Tauranga 'perfect size' for business philanthropy

Phil O'Reilly

The business philanthropy being practised through the City Partnership Programme works best in cities the size of Tauranga, says Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly.

Speaking before delivering a speech to this week's networking event celebrating the recent contributions of 14 of the 40-plus city partners to a range of community projects, Mr O'Reilly said he understood the Tauranga programme was working well.

"In the smaller cities you can put your arms around the issues and get a lot of the businesses that matter in one room," he said.

"Tauranga's not the biggest city, but it's very successful and you can get the go-forward momentum much more easily than in a place like Auckland, where business and community activity tends to be much more regionally based."

Tauranga's programme began in 2003 when the SmartGrowth and Tauranga Tomorrow strategies indicated the city would be unable to keep up with infrastructure requirements through its usual funding.

The programme provides a framework for businesses and other local entities to help develop new facilities and community projects, contributing a mixture of cash, goods or services.

Mr O'Reilly said in his experience, business philanthropy in general worked best when businesses had a clear view of why they were doing it.

"It's more than just being nice to people or getting a bit of good publicity.

"Unless it's part of what the business is trying to achieve in building a successful community, and it's linked directly into how they think about such things, it's not going to work in the long term," he said.

"In order to be successful, you need to have some real CEO commitment, it needs to be soaked into the business strategy, and you need a clear direction and guidance from the board and senior management.

"And then it can actually work very well."

Michael Vujnovich, manager of Project Tauranga, which runs the City Partnership Programme, said that the partners provided great value to the city.

"It makes a real difference," he said.