In March it will be two years since NEXT Foundation was launched. In that time we have run two national Expression of Interest (“EOI”) processes, received nearly 400 applications, announced commitments to seven organisations, and are still in discussion with some others out of the 2015 EOI process.
We also continue to be involved with three NEXT Foundation legacy investments – Rotoroa Island Trust, Project Janszoon Trust and Teach First New Zealand.
The number and quality of projects we have supported to date have been significantly better than we expected at the outset, and we are conscious that there are further ways, many non-financial, that we can help to build the momentum of these organisations. We will continue to focus our resource this year on doing that.
We have therefore resolved that, given the exceptionally strong pipeline of projects, a decision on the next EOI process to seek applications will be made at the beginning of 2017.
No EOI process will run in 2016. We know that this will disappoint some organisations that were looking forward to applying this year, but we do expect to run another EOI process in 2017 and as needed thereafter.
As always I am happy to receive any enquiries or questions you have.