title: The Accountability of New Zealand's Charities: Meeting the Needs of Charity Stakeholders through Information Disclosure

authors: Dimitrov, Dara

subjects: New Zealand charity

abstract: For decades, New Zealand’s charity sector has been able to operate, unfettered by regulation and with low levels of accountability.  For this reason, gaining any information from charities about the work they do has been historically difficult, because charities have not been required to provide any reports.  The New Zealand government sought to increase the accountability from the charity sector with the introduction of the Charities Act (2005) and basic reporting requirements, but ultimately, the accountability from the sector continues to be an issue.  With limited charity disclosure literature in the New Zealand context, and no information disclosure practice model to guide New Zealand’s charities, the current provision and the quality of the information disclosures from charities are low, leaving the information needs of charity stakeholders unmet.
The overall aim of this investigation is to improve the accountability from New Zealand’s charities by developing a charity information disclosure practice model from a charity stakeholder perspective.  This was achieved by three main objectives:
1.	To develop a qualitative disclosure index from the perspective of charity stakeholders 
2.	To assess the extent and quality of the information disclosure made by thirty registered charities 
3.	To make recommendations to improve the accountability  by New Zealand’s charity sector
To achieve this purpose, a disclosure index, which contained  136 information items was created with the assistance of 86 charity stakeholders. The index was then applied to three publications from thirty charities that were randomly selected from the Charity register. The three publications used in this investigation are the Charity register, the charity’s website and the charity’s annual report/annual review. The collected data was then quantified and analysed to determine the extent and the quality of the information disclosures from the charities.  
The investigation findings indicated that the current level of charity disclosures was poor both in extent and quality and that there was an information gap between the expectations of charity stakeholders and the actual disclosure practices of the charities.  It was found that the top-performing information items were the mandated and the best-practice information items were either missing or inadequately disclosed.  No charity within the sample managed to achieve an index score of 50%.
The annual return summary found on the Charity register was the best disclosure document for both financial and non-financial information items from a charity stakeholder perspective.  However, this document, along with the other publications still lacked sufficient detail to be useful for a charity stakeholder.  To improve the accountability of the New Zealand’s sector, it is recommended that the New Zealand Parliament look at expanding the current annual return summary to include information items more relevant to charity stakeholders.  Finally, it is recommended that the charities should be compelled to produce an annual report and use the disclosure index created by the charity stakeholders in this investigation to improve their current information disclosures.

text: The Accountability of New Zealand's Charities: Meeting the Needs of Charity Stakeholders through Information Disclosure For decades, New Zealand’s charity sector has been able to operate, unfettered by regulation and with low levels of accountability.  For this reason, gaining any information from charities about the work they do has been historically difficult, because charities have not been required to provide any reports.  The New Zealand government sought to increase the accountability from the charity sector with the introduction of the Charities Act (2005) and basic reporting requirements, but ultimately, the accountability from the sector continues to be an issue.  With limited charity disclosure literature in the New Zealand context, and no information disclosure practice model to guide New Zealand’s charities, the current provision and the quality of the information disclosures from charities are low, leaving the information needs of charity stakeholders unmet.
The overall aim of this investigation is to improve the accountability from New Zealand’s charities by developing a charity information disclosure practice model from a charity stakeholder perspective.  This was achieved by three main objectives:
1.	To develop a qualitative disclosure index from the perspective of charity stakeholders 
2.	To assess the extent and quality of the information disclosure made by thirty registered charities 
3.	To make recommendations to improve the accountability  by New Zealand’s charity sector
To achieve this purpose, a disclosure index, which contained  136 information items was created with the assistance of 86 charity stakeholders. The index was then applied to three publications from thirty charities that were randomly selected from the Charity register. The three publications used in this investigation are the Charity register, the charity’s website and the charity’s annual report/annual review. The collected data was then quantified and analysed to determine the extent and the quality of the information disclosures from the charities.  
The investigation findings indicated that the current level of charity disclosures was poor both in extent and quality and that there was an information gap between the expectations of charity stakeholders and the actual disclosure practices of the charities.  It was found that the top-performing information items were the mandated and the best-practice information items were either missing or inadequately disclosed.  No charity within the sample managed to achieve an index score of 50%.
The annual return summary found on the Charity register was the best disclosure document for both financial and non-financial information items from a charity stakeholder perspective.  However, this document, along with the other publications still lacked sufficient detail to be useful for a charity stakeholder.  To improve the accountability of the New Zealand’s sector, it is recommended that the New Zealand Parliament look at expanding the current annual return summary to include information items more relevant to charity stakeholders.  Finally, it is recommended that the charities should be compelled to produce an annual report and use the disclosure index created by the charity stakeholders in this investigation to improve their current information disclosures.

year: 2017

title: Considering photographs never taken during photo-production projects

authors: Hodgetts, Darrin

subjects: homelessness

abstract: The visual medium is central to how most of us navigate daily life and come to know and interact with our social worlds. Recently, the role of visual dimensions of everyday life has surfaced in qualitative research in psychology. This paper explores some of the underlying processes foundational to participants' efforts to picture their worlds during photo-production projects. We draw on excerpts from a study of images of homelessness in London to exemplify various methodological issues surrounding the interpretation of photo-production materials. Emphasis is placed on the need to focus on photo-production because photographs taken never fully contain what is important to participants. Issues and events are often talked into the frame of photographs by participants. This process of presenting aspects of one's life extends to discussions of photographs not taken and reflections on processes of picturing everyday life. We argue that a consideration of photographs not taken is important if we are to maximise the utility of photo-production as a method and fully understand what it provides.

text: Considering photographs never taken during photo-production projects The visual medium is central to how most of us navigate daily life and come to know and interact with our social worlds. Recently, the role of visual dimensions of everyday life has surfaced in qualitative research in psychology. This paper explores some of the underlying processes foundational to participants' efforts to picture their worlds during photo-production projects. We draw on excerpts from a study of images of homelessness in London to exemplify various methodological issues surrounding the interpretation of photo-production materials. Emphasis is placed on the need to focus on photo-production because photographs taken never fully contain what is important to participants. Issues and events are often talked into the frame of photographs by participants. This process of presenting aspects of one's life extends to discussions of photographs not taken and reflections on processes of picturing everyday life. We argue that a consideration of photographs not taken is important if we are to maximise the utility of photo-production as a method and fully understand what it provides.

year: 2007

title: How is the circular economy emerging in Aotearoa New Zealand? Research Brief

authors: Diprose, G

abstract: The results of the environmental scan show that there is grass-roots activity and that we have some high level conceptualisations of circular economies (CE) however there is little in-between. As such, it is in the middle that activity needs to occur to transition towards a circular economy. We see a need to move beyond business-as-usual with an entity focus to an ‘ecosystem phase.’ This means that for CE, partnerships are needed across business, organisations, Treaty partners, institutions, NGOs and stakeholders to form collaborations around material and people flows in order for ecosystems to form and create circular economies.

text: How is the circular economy emerging in Aotearoa New Zealand? Research Brief The results of the environmental scan show that there is grass-roots activity and that we have some high level conceptualisations of circular economies (CE) however there is little in-between. As such, it is in the middle that activity needs to occur to transition towards a circular economy. We see a need to move beyond business-as-usual with an entity focus to an ‘ecosystem phase.’ This means that for CE, partnerships are needed across business, organisations, Treaty partners, institutions, NGOs and stakeholders to form collaborations around material and people flows in order for ecosystems to form and create circular economies.

year: 2022