When philanthropic trusts and foundations come together and work in partnership, sharing time, knowledge and contributing funds, we can have a greater impact.
This has been the experience of a collaboration between four New Zealand philanthropic funders; The Tindall Foundation, the Todd Foundation, the Vodafone New Zealand Foundation (Vodafone Foundation) and Foundation North – the story of which has just been published in a new report.
The trusts harnessed ‘the power of four’ to generate significant change in the foster care system through establishing VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai in April 2017, an independent charitable trust for children and young people in foster care.
In just over a year, VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai has made a real difference to the lives of young people in care. John McCarthy, Manager at The Tindall Foundation who chaired the establishment board of VOYCE says, “We really valued the experience of working with other funders and appreciate the significant role VOYCE is already playing in improving the wellbeing of young people in care and their lifelong outcomes. We are proud to be supporting VOYCE’s work.”
“The Power of Four: Lessons from the VOYCE collaboration”, written by Rachael Trotman, of the Centre for Social Impact, focuses on the funders’ experience of the VOYCE collaboration, which also actively involved care-experienced children and young people, central government, iwi and the foster care sector.
As well as telling the story behind the collaboration, the funders are keen for their shared experience to provide learnings for others in the sector, to “identify what we learned and what works, so we can do it again; to show what collaboration looks like to us”.
Download The Power of Four: Lessons from the VOYCE collaboration here.