Change of focus for charity heavyweight

The country's biggest source of charitable grants, the ASB Trusts organisation, is changing its name and its $55 million-a-year grants strategy.

The two ASB trusts use income from a $1 billion investment pool derived from the sale of their shareholdings in the ASB when it was a trustee bank.

From today, the trusts, previously called the ASB Charitable Trust and the ASB Bank Community Trust, have been merged to form the ASB Community Trust.

Prime Minister Helen Clark will launch the new logo and name at a function tonight when the trust will also announce a grant of $2.5 million to complete the atrium at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Trust chief executive Jennifer Gill said it was changing the focus of its grants to Auckland and Northland.

"It has been seen as the place to go when you have a major building project to fund, or land to buy," she said.

"Since 1988 we have been a major player in building regional infrastructure, having made more than 11,600 grants - 66 of them for over a million dollars.

"While we will still fund major projects, we want to make sure our grants work for the sustainability of the organisations inside the buildings as well as the external structure."

Jennifer Gill said trustees and staff were identifying problems facing the region, such as educational achievement levels in low-decile schools, and would look for partners who could help fix them.

For welfare organisations, the new funding policy means that when assessing applications, the trust will look for evidence that a project will improve society.

The trust says it aims to meet educational and community needs and reduce poverty through educational, social and economic programmes.

In addition to education, the strategy covers health and social services, sport and recreation, arts and culture, environment and heritage and community economic development.

ASB chairman Gary Judd said the trust had evolved from a proud tradition of philanthropy started by one of the bank's founders, Sir John Logan Campbell, in the 19th century.

He said the bank was delighted to make more of a difference to the trust's day-to-day operations through supporting its operational costs up to an undisclosed amount.

This support meant the trust could use more of its investment income for the benefit of the community.