Profits are distributed by the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board Te Puna Tahua (the Board) to a range of committees, established to distribute lottery grants through applications from individuals and organisations.
To find out more about the funding available, select Available funding from the menu at the top of this page.
The remaining profits are distributed through the following statutory bodies:
Outcomes / Ngā Hua
The Board aims to maximise the community benefits of lottery grants by focusing grant decision making on outcomes.
Outcomes are all the changes, benefits, learning and effects that happen – or start to happen – as a result of activities, projects or services in communities.
The Board's key funding objectives and request criteria are designed to ensure that lottery grants will contribute towards its vision of New Zealanders building strong sustainable communities together.
Priorities / Ngā kaupapa matua
Lottery grant requests must align with one of the Board's criteria:
- enhance capability and increase capacity among applicants and the community
- reduce community organisation funding gaps
- have regards to the needs and aspirations of Māori
- consider the needs of older people, Pacific people and other ethnic communities, women and youth, people with disabilities.
Grant requests should show how they will contribute to at least one of these key objectives:
- support volunteers
- enable people to help themselves
- promote community wellbeing and address disadvantage
- promote community participation, inclusion and identity.
Applicants should also show how they:
- will focus on achieving their outcomes
- will work together with others to achieve common community outcomes
- are responsive to the communities they serve.
What we don't fund / Ngā kaupapa kāore e tautokona ā-pūtea
Alcohol: The Board does not fund alcohol and similar substances (for example kava).
Capital investment: The Board does not fund capital investment, which includes investments in real estate, stocks, bonds and other financial institutions or trust funds.
Commercial, political, and religious objectives: The Board does not fund requests or projects that look to promote or advance:
- commercial aims with the sole purpose of profit making which includes employment or business initiatives (private pecuniary gain)
- political aims which include political advocacy and projects that look to change legislation, or
- religious aims that support religious activities. Funding requested for social services and activities provided to this community or the wider community, by religious organisations, is not considered a religious aim.
Retrospective funding: Funding projects or activities that are already completed will not be approved. This exclusion does not apply to Emergency Natural Disaster Relief funding.
Private pecuniary gain: The Board does not fund requests that seek to generate private pecuniary profits or gain for an individual or body, except to the extent that the profit or gain is incidental.
Debt repayment: The Board does not fund debt servicing.
Loans, deposits, or underwriting projects: The Board does not fund requests that include costs related to refinancing existing loans or deposits or underwriting projects.
Overseas aid and disaster relief: The Board does not fund requests for overseas aid or overseas disaster relief.
Medical expenses: The Board does not fund medical expenses, operations, or treatments.
Redistribution of funds or fundraisers: The Board does not fund requests from fundraisers or organisations where the purpose is to redistribute the grant to a third party. The third party should apply on their own behalf and may be supported to do so by the fundraiser.
A request supported by a fundraiser must show:
- the fundraiser is paid at a flat fee or hourly rate which is paid irrespective of the outcome of the grant request
- the financial arrangements of a fundraiser and the organisation
You must not use any of the funding to pay a commission or success fee to the fundraiser.