Lottery Funding and the NGO Sector
Lottery Funding and the NGO Sector
Concerns about delays in the distribution of lottery funding to NGOs are once again in the news. With many NGOs already taking financial strain or having to respond to ever-increasing demands for services as a result of the economic crisis, serious questions have to be raised about the ongoing inefficiencies at the National Lottery.
The six members of the National Lottery Board each earned at least R1.2 million during the past year, while available funding was not disbursed. In the 2008/9 financial year, only R948 million of an available R3.3 billion was disbursed, in the 2007/8 financial year only R634 million of R2.9 billion was disbursed and in the 2006/7 financial year, only R792 million of R2.1billion.
At the same, more than 500 000 needy South Africans, many of them women and children, could be plunged into further desperation as many South African NGOs face a funding crisis.<!--blurb0--> A recent Sunday Times article revealed that NGOs, <!--par1--><!--par1--><!--par0--><!--par1-->which represent 30% of social services in the country, would have R3 billion less to spend on crucial development issues this year because of the recession.
As every sector of the South Africa economy is feeling the impact of the global financial crisis, and various measures are being considered to support the economy in this challenging time, why is the government or specialised agencies geared towards the work of the NGO sector, such as the Lottery, not considering special funding arrangements for NGOs?
If you would like to comment on your experience with the National Lottery and/or would like to share other relevant articles in this regard with NGO Pulse readers, please forward your comments and contributions to info@sangonet.org.za.
SANGONeT will highlight the feedback on the NGO Pulse portal and in the weekly NGO Pulse e-newsletter.
The following articles capture some of the concerns raised in recent weeks regarding lottery funding:
Lotto board members fail charities
Lotta zeros but no cash - Board fails to pay billions
Little charity from Lotto
Free Lotto help for charities – DA
Change to lotto funding rules
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Comments
Restorative Justice Centre comments on Lottery
Thank you to SANGONeT for providing a platform for this issue.
I’d like to emphasise a point that is not new but that I’ve not yet heard a satisfactory answer for. Prof Ram’s comments about the delays in payments being based on the fact that board members are not full time and only meet twice a month do make some sense. However, what this does not explain is:
Why the delay of several months between a board decision and the implementation of that decision by administrative staff? We were informed last year that there was a delay of several months.
In the time of the various boards and the previous operator our experience was that the time between submitting an application and actually receiving payment was about 1 year (this occurred in the case of 3 applications). In the application submitted in May 2007, we were eventually only informed of the outcome in August 2008 and received payment in February 2009. For the application submitted in November 2008, all we have is an acknowledgement of receipt, 7 months later. What has caused the doubling in turn around time? Have the number of applications increased so much? Has the capacity of the administrative staff decreased significantly?
Mike Batley
Executive Director
Restorative Justice Centre
Funds??
Perhaps the simplest of all fundraisers is the 50/50 raffle. Many organizations that rely on fundraising efforts offer a 50/50 raffle at every meeting. Some companies have “fun teams” that are entirely funded by a 50/50 raffle and are able to offer excellent events. This is a wonderful way to provide events to members or employees that are self funded, but don’t have a compulsory payment to participate.I think this could help much to your Hft fundraising. As a little advice, let me give you some idea about cash today