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What is the impact of COVID-19 on the Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty social sector?

SociaLink is an umbrella organisation that strengthens community organisations and empowers the social and community sector in the Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty region. They do this by providing:

  • One-on-one support and online resources for community organisations
  • Offer a range of learning and development opportunities
  • Engage with kaupapa Māori providers and provide support
  • Enable collaboration between organisations to achieve a greater impact
  • Undertake research to support sector advocacy and raise the profile, voice and value of the social sector
  • Manage a large co-working space, The Kollective, for not-for-profit organisations to support sector efficiency and collaboration.

Like everyone, the impact of COVID-19, particularly the lockdown, hit the social sector in Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty hard and fast. To understand the impact on the social sector, SociaLink undertook to survey the sector in weeks Three and Four of the Level 4 lockdown (14 - 28 April 2020). Over 100 people and over 80 organisations from a wide variety of community sector agencies responded to the survey.

Organisations were most likely to have seen a reduction in service delivery, and in some cases stopping delivering services completely, while just under 20 percent increased their service delivery. Increases in services were happening in the areas of providing information/advice, delivering food parcels, groceries, medication and one-on-one support while there was a reduction in the delivery of group programmes.

The main areas of concern clients had, in order, related to:

  • lock down difficulties;
  • COVID-19 related concerns;
  • isolation/loneliness;
  • financial issues and mental health.

The main areas of concern for organisations, in order, was:

  • requiring support to figure out the implications of COVID-19,
  • sourcing additional funding and IT/tech needs.

Just over half the organisations had experienced a reduction, or were anticipating a reduction, in funding particularly in the areas of donations, sponsorship, fund raising gaming trusts, fee-for-service and events.

There have also been a lot of bright points arising from COVID-19 in particular collaboration, this quote captures this:

“The unity between community groups has been incredible! We are sharing our areas of strength collaboratively to make a bigger impact than we could achieve independently - it has been very moving and empowering.”

Social service providers are also looking at continuing with some of the new ways of delivering services (e.g. using phone and video-conferencing) which some clients preferred.

Picture of social service providers

Social Sector Distancing: The social sector is used to operating in a face-to-face, group interaction world and has had to adapt during the COVID-19 lockdown

The survey findings have provided a great foundation for the development of a recovery plan for the Western Bay of Plenty that SociaLink is currently facilitating. The survey questions have also been shared and used by other regions to enable comparisons between regions and a national NGO peak body advised that the survey has gained wide currency in Wellington so SociaLink hopes this means it has informed the Government’s response to the social sector.

For the survey findings report please go to the link below:

For more information about SociaLink Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty generally: