Since May it's been chaired by Julie Herewini, and it had a big change of funding policy last year.
Brandon joined the foundation late last year and his new job is to re-engage with the community, evaluate applications and guide the board in its decisions. He visits all applicants and gets the information he will need to answer questions from trustees.
"Who gets the money is always a board decision," he said.
The board has three top priorities for funding, and a fourth "catch-all" one.
The top three are at-risk children from birth to five, at-risk youth aged from 12 to 24, and isolated elderly. The fourth priority is other matters, which can include sport, the arts and funding for bricks and mortar.
The foundation aims to give a "high engagement" grant to an organisation every year.
These are grants of $100,000 a year for three years, with an extra $100,000 during that time for capacity building and evaluation. One of these is given each year, with earlier ones rolling over.
The overall aim is to prevent bad outcomes for people, rather than helping them out after bad things have happened. The foundation uses Statistics New Zealand research to determine which groups are most at risk.
Its trustees are chosen by Associate Finance Minister David Clark.
Brandon was brought up in Whanganui, and returned 10 years ago. For the last several years he has worked for OM, an interdenominational Christian mission.
He works for the foundation four days a week, and has an office in Community House, the former Post Office building in Ridgway St. He's enjoying using knowledge from previous national and international work in a local setting.
"I love to see the work people are doing. There are more organisations doing better work here than I imagined," he said.
