Key Takeaways from CNA Collective Currents Conference – 24 & 25 October 2024

It was great to see Margaret Scrimgeour and Chris Johnston from CoLab in Te Puke, and Nicky Austin from Katikati Community Centre at the conference.

These were my main great takeaways from the conference; anything in italics are my thoughts or ideas…

Likened the sector to air, don’t appreciate it until it’s gone – very invisible
No TV shows about our work – 3rd sector, 10% of the workforce
Tired of being under appreciated; NFP’s are like fire fighters, putting out fires; talked about the lack of flexibility re what funders will and won’t fund – e.g. they won’t fund a hose to fire fight but will fund water
Embrace power, be bold, move out of incrementalism, have an audacious ambition – instead we’re fearful to ask and think big, unlike sectors like Venture Capital
End Hunger Games between each other, fighting for resources; we get levers of power by working together – uniting
We have become very professional, but lost activist skills – we’re conflict avoidant and don’t want to offend anyone – need to offend 25% of people we talk to
Call out funders who won’t pay overheads
Flattering donors too much, like husband centric marriage – thank you note for doing dishes – often donors are wealth hoarders, avoiding tax, then they choose a cause from a catalogue
A lot of wealth gained from colonisation – i.e. stolen indigenous land, then they avoid tax, exploit workers, then give charities donations – a form of money laundering
We are subsidising the government given they often pay 70% of a service to be delivered
Need to be a lot more vocal – stop being air
Social investment and social enterprise are red herrings from addressing inequity

In the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi Māori ceded sovereignty; 39 chiefs signed this version; the Māori version did not cede sovereignty, and 540 chiefs signed this version.
For Māori, everything moves at the speed of trust – cuppa tea tanga
He challenged when thinking about your organisation and the extent to which it reflect te Tiriti o Waitangi, what tells him that your organisations values and celebrates his Māori culture and heritage? How would he know this organisation is in NZ?
Other cultures can go home and experience their culture, NZ is it for Māori, can’t go anywhere else
He quoted someone (sorry- I didn’t write the name down) regarding Tangata Tiriti’s approach to working with Māori – lead, follow or get out of the way

Salvation Army and St Vincents in the Waikato have set up Good Power which offers affordable electricity for those who need it the most. Weekly payments, flat rate of 27 cents per KwH with a daily fixed charge of 60 cents, no credit checks, no fixed term, no disconnection/reconnection fees. Payments also contribute to a Good Power fund which provides a revenue stream for Salvation Army and Vinnies.
Nau Mai Ra set up the platform and talks to the main gentailers and the charities get the customers.
Could be worth exploring if this could be introduced to the Bay of Plenty.

Spatial map shows less charities are located in more deprived areas
The impact of an organisation is not driving strategy – not aware of any CEO that has been fired due to low impact

AI can:
- generate a website and/or CRM; what used to cost $8k and take a techie two weeks can be done very quickly
- It can write newsletters and prepare power point presentations
- It can record and provide a transcript of a meeting, summarise the meeting, identify action points and allocate the actions to people – still need to review the minutes and actions
You can create an avatar, choose the voice, have it speak in any language – could be a good way of working with people where English is their second language as long as the translation is reliable
You can go into ChatGPT settings to stop it mining your information
Suno – can create songs, you say the topic, what music style you want and it will create a song
Random fact – if you take a photo of the food in your refrigerator and ask for recipes it will give you recipes for the food that you have
AI doesn’t use much power and as it develops it will require less power
Cybersecurity issues haven’t increased due to AI
The industries he thinks will be most negatively affected by AI are call centres and programmers; it will enhance other industries, much like a calculator enhances calculations.

You don’t need to necessarily grow an organisation in order to increase impact. He used the example of Save the Children in the UK who shrank to 40% of their original size and increased their impact. Instead of STC delivering childcare in vulnerable communities, they supported local communities to run their own childcare.
He referred to the book by Leslie Crutchfield and Health McLeod Grant (2008) ‘Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact NFP’s:
- None included having a big budget, low overheads, having the perfect mission statement, break through new ideas, high brand awareness or good management practices. Rather it was more about how not for profits operated outside the boundaries of their organisation rather than their internal operations
- Six practices were:
  1. Combine advocacy and services – more powerful to do both
  2. Work with business – use market forces in service of your mission e.g. consumer forces
  3. Nurture not for profit networks – give information away, collaborate
  4. Engage individuals – how can we help our volunteers, donors and supporters to be ambassadors of our cause – give them training, scripts etc to be ambassadors. Too often volunteers, donors and supporters are seen as a resource we can extract from rather than inspire them to be evangelists of our cause
  5. Masters at adaptation – welcome change, new opportunities
  6. Shared, flat distributed leadership – everyone sees themselves as leaders