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What does COGS fund?

COGS provides grants to non-profit community groups and organisations delivering community-based social services, projects and events. Grants are one-off contributions for:

  • the running or operational costs of organisations that provide community-based social services
  • community development costs, such as hui, training, planning, evaluation and facilitator fees
  • community projects or event costs that:
    • encourage participation in communities
    • promote community leadership
    • promote social, economic and cultural equity.

Ngā kaupapa kāore e tautokona ā-pūtea / What we don't fund

COGS does not fund:

  • individuals
  • fundraisers, including professional or commercial fundraisers whose purpose is to distribute money to others
  • services that duplicate existing services, unless the request demonstrates there is a good reason for both services to exist
  • services or activities that have already been delivered or have taken place prior to the closing date
  • debt repayment or debt servicing
  • reimbursement of past transactions or for completed work
  • social functions, except if for cultural reasons, the event brings people together in order to achieve other significant community benefits or outcomes
  • alcohol and similar substances, such as kava
  • requests where there is evidence of a conflict of interest, which has not been disclosed or managed appropriately. (Note: a conflict of interest exists where a person's duties or responsibilities to a grant recipient organisation could be affected by some other interest or duty that the person may have.)
  • publishing any material of a technical nature, unless it is consistent with the applicable policies and guidelines produced by the relevant government or government-approved authorities
  • capital items purchases such as land, buildings, renovations, machinery, vehicles and/or furniture. (Items of office equipment with a unit cost less than $1000 are not deemed to be capital items.)
  • services or activities that promote commercial, political or religious activities, including political advocacy projects, employment and/or business initiatives and commercial enterprises
  • activities or projects specifically intended to generate a profit, though profits are allowed if the purpose is to achieve ongoing sustainability for the project
  • services, activities or programmes to be delivered overseas.

Organisations requesting COGS grants need to show how their community-based services or projects will contribute to:

  • encouraging participation in communities
  • promoting community leadership
  • developing community capability
  • promoting social, economic and cultural equity, or
  • reducing the downstream social and economic costs to communities and government.

Each Local Distribution Committee (LDC) also develops community outcomes they see as having priority from discussions at annual public meetings where communities are able to discuss what local benefits or outcomes they want from the COGS investment in their communities.

For the priorities of the individual LDCs, follow the link below:

COGS committees prioritise community-based organisations delivering services to one or more of these priority sectors:

  • Māori
  • women
  • Pacific communities
  • other ethnic communities
  • older people
  • rurally isolated people
  • people with disabilities
  • families
  • youth and children
  • unemployed people
  • community-based organisations with limited access to other government funding.

Who can apply?

  • Your organisation must have less than $2 million annual operating expenditure for each of the past two years to make a request to COGS.
  • Your organisation includes your national or regional office and any branches under the same legal entity.

Unregistered or informal groups

There may be a pathway for your group to access funding. Please email us for advisory support at community.matters@dia.govt.nz.

For more information, visit What are the COGS changes?

What supporting documents do I need?

Your COGS funding request requires a budget, and your organisation needs to meet some financial reporting requirements and provide evidence of these.

If your funding request is approved you may use the grant for any costs in your budget, except for:

  • any item that is not eligible
  • any cost that is excluded when the funding is approved.

Information about budgets and financial reporting requirements can be found at the links below:

You should check that the financial reporting evidence you have uploaded to your Organisation profile is up-to-date before you submit your funding request.

Important dates for COGS

The next opening and closing dates for COGS requests and the Committee decision meeting date are listed at the link below:

The closing date for COGS grant requests is the same for all 37 local COGS committees each year. Due to the demand for COGS grants, please submit your COGS requests well before the closing date.

The Community Organisation Grants Scheme or COGS provides grants to non-profit organisations delivering community-based social services that contribute to achieving locally determined outcomes.