year, these funds turn collective generosity into guaranteed, reliable income. In doing so, they ensure the services and causes our region relies on remain strong, resilient, and ready for whatever challenge comes next.