
New Zealand’s charitable sector income - at $21.19 billion - is comparable to the value of its dairy exports.
The business of giving employs 145,000 people full-time, roughly as many as the transport and financial services sector employ combined, according to Stats NZ figures.
Adding to this, more than 217,000 volunteers contribute approximately 1.7 million hours of their time every week.
There are almost 30,000 charities in NZ, overseen by Charities Services, a division of the department of internal affairs.
Yet just a handful of regulator investigations take place each year, and only a few charities are ever struck off.
There is such goodwill in the charities sector that little scrutiny is afforded to these entities, the people who run them, and the things they spend money on.
That’s where we come in.
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