The reality is that funding for environmental projects is tight. Social problems are more widely assisted (even though environmental and social problems often go hand-in-hand - but that's another topic) and the same contestable funds are always way over subscribed.
Many community groups end up spending large chunks of their precious-few resources writing difficult funding applications that are only doomed to failure because of a lack of available funds.
When Annette and Neal Plowman contributed $100 million to environment and education projects through The Next Foundation, to their credit, they did not require a huge amount of writing from applicants. But the fact that they received 280 expressions of interests totalling more than $1.8 billion highlighted the dire situation that there simply isn't much money out there for these projects.
And whilst we have an excellent volunteering culture in New Zealand (just think about how many parents keep all the sports clubs going for example), we certainly are not renowned for our generosity with donations. So it seems that the sector will need to fend for itself.
But for the huge sector of passionate people that look after their local streams or diligently set traps and count the local bird population, we can't just expect them to become self-sustainable in a heartbeat. There is a great deal of knowledge embedded in volunteer groups that adds significant value to our environment, but they don't necessarily have the skills or experience to create sustainable revenue systems. Capacity building is required to give such organisations the help they need to generate their own income.
Our organisation is now focussed on capacity building, to help organisations improve their outcomes and sustainable revenue systems so that we can invest more in New Zealand and Pacific communities through such projects.
We just finished a nationwide training tour this winter where 247 people attended our training workshops across all 16 regions of the country and thousands more helped to plant nearly 15,000 trees alongside the waterways.
When it comes to sustainable revenue systems, we run corporate team-building events (such as this one that we ran with Microsoft recently) and fundraising events like our charity ball, (which happens to be coming up next weekend if you would like to come!).
Other great examples of organisations selling products or services to generate much-needed income is Oxfam's annual Trailwalker event, St John who sell comprehensive first aid kits and run first aid training courses, and New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation is once again holding their fun PinkStarWalk next month.
While these events, products and services are vital for organisations to survive, they also form an important platform for reaching out to people and building relationships.
So next time you need to buy a product or service (or simply want a good excuse to kick up your heels and have a good time), find out if there is a way to support your local community organisations and have fun while you are at it.