More Than the Sum: The Story of Collective Giving
There's a moment near the end of a pōwhiri that most people who've stood on a marae will recognise. Once the formal speeches are done, one person - usually the final speaker for the visitors - lays down a koha on behalf of the whole group, in full view of everyone gathered. What most people don't see is what happens before that moment: individual contributions from the visiting group have already been quietly gathered together into that one gift. No single contribution needs to cover what the marae has offered in hosting them. Pooled together, it does.
That's the whole idea behind collective giving, and it's a much older, much more relatable idea than the name suggests. Instead of one person deciding alone what to give and where, a group of people bring smaller amounts together, and decide, together, where it will do the most good. The gift that comes out the other end is bigger than any one person could have managed on their own - and it usually lands somewhere better too, because more than one set of eyes and values went into deciding.
You can see the same instinct all over the place once you start looking for it. It's in a congregation passing the plate. It's in a village pulling together to help a family that's fallen on hard times. Long before anyone gave it a formal name, communities understood generosity multiplies when it's shared, and the decisions get better when more people are part of making them.
What's changed in recent years is that this instinct has been given more structure. Around Aotearoa, community foundations - including Acorn Foundation, right here in the Western Bay of Plenty - now support what are commonly called Giving Circles: groups of people who agree to pool their giving on a regular basis and collectively decide which local causes receive it.
Deciding together means the group draws on a wider range of knowledge about what's actually needed locally, not just one person's view of it. And giving alongside other people tends to make the giving itself more meaningful - there's conversation involved, and a shared sense of having made the decision together, not just written a cheque and moved on.
"Collective Giving, in all its forms, is no longer a side story, it’s becoming a significant force for good in the Western Bay of Plenty. From friends gathered around a table, to women uniting with shared purpose, to colleagues giving through their workplace, these approaches are ensuring that generosity is both accessible and impactful”, says Matty Nicholson from the Acorn Foundation. “Collective Giving is creating change that people can see and feel today while strengthening the foundation of the community for tomorrow.”
At Acorn Foundation, that principle is alive in four active giving circles - Honey Badgers, Sally's Angels, TK & Friends, and First XI. Each one is a group of generous people who decided that giving together would do more good than giving apart, and then kept doing it, year after year.
This year, between the four circles, that collective giving of more than $26,000 was given to twelve organisations across the Western Bay of Plenty. Honey Badgers, a group of women based in Mount Maunganui, gave $6,801 to Tauranga Women's Refuge, Big Buddy, and Awhina House, taking their all-time giving to almost $50,000. Sally's Angels passed $110,000 in total giving this year, with $5,400 going to The Font Public Art Trust and UOKBRO. TK & Friends, the newest of the four circles, spread $6,665 across four causes - The Right Track Programme, Under the Stars, Unseen Heroes, and Good Bitches Baking - bringing their two-year total to more than $12,000. And First XI gave $7,370 to Awhina House, UOKBRO, and Spectrum Connections, taking their all-time giving past $75,000.
None of these circles are doing anything new, really. They're doing what people have always done when they wanted their generosity to go further than their own two hands could carry it - they found others who felt the same way, and gave together. If that sounds like something you'd want to be part of, we'd love to talk about joining an existing circle, or starting one of your own.