“I would not have known about this opportunity”

CASE STUDY: How Maungarei Community Christian Trust found funding through Fundsorter

Every Tuesday, Maungarei Community Christian Trust puts on a free lunch at Te Ao Ngākau, their community centre in Mt Wellington, Auckland. On Wednesdays, KiwiHarvest deliveries mean there's fresh fruit and veges for people to pick up. There's Wahine Kotahi, their women's support group, running crafts, cafés, and outings. There's a door that's open all week for people to drop in for a chat, or for help dealing with agencies like WINZ. And through Kia Mahi Tahi, the Trust supports young people with mentoring, sports coaching, school chaplaincy, counselling, anger management, and values education.

That's a lot of mahi. And like most community organisations, a lot of it has to be resourced through grants… which means a lot of hours spent finding, tracking, and applying for funds.

How they found Fundsorter

MCCT came to Fundsorter through a strategic partnership with Auckland Council.

"We were introduced to Fundsorter through our strategic partnership with Auckland Council," the Trust told us. "After meeting with their consultant we identified that funding was a major part of the Trust's work and that many hours were being spent on it. Therese suggested Fundsorter and organised a membership for us."

Nine months on, they're still using it.

What's changed

MCCT is refreshingly upfront that Fundsorter isn't a silver bullet - and that's exactly why we wanted to share their story.

"Fundsorter isn't a magic fix for funding, but it has saved us a significant amount of time," they said. "Instead of spending hours researching who to apply to and when, we can more quickly identify relevant opportunities. This has made our funding search process more efficient and freed up capacity to focus on the work itself."

That last part is the point: every hour not spent trawling funder websites is an hour back with Te Ao Ngākau, Wahine Kotahi, and Kia Mahi Tahi, the work MCCT actually exists to do.

The match they never would have found

We asked if there was a story that stood out, a moment that showed the difference Fundsorter made. There was.

"Early on while using Fundsorter, a match came up that was more of a relational opportunity with Foodstuffs rather than a full application process," they told us. "I put forward a short proposal and we were successful. This has funded our community lunch with Pak'nSave vouchers. I would not have known about this opportunity without Fundsorter - it had never come up for us before."

It's a small story with a very direct result: real vouchers, for a real lunch, that happens every single Tuesday. It's also exactly the kind of opportunity that's easy to miss when you're searching manually - a relational connection with a funder, not a contestable grant round with a deadline and an application form. That's the strength of Fundsorter: surfacing the funders you didn't know to look for, not just the ones already on your list.

Their advice to other community organisations

We asked what they'd say to another organisation considering Fundsorter.

"I'd encourage other community organisations to give it a try, especially if finding and tracking funding opportunities is taking a lot of time," they said. "It won't replace the need to write strong applications or build relationships, but it does make the search and prioritisation process much more manageable."

That's about as honest a recommendation as you can get. Ngā mihi to Penny Guptill and the whole team at Maungarei Community Christian Trust for sharing their experience with us.